In response to Scott’s post, here is what works for me.
1. I don’t respond during “I have a life” hours. This means no match will get an answer during Friday or Saturday nights, during hours of work, and between 12 midnight to 8am of any day. I have a life, dear woman, I’m not a computer junkie and I don’t do eHarmony during company time.
2. For phase 1 (close-ended) and 2 (must have/can’t stands), I’m committed to six-hour response times, twelve hours max. For these two phases, if my Gmail Notifier tells me she responded, I stop surfing for porn (“The Internet is for Porn”) and I respond immediately (unless see #1).
You never know if this fantastic lady is expiring tomorrow.
The intention is to bring the woman to free-form communication as fast as possible, in case she is expiring very, very soon. In the free-form area, SHE can tell you she’s expiring and hand you her number. You can’t tell.
In addition, if Free Communication Weekend is ongoing, I respond without delays — even within two minutes.
3. Then she sends me her Phase 3 (open-ended) questions. If the questions are standard, I wait 12 hours. If they are custom-made, I wait 36 hours. If she gives compliments within these questions, I add 12 to 24 hours more.
4. Then it’s my turn to send my first message in Open Communication (OC). I wait 2 days before sending it. I’m a busy guy. Also, I love the powerlessness in “Waiting for him to start open communication”. The two-day delay also preps her for the next section, #5.
5. Then we’re exchanging messages in OC. The rules I set here are lovely. Before responding, I wait the exact number of days as the number of messages in OC. For example, if there have been two exchanges (me, her, me, her) I wait FOUR DAYS before replying. In the OC stage, expiration is not a problem — either of us can leave our contact info, at the last minute or as a nudge. The subtle message: I have no time for prolonged email exchanges, if she wants to get to know me, we gotta go to the phone.
This works for me. How about you guys?
Responses
I received some reactions from some guys about the above “rigid” schedule. One of them said,
“In my case, dragging things out just seems to create an ‘internet pen pal’ scenario.”
In my case, dragging things out works on the women I’m looking for. I do ask the phone number on OC message #2. If she flakes or is so messed up that she continuously ignores the “I’d like to talk on the phone” hint, then my message-count system causes me to take longer and longer to reply.
Nonetheless I shall say I have a higher tolerance for flaky. Kindness is my virtue.
The intention of my elaborate system of time-delays is to moderate myself from getting too nuts or anxious or eager about individual matches. No more “What, she loves Barenaked Ladies, too?! Oooh I just have to answer her email right now. Wow, eHarmony does work!”
Finally I find that more women drop their shields with men who, in their perception, went through 7 days to go through 7 steps, than men who went through 7 minutes or 7 hours. Same effort, but better results.
The delaying tactic has risks, too.
The two risks exacerbated by this tactic are: (1) the woman expires her membership before being able to share her contact info, and (2) being closed out with “I’m pursuing another relationship.” But to a guy with more than enough “communication” than he can handle, who cares, right?
Guys, keep in mind that women, especially middle-age and older women, anywhere, greatly outnumber men in eHarmony. Everybody’s experience shows that men HAVE more matches than women.
When you want it too much
When I think about dating disasters that happen “when you want it too much,” I’ve come to thank these response-time rules of mine. Sure they are crazy and feel unnatural (Wait an extra day if she says she found my Phase 3 questions “refreshing”? — that’s ridiculous!), but they are there to keep me away from trouble, from false hopes and from timing boo-boos.
It’s also how I prioritize my eHarmony task list.
I’m not saying this to show that I’m an expert at any of this. I’m just saying.
(Ed’s note: How about you? Do you intentionally delay responding, just like Pyke?)
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