I am curious as to what would be the biggest reason that you wouldn't reply to a guy? (not specifically me, in general)
Also, how often do you find that you will send a message or a "wink" (which I fine a tad girlie) and get no reply or even them reading the message?
I know it can be from inactive members or people that don't come here often, but you can never really tell when the last time they logged in was.. I think maybe a last login date would be nice so that you don't sit there wondering if they will ever reply at times?
I think it really depends on that person when it comes to balance. I am ALWAYS friendly and kind in my messages, but if I am interested in a person I tend to add a bit more innocent flirtatious humor. Not too much, but enough to make them want to reply.
Other guys go the different route of being sweet a kind.
I can only speak for myself, but I really think it is dependent on the person.
Anthony, what I was trying to say is that it's difficult to know how to respond to a guy when I am unsure of his intentions. While it stands to reason that a guy would not message a woman on a singles site unless there was romantic interest, I'm not sure this is always the case.
I signed up for this site about a year ago. I was unattached at the time, but then became involved with a man in May. That lasted through the end of September. Then, within a couple of weeks, I was talking to a different guy. While we never actually dated, I did make the decision to get to know him exclusively. We just recently (within the past couple of weeks) decided to keep things platonic, which is why I'm back (I had deactivated my profile for a couple of months). Anyway, during my time with each of these men, I updated my profile to reflect that I was unavailable and only interested in friendship (without the possibility of more!) and in participating in the forums. However, I continued to receive a substantial amount of messages. My assumption (unless the man made it very clear otherwise) is that these men truly only wanted platonic friendships and had no romantic interest in me.
Now that I am available again, I find myself questioning all of the messages that I get. Knowing that there are so many guys on here who are just trying to get to know women as friends, I don't want to be presumptuous and think that a man has any romantic interest in me. So, if I feel that a man would make a fun online buddy, but am not interested in him romantically, then I am unsure if I should send him a personal message and work towards getting to know him better, or if I should send him an "I'm not interested" message. If he truly only wants to be friends, then I need not turn him down romantically, you know? But, if he wants more than friendship, I don't want to be leading him on.
So, I simply just don't know what to do, which results in letting some message sit around for a bit while I try to discern what a guy's intentions are.
As far as a guy striking a proper balance there, I would say that he should be clear about his intentions upfront. If he is interested romantically, he could say something such as, "Your profile expresses much of what I'm looking for in a future wife. I'd like to get to know you better, to see if we have any romantic potential."
I generally won't respond back to someone who has no profile picture, or doesn't fill out much about himself. The idea of a profile is to allow people to get to know you well enough so they can decide if they would be interested in talking to you. Thats hard to do with someone who has nothing to say and won't even allow you to see a picture of them.
I also don't respond back to men who live in other countries, because long distance relationships are already complicated enough without making them international.
My biggest reason not to reply is if the person is too old for me, is on separation and not yet legally divorced, asks for my number too soon as in the first message, has no picture, has an empty profile, and lives in a different country.
