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Dating Opener · How to / How not to

How to Write a Dating App Opening Message (and How Not To)

Most openers are a man reading a profile he never opened, talking to a person he hasn't noticed.

By Cynical SallyIssue Nº 1

Here is the brutal math. She has 40 unread messages, half of them say 'hey', and the other half say 'hey' with a typo. You are not competing against her standards. You are competing against the sheer boredom of an inbox that all sounds like the same guy.

This is what you getA real Full Truth, in full
Cynical SallyDating Opener

The Full Truth

on A Tinder opener sent to a match

3.8
out of ten
'Hey gorgeous, how's your day going? :)' is three messages in a trenchcoat pretending to be a personality.
The Investigation
  1. 01

    Zero evidence you read the profile

    Critical

    Nothing in this opener could not have been pasted to 200 other people, and she knows it. She wrote a whole profile about hiking, ceramics, and a deep hatred of pineapple on pizza, and you opened with a word you would use on a closed elevator. Name one specific thing. 'Ceramics or hiking, which one are you secretly bad at' does more work in nine words than your entire message did.

  2. 02

    The compliment is lazy and load-bearing

    Notable

    'Gorgeous' is a compliment about her DNA, which she did not earn and you did not notice anything new about. It also makes you the 30th man today to lead with her face. Compliment a choice, not a gift. Her bookshelf, her dry caption, the chaos of her camera roll. Choices reveal a person. Cheekbones reveal genetics.

  3. 03

    'How's your day going' is a conversational dead end

    Notable

    This question has exactly one polite answer ('good, you?') and then you are both standing in an empty hallway. Worse, it asks her to do all the lifting. A good opener hands her something to react to. You did the equivalent of walking up and saying 'so' and then staring.

The Copy Clinic

Hey gorgeous, how's your day going? :)

Your profile says you make ceramics and hate pineapple pizza, so I need to know: are you the kind of dangerous that puts both opinions on a first date, or do you ease people in?

hey you, you're stunning, we should def talk sometime

Three hiking photos and zero of you smiling at the summit. Either the views were a letdown or you're saving the good face for someone who earns it. Which is it?

The Action Plan
  1. 1Reread her profile and pull out the single most specific, least obvious detail. Not the first photo. The thing she clearly cared about putting in.
  2. 2Turn that detail into a playful question or a confident guess she will want to correct. Aim for one sentence she can answer in one breath.
  3. 3Cut every word that is about her looks or your eagerness. If the line could be sent to anyone, it goes in the bin.
  4. 4Read it out loud. If it sounds like a receptionist, a salesman, or a hostage, rewrite it until it sounds like a person she'd want to sit across from.
Yours for the price of a coffee.Printed with disdain
Your turn

That was a stranger's dating opener. Drop yours, I will go just as hard.

One coffee, from €2,99. No mercy.

An opener is not a greeting. It is the first 90 characters of a story she gets to decide whether she wants to be in. Most people write a doorbell. Sally wants you to write a door that is already slightly open, with something interesting visible behind it.

How to do it right
  • 01Reference one specific thing from her profile that proves you actually read past the first photo. The dog's name, the weird hobby, the city in the background.
  • 02Ask a question she can answer in one breath without writing an essay. Give her a road, not a homework assignment.
  • 03Open a loop she wants to close. Tease an opinion, a guess, a small bet. Curiosity beats compliments every time.
  • 04Sound like a person with a life, not an applicant. Confidence is a tone, not a flex. Say less, imply more.
  • 05Match the energy of her profile. Playful gets playful, dry gets dry. Read the room before you walk into it.
How not to
  • Open with 'hey' or 'hey you :)' and then act surprised you have time to watch four seasons of a show waiting for a reply.
  • Lead with 'you're gorgeous'. You have now told her you can see, which she already suspected, and nothing else.
  • Send a paragraph longer than her bio. Nobody falls in love through a wall of text from a stranger at 11pm.
  • Copy a 'guaranteed' opener off Reddit that 8,000 other men sent her this month. She has the screenshots.
  • Ask 'how's your day going' as if you are her dentist's receptionist confirming an appointment she did not make.