Charm School - Replying to posts 101

This week in Casual Pursuit: A quick, vital lesson on winning the R4R game.

Bear with us as we get accustomed to the new mail platform. There’s so much more to come and we’re thrilled that you’re with us for this fresh start. For now, here’s a great lesson from Charm School that will undoubtedly help some of our readers have more success.

CHARM SCHOOL

We’ve all been there:  Browsing the R4R communities to come across a post that you can’t help but reply to.  You choose your best picture, craft and send a response but, alas, you never hear back. 

It’s no surprise to anyone that when a girl or attractive couple puts up a post looking for casual fun, their inbox takes a beating. With so many potential connections, how do they decide which are worth responding to?  Every posting is different, but if you follow these general guidelines, it’s guaranteed that you’ll have more success.

First and foremost, if you're actually sending a message and picture, you're already ahead of the curve.  A LOT of replies are being sent with insulting brevity: “ur hot.” “im dtf” “dm me.” If this looks familiar, let me save you some time: Never send a message like that again. EVER. Have some self-respect.  A response like this is an undeniable deal-breaker. If you aren’t willing to put forth any effort at all for their attention, it’s a good indicator that you’re a waste of their time. So, what SHOULD you say?  Keep reading:

Your message needs to do 3 things:

Demonstrate that you actually read and understood their post:

• People don’t like wasting time or repeating themselves. In your message, mention something specific that you liked or found interesting about their post. If their post is well-written, flatter them for their intellect. Make it clear that you took the time to read what they wrote.

Trigger curiosity:

• A first contact isn’t the time to go into great detail about yourself. You’ve already shown that you actually read their whole post, so it can be assumed that you fit the description of what they’re looking for. Unless they asked that you send specific details about who you are, be more mysterious. Be creative. Describe yourself as a mix between two celebrities or describe yourself in limerick or, better yet, have chatgpt do it for you. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just needs to be different.

Make it easy for them to engage you:

• If you’ve done a good job with the first two items, chances are high that they might like to respond.  Now it’s time to close.  Be creative and calculated to make it almost impossible to not respond to you. I like the cliffhanger tactic.  Even though it’s obvious what you’re doing, it still works:  “ps: I loved the pic you posted; you have one of my absolute favorite features!”  This leaves them with an obvious, natural response that’s easy for them to send.  Who doesn’t want to hear what people find most attractive about them?  You can also just end with a question.  Either of these options is far better than “I hope to hear back” or “hit me up”.

You can’t win them all, but following these steps will yield better results, guaranteed. 

Of course, putting in all this effort IS a waste of time if you're not responding to a real post from a real person. AI has made it harder than ever to distinguish real from fake.  Keep your eyes open for next week’s issue, where we break down the anatomy of a genuine R4R post and show you how to avoid having your free time wasted by fake nonsense.