I think that I was saying before how humour and flirting doesn't seem to work so well when emailing women on dating sites. I message some woman and say something a bit cheeky and they must think that I'm a perv or weird I suppose because they stop replying.

I don't think that it's always like that though. A lot of the younger women are fine with it and they'll sign all their messages with kisses or maybe call you babe or something. They're not taking it as seriously as older women that are looking for a relationship do probably.

It's all in the delivery and the timing.

It's REALLY important to realize how very different something YOU are reading, sounds in YOUR head, than it does in someone ELSE'S head.

Just don't start joking around, until the other person gets to know you well enough to TELL that you are kidding when you say something "funny."

I have a rather angular sense of humor too, and so I'm all too familiar with episodes where I think someone else and me are on the same wavelength, only to find that they erase me from their lives after I say what to me was an innocuous bit of frivolous nonsense.

It's only got to do with age, in that the younger people are less likely to have experienced a true sociopath saying what you think is a joke, so they are a little less likely to take umbrage.

say you are in a club or bar or out to dinner with a group of friends

and you say something off wall, borderline sarcastic or perhaps a bit naughty to someone sitting across from you ..


say you have been chatting with them for awhile now
good eye contact, she has smiled at you and is giving you interest

how she responds to your humor is only partly due to whether or not she has a sense of humor of her own


but it also has to do with can she see that sparkle in your eye
that half a grin at corer of your mouth
can she see you waiting to see her response

all she sees from you online is a written response from you sent in a message

That is what happens when you fail to tell them, "I have abs."

[The "I have abs" thing is an inside joke for site members who remember its origin.]

Yeah. It's tricky. You feel like you're being boring and they've got "Love to laugh" on their profiles, or something like that maybe. They might even be proclaiming that they've got a weird or sarcastic sense of humour themselves. It would obviously be easier if I was the type to lol all the time because that seems to be code for "I'm not a nutter but you might be a bit retarded and not understand that I'm just joking".

I find it easier to chat women in real life then online

Yeah. It's much easier to talk to them in real life unless you're so shy that you need a computer to hide behind. I can't really be doing with it. Don't want their life story or to be dragged into a pointless online friendship with someone that says that they want to build a conection with you before they'll meet you.

Don't really see either how my life story or personal information about me is really any of their business either if they don't want to date me. If I need to pass the psycho test I guess I have to reply to their messages until the weekend but if most of that messaging isn't just making arangements and politely saying that I'm looking forward to meeting them I just get bored with them and don't even care if they think that I'm a psycho anymore.

Ehh, some people can take a joke and some wouldn't know a joke if it bit them in the bum with a set of wind up plastic dentures. It's the way of the world.

Don't read profiles to the word. There bunch of stuff written just to fill the page. Only 50% of what was written related the rest is just to "look good" cus no one grumpy will say - hey, I am bitter and cold ....

I believe it is a question of timing.. you get the timing wrong...they say goodbye.. you get the timing right.. they say hello!!..wink wink..

If someone stops replying so easily i'm ok with it because if they are willing to forget me that fast glad to be done with them also

I think this paints a pretty good picture of how it is online.

Oh, you can know a person for years and they'll still never apreciate your sense of humour. Some women are just full of crap when they say that they like a certain type of humour. Sure, if it's a professional comedian it's a funny joke and if your brother says it he's offensively unpolitically correct.

I'm not so sure that it's so much that it's hard to communicate just with text. I look at someone's Facebook page and it's a Scottish working class guy and he's been engaging in a bit of banter with his friends on there. Yeah, they possibly know what he's like from the real world but I've never met them and I get their humour.

I suppose that it's just looking for women that I've got stuff in common with. I can meet an Edinburgh girl and assuming that she's not snooty we get on straight away and it can be like we've known each other for years. I do quite like exotic foreign women as well but with them I suppose it works a bit differently. I wouldn't expect them to get me straight away but they might be a bit intrigued by my sense of humour. That doesn't work so well on the internet though.

Your Para 1 starts with 'I think' and Para 2 with 'I don't think'...in all I guess you think too much about women and that's what confuses you.....just relax man!! leave this too much gender bias and try to look at everyone as a person first....I'm sure plenty of your confusion will be defused inside yourself....

It's not gender bias. It's a topic about talking to women. The same rules don't apply if it's a guy. Not so much anyway. I don't notice many guys posting threads about how they only get mail from weirdos and most guys on here would probably just be thankful that a woman was talking to them.

It also depends on what is being written for example if I am having an indepth written conversation and you come off the wall with something a bit cheeky I am going to try to figure out how that goes with the rest of the conversation.

Now if I am just chatting one or two liners back and forth and the banter has been a bit fun back and forth I will most likely respond better.

Or they might not even realize you are flirting with them or chatting them up until someone has said something to them. That has happened.

I totally agree that scenario and its explanation of online conversations.

Honestly, to me it's not subject to age, gender, or online familiarity.

If there's a personal person to person relationship the online jokes, sarcasms, etc. has some [better]context.
And even then, it is not a guarantee!

I guess all this has to do with the complexity of communication(expressions).

Facial gestures can express multiples of ideas. Without getting to literature, poetry or prose, a text message must be taken literally else we will never know what is meant.

Example: I can create this gesture where you see me looking angry while forcing not to smile. That will evoke a smile or laughter in another and eventually in me.
Now how do I convey that in text message despite of the growing number of icons. (and if it were not their textual description I would not know what 80% of them are trying to represent).

Lol

I don't even know what is really meant by lol!
Ask her question. Reply, lol!
Make a statement. Response, lol.
A complement. Thanks lol!
Say something that upsets her. LOL!

Lol or laugh out loud is no more lol!

I like to send out my first reply to a msg with hey ugly can i buy you a drink?