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So you saw an online profile you’re really excited about? A couple who met on Match.com help you fire off an amazing first email.
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By Kent Miller and Theo Pauline Nestor
 ou’ve just read the online profile of someone you really want to meet… and maybe date. Just write the email, you think — it can’t be that hard. But where to start? What to say? Suddenly, you’re facing the most daunting writing task since Tolkien’s publisher asked for a sequel to The Hobbit. Cheer up: You don’t have to write a thousand pages on elves, just three paragraphs on yourself and that cutie.
Only three short paragraphs? Precisely. You can’t go wrong relying on the essay |  | | Her subject line was like coming into the conversation midstream. |
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format you learned back in the third grade. Follow this template and it will be fairly easy to write an email that grabs your reader:
Subject line: Read me!
First paragraph: What’s cool about your profile.
Second paragraph: What’s cool about me.
Third paragraph: Write me!
Let us — two very happy-together people who met on Match.com — show you how it’s done, with lessons from our very own love story.
Start with a heart-stopping subject line!
Kent: When composing your subject line, keep in mind Renée Zellweger’s famous line to Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire: “You had me at ‘Hello…’” Theo had me from the subject line of her first email: “Trashy novel… how trashy?”
You see, in my profile, I had written that I hadn’t read anything recently as I was too busy writing a trashy novel. Theo’s subject line was like coming into a conversation midstream, without any hemming and zzzz-inducing “You have an interesting profile.” It was subtly self-confident, like Katherine Hepburn with her hands on her hips. I was immediately interested.
Theo: And it was Kent’s subject line — The Trashman Cometh — that got my attention. First, I was amused by the reference to the Eugene O’Neill play, The Iceman Cometh, and second, it’s just ridiculously silly. I couldn’t help but smile.
Paragraph #1: Write about everyone’s favorite subject…
Theo: I kept smiling as I read the first paragraph of the email — it was all about details from my profile. His response was clearly to me — or at least that bit of me he could know from just reading my profile.
Kent: And Theo’s very first paragraph was about Yours Truly. I had posted a pic of my 12-year-old self in horn rims and a Peter Brady haircut at Disneyland. | | | Don’t tippy-toe around the fact that you want ’em to write back. | |
“That’s Autopia, no?” Theo wrote of the ride in the background. And right she was!
Theo: The biggest turnoff is receiving a generic email that sounds like it’s been sent scattershot to every woman with a pulse within five zip codes of the guy. Mentioning details from a woman’s profile — whether it’s her interest in salsa dancing or her trip to Yosemite — makes her feel like there is something special about her that has caught the writer’s attention.
Paragraph #2: Go ahead, reveal yourself
Kent: The middle paragraph of Theo’s email — ah, that was the rare champagne. “Something you said in your profile snagged in my mind,” she wrote, “so I went through this really tedious process of looking for your profile.” Ka-zing! Needless to say, my response to someone actually being interested in me, and, even better, telling me that she was interested, was electric.
Theo: Earlier that evening, I’d looked at approximately one million profiles of men within striking distance of my age and location. My head was spinning, so I turned off the computer. A few hours later, a few lines from Kent’s profile started to run through my mind. I went back online until I found him. I’m not one to do monotonous work without complaining, so part of my first email to him was devoted to the trouble I’d gone through to find him!
In Kent’s second paragraph, he wrote that he was touched that I’d spent time trying to find him. Touched? Wow. I was a bit smitten already. I liked that he didn’t try to act cool and casual. He revealed his interest. It gave me the sense (that turned out to be correct) that he was a person who was willing to be vulnerable and take risks.
Kent: I guess the important thing is to put yourself out there and not be afraid of rejection.
Paragraph #3: End with a call to action!
Kent: Don’t tippy-toe around the fact that you want that special someone to write back! “It would be nice to hear from you” doesn’t exactly spur one to jump on that “Reply” button.
Advertising people like to say, “What’s the call to action?” They want potential customers to go the store and buy their product.
Theo: Buy their product? That’s romantic!
Kent: OK, so the point is, you want to encourage your online crush to take charge and respond to your email! Because if your romantic interest doesn’t respond right away, the odds are good that he or she never will. So your sign-off shouldn’t be “Sincerely,” which sounds like something from your accountant. The warmer-but-still-polite “Cordially” is OK for a tea-party invitation, but not your purposes. But I really liked Theo’s sign-off. “Write me back!” No way I could resist that.
Theo: All I can say is: You wrote back!
Kent Miller is writing a book about being the father of three disabled children. Theo Pauline Nestor is the author of the memoir How To Sleep Alone in a King Size Bed.
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How would you feel about your date using a Groupon (or some other discount deal) to pay for your date? |
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14% |
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Mortified that the other person seems so cheap |
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35% |
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I really don’t care one way or the other |
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52% |
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Totally support it… after all, dating is expensive! |
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