How to Start a Conversation Using Something in Their Profile

A message that refers to something specific in someone’s profile does two things at once: it shows you read it, and it gives them something easy to answer. It won’t guarantee a reply, because nothing does. But it makes the first exchange feel like the start of a conversation rather than a cold call.

Why a specific opener is worth the extra minute

The research on first messages is limited, but it points one way.

• Personalized and short. A 2015 review by Khan and Chaudhry pulled together 86 studies on moving from online contact to a first date. It reported that messages were most likely to get a response when they were short, personalized, addressed something in the recipient’s profile, and offered genuine compliments [1]. This is a narrative synthesis of mixed-quality studies, so treat it as a sensible pattern rather than proof.
• Length doesn’t buy replies. Bruch and Newman analyzed a month of messages on one free U.S. dating site in four cities. Both men and women wrote substantially longer messages to people they saw as more desirable, in some cases up to twice as long. Yet the payoff in replies was small and patchy (for men, longer messages helped only in Seattle), and the authors concluded that effort spent on longer or more positive messages “may be wasted” [2]. Women’s average reply rate to men was below 20%.
• Inboxes are uneven. In Pew Research Center’s 2022 survey, 54% of women who had used a dating app or site in the past year said they’d felt overwhelmed by the number of messages they received, while 64% of men said they’d felt insecure about the lack of messages [3].

Put together: a message that could have gone to anyone is easy to skip in a full inbox, and writing more doesn’t fix that. Writing something specific might.

Read the profile for “handles”

A handle is anything specific enough to ask about or respond to. As you read, notice:

• Activities in photos. A trail, an instrument, a kitchen mid-project, a team jersey, a dog.
• Prompt answers. These are often written to invite a response.
• Specific nouns in the bio. A named hobby, a kind of book, a goal they mention.
• Small surprises. “Accountant by day, competitive baker by weekend.”

Pick one. Referencing everything at once reads like a summary of their profile.

Four kinds of opener, annotated

The examples below are illustrative and based on a fictional profile. The person mentions training for their first 10K, has a photo with a very large houseplant, and answers a prompt with “My most controversial opinion: breakfast for dinner is better than breakfast.”

Opener type	Best when	Watch out for
A question about a detail	Almost always	Questions with yes/no answers
A shared interest, plus something added	You genuinely share it	Stopping at “me too”
A light observation	Their profile is playful	Drifting into comments on looks
A reply to a prompt	They answered a prompt	Long debates in message one

1. A question about a detail

“First 10K! How’s the training going? Are you a plan-follower or a run-when-you-feel-like-it person?”

Why it works: it names the detail, and the either/or question gives them an easy way in. Neither option is a wrong answer.

2. A shared interest, with something added

“I ran my first 10K last spring and the final kilometer felt longer than the other nine combined. Do you have a race picked out?”

Why it works: your small detail makes it more than “me too,” and the question hands the conversation back. Only use this if the shared interest is real.

3. A light observation

“The plant in your third photo looks like it should be paying rent. What’s the secret?”

Why it works: it’s a compliment about something they chose to show, not about their body. That distinction matters (see below).

4. A reply to a prompt

“Strong agree on breakfast for dinner. Important follow-up: sweet or savory?”

Why it works: prompts are written as invitations. Take a position, then ask something.

None of these are scripts. If you’d never say “important follow-up,” don’t.

What tends to stall a first message

• Comments on someone’s body. Unwanted sexual messages are common enough to shape how any remark about looks is received. In Pew’s survey, 38% of all online dating users, and 56% of women under 50 who had used dating apps or sites, said they’d been sent sexually explicit messages or images they didn’t ask for [3]. Compliment choices, not bodies.
• Questions that could go to anyone. “How’s your week going?” is friendly, but it leaves them to do the work.
• Interview mode. Three questions in one message feels like a form. One is enough.
• Long paragraphs. Two or three sentences is plenty, and length rarely helped in the data above [2].
• Copy-and-paste lines. They rarely connect to anything in the profile, which is the point of the exercise.

When the profile is sparse

• Use what’s there, even if it’s small. A setting in a photo can be enough: “Is that a lake behind you or a very ambitious puddle?”
• Ask one open, low-pressure question. “Your profile’s a bit of a mystery. What’s something you’re looking forward to this month?”
• Move on. A sparse profile might mean someone is new, private, or not very invested. None of those require you to try harder.

After they reply: react, add, ask

If they answer, respond to what they actually said before raising anything new. In three studies of live get-to-know-you conversations, Huang and colleagues found that people who asked more questions, particularly follow-up questions, were better liked. In a separate speed-dating dataset, people who asked more follow-up questions were more likely to get their partners to agree to a second date [4]. Those were spoken conversations, not app messages, but the habit carries over.

An illustrative exchange:

Them: “Plan-follower, mostly. Although last Saturday I skipped the plan and ran to the bakery instead.”

Follow-up reply: “Honestly, that sounds like the better plan. What did you get there?”

New-topic reply: “Nice. So what do you do for work?”

The first reply builds on what they gave you. The second drops it and starts over. The work question can wait.

When to let it go

Not every match turns into a conversation. In a survey of 177 online daters, van der Zanden and Schokkenbroek found that ghosting (simply stopping replying) was the most commonly experienced type of rejection, even when a considerable number of messages had already been exchanged [5]. Silence is common, and it rarely tells you anything specific about your message.

If you’ve had no reply, one light follow-up after a few days is reasonable. An illustrative example:

“No worries if the week got away from you. Still curious about the race, if you pick one.”

Then leave it. If someone says they’re not interested, stop there. In Pew’s survey, 30% of users said someone had kept contacting them after they said they weren’t interested [3]. Don’t be that person.

Slow down if someone rushes you off the app. According to the Federal Trade Commission, romance scammers build fake profiles, try to move conversations off the dating platform quickly, often have reasons they can’t meet in person, and eventually ask for money [6]. About half of online dating users in Pew’s survey (52%) believed they had come across a scammer [3]. Keep early conversations on the app until you’re comfortable, and never send money or gifts to someone you haven’t met in person.

Next steps

If your own profile doesn’t give people much to respond to, revisit how to write a dating bio when you don’t know what to say. Once you’ve had a few good exchanges, read how to suggest a date after a good conversation.