Should you wait before
responding?
But first, let me clarify: It's not like girls will lose interest if you reply right away. It's not like they'll become more interested if you take a long time to answer either. Their level of interest will mainly be determined by how attractive your profile is, exactly like it is for you. When I recommend waiting, it's because it's because it's better for efficiency.
You see, if the girl lives close to you, perhaps around one hour away, you will usually be able to propose a date after you've sent five to ten messages back and forth over the course of one to two weeks. You can't just suggest a date in the first message; the girl has to feel like she knows you well enough to meet you, and both the number of messages and the time that's passed since you first started your conversation will help give her that feeling. This is why you shouldn't instantly respond when she replies to your message; if you do, you may end up having to exchange a higher number of messages before she's ready to meet you. After five messages back and forth on the first night she will feel like she knows you less than she would if you had portioned those five messages out over the course of a week.
But even though time and the number of messages you've exchanged are important factors in building the trust the girl needs to meet you, you still shouldn't wait too long. As the weeks pass, your online relationship runs the risk of becoming stale and awkward; the excitement disappears, and you window of opportunity closes. Most guys have experienced something like this; you met a girl at a party and added her on Facebook, or you started saying hello to a girl at school, but time passed, nothing more happened and things became weird. The same phenomenon occurs on dating sites.
How long should you wait before responding? A good routine is to log on about once a day or so, answering messages and contacting new girls if you need to.
Don't reply more than once to each girl each time you check in, even if she responds instantly; leave it for your next session (in other words, the next day).
Your daily routine should also contain some other tasks. For instance, many sites will let you access a list of new members; be sure to go through it every time you log on, contacting girls you find attractive. A lot of them are just popping in without a subscription to see what the site is like, deleting their profiles a few days later; if you're quick, you can catch them before they do.
Every once in a while, you should also go through your inbox, looking for conversations that started in a promising way but ended abruptly because the girl didn't reply to your last message; she may just have forgotten to do so, and a lot of times you'll be able to bring her back by reminding her. Something like "Poke!!! What's up? :)" should be sufficient; if she's still interested, she'll apologize for not replying the last time, and you're back on. If she doesn't respond, though, you should move on.
In conclusion, understanding how long to wait before you respond isn't that complicated. The hard part is the stuff that happens earlier: Creating a profile that's good enough to make her interested in the first place and a conversation that makes her want to meet you. When guys fail at online dating, the main problem is usually found in these two issues. Incidentally, I cover both of them in detail in my book.
About the author:
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My name is Sondre and I'm an obsessive guy. I've spent the better part of a decade studying how attraction is kindled by text and images, and through interviews and experiments I have figured out how to create a profile that appeals to exactly the kind of women you want to meet. Through impressiveprofile.com I have helped regular guys get extraordinary results, and now it's finally your turn!