I Got an Email from a Guy and He Sounded Interested In Me

[Bella]

Last Thursday or so, I got an email from a guy on a personals website. I wrote back that evening/night and got another one from him the next day (last Friday). Anyway, he sounded interested and said that he signed up just to contact me. He seemed friendly. He seemed like he wanted to keep writing, but he kept calling me, "J". I don't know why. My name is Theresa. He might have been aiming for "T", just being playful, but I'm not sure. He also asked for pictures. I could only find 2 of me on this computer and they weren't the best, but I sent them anyway. A while back, I had an email thing going with a guy from another website and he asked for pictures. It took a while for me to get it to him and he stopped writing. I figured I'd send a picture right away, so it wouldn't drag out if he didn't like how I looked. I sent the picture with the response email and I asked why he kept calling me "J". Finally this past Tuesday, he wrote back and said that he'd had a busy weekend and lots of meetings, etc. and asked how my weekend was. I haven't heard anything since. Besides that, I go to a university here in Louisiana and he is taking a class or two at the same school and working on the school's website as his job. I think I know where the office is and I pass it often enough. I've considered going in to see if I can find him, but I realize that might not be a good idea since if he really wanted to talk to me or email or meet me, he'd let me know. He's already emailed me, so he must already have my email address. Do you have any thoughts or suggestions?

God Bless

[Malvin]

Hello Bella:

Well first of all, remember that guys tend to send a LOT of e-mails to a LOT of women on dating sites.

That shouldn't alarm you or upset you.

After all, they haven't actually met anyone yet or begun a relationship.

So testing the proverbial waters to gauge possible interest from different women is perfectly natural and reasonable.

You'd be shocked at how good some guys can get at cutting/pasting the same message over and over to women online, perhaps slightly tweaking each message to appear completely original.

I know there are even complete training programs for guys on how to do this.

So the bottom line is, unfortunately, you might not have been the only woman getting those emails from him.

There could theoretically be hundreds.

My guess is that he forgot to change "J" to "Tanya" when he cut the previous email he sent and pasted it to be sent to you!

I'm also curious as to why you don't have pictures posted.

Having some flattering pictures posted is absolutely critical these days.

Otherwise, you really probably are only getting e-mails from guys who are cutting/pasting to every woman on the site.

Think about it.

Typically nowadays, with the ubiquity of digital photography, anyone without pics is either ashamed of his or her appearance or probably hiding something (marriage, wanted by the law, etc.).

You shouldn't be at all surprised when guys lose interest if you don't immediately respond with pictures...that almost always portends sketchy things to them.

If you don't have a digital camera, ask a friend to take some great pictures of you.

Think "warm and confident" when you shoot those.

I agree that if the guy was interested he would have continued writing, so it would probably be awkward to darken the door of his office unannounced.

The ONLY exception is that if you really think your photos were horribly unflattering.

Then, maybe find the guy at his office and have HIM take some new pics for you since he's obviously techie.

Now THERE'S an idea!

Take care of yourself.

[Bella]

Thank you Malvin for your advice.