| Dec 30, 2005 @ 11:36 PM |
"Form" letters/IMs/Emails
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jeanc200358
Posts: 934
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Does anyone else besides me get really miffed when they receive "form" letters from men (or women)?
Here's a brief summary (paraphrased) of exchange of emails I had on a site whose name I won't mention, but it rhymes with "Ha You."
Him: I'm a ____ grad and am in the Nashville area quite often and was wondering if we could hook up?"
(There was a lot more to it than that).
I, having recognized the guy and the EXACT SAME email, word for word, which he had sent to me about a year before, replied,
Me: You must have forgotten who I am, because you sent this exact same letter to me a year before. A) I already told you you're too young for me (he's 31) and B) I don't appreciate getting a form letter. Makes me wonder how many women you're sending out the same letter to?
Him: Surely you don't think you're the only woman who I'm sending this letter to? No wonder you are single!
Me: Nooo, not by a long shot, but it sure would be nice to receive an "original" letter. But this makes it plain to see you're just in it for an out-of-town POA from anyone who'll say yes to you.
Him: F off, C***!
Well, alrighty then. 
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| Dec 31, 2005 @ 12:01 AM |
"Form" letters/IMs/Emails |
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JesterDrawers
Posts: 10,816
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Actually, a friend of mine complained to me about receiving a form letter from some guy one one of these sites. Wonder if it was the same guy!
I can understand it to a certain extent, in that we're all reaching out to try to connect with someone that me might be interested in. Trouble is, until we make that initial contact, we don't know if that person would be interested in us. Because of the fact that it can be rather time consuming to write an individual letter to each recipient, I can understand someone doing that with their initial contact just to try to find out who will respond, who would potentially be interested in them as well. If there is a second and subsequent form letter, make sure there's not a Cyrano de Bergerac in the shadows anywhere!
Okay, I can understand WHY someone would do that. But having said that, it's not MY style. I would rather simply write a line or two, in the interest of saving time, simply telling that person that I enjoyed reading their profile, especially the part about_____ (here, you have to prove that you actually READ the profile!) - and asking them to drop me a line if they'd like to get acquainted and learn about each other. But that's just me.....
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| Dec 31, 2005 @ 12:03 AM |
"Form" letters/IMs/Emails
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cooldht
Posts: 19
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I learned how to type a long time ago, so haven't ran into that problem yet. :) 
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| Dec 31, 2005 @ 12:32 AM |
"Form" letters/IMs/Emails |
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jeanc200358
Posts: 934
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Well, I can certainly understand someone saying a generic, "Hey, how are you? I read your profile and it intrigued me..." yada yada ...but using the same detailed letter over and over and over? I mean, it was written in such a way that it SEEMED it was targeted specifically for me...I hate that.
And you think that's bad? I actually met a guy from AZ back in late 2002 and ended up traveling 1,500 miles and staying there for six months (on the couch) because I found out he had lied to me about several things, one of which was the fact he had been married five times and was still legally married.
But he wrote me a four-page letter of proposal of marriage after two days of having talked with each other! And I told him right out that was absurd. I told him (after four months of talking with him at length) that I would agree to come out there to see if there was any potential for a relationship to fluorish; I soon found out there wasn't.
But I needed to get away anyway and a lot of good things came out of that six months in AZ...talk about God's country! And going through NM?!!! I had forgotten the sky was sooo big, beautiful and blue! I miss being out West! Waaaaahhh!
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| Dec 31, 2005 @ 12:39 AM |
"Form" letters/IMs/Emails
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cooldht
Posts: 19
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Yeah, I got a proposal of marriage from some girl (maybe) in russia. She sent this thing after maybe one month saying she was head of hills in love, and I needed to send $400 bucks for her Visa to come to the U.S. The sad part of that is there's people desperate enough to do it! If I ever send a letter, I can promise it will be original! :) 
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| Dec 31, 2005 @ 3:30 AM |
"Form" letters/IMs/Emails |
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walkingman
Posts: 639
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I used to get quite a few when they allowed women from russia on here. I have not gotten any since. They are so easy to spot. Many say they love you within 3 letter's. I have seen some with this (2). This tell's you it is a series of letter's.
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| Dec 31, 2005 @ 6:46 AM |
"Form" letters/IMs/Emails
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TiNkErGrRrRrR
Posts: 13,672
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I`ve never received one... 
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| Dec 31, 2005 @ 9:30 AM |
"Form" letters/IMs/Emails |
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Scooterkist
Posts: 83
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The only form letter I received on this site was the cream of the crop, lemme tell you !!! It was very long, every other sentence ended with my name.
The only thing was....last two sentences, he forgot to change the name to mine. 
I get a form letter now...I hit delete.
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| Dec 31, 2005 @ 12:13 PM |
"Form" letters/IMs/Emails
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Angel54214
Posts: 12,328
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The only form letter I ever received was a copy/paste from the person's profile on their description. I just deleted it.
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| Dec 31, 2005 @ 12:42 PM |
"Form" letters/IMs/Emails |
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Pete73052
Posts: 19,368
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I always write a personal letter. But it hasn't always been that way. I experimented with form letters for a while (I'm a busy man) and had one that was extremely effective - maybe 50% response rate. It was so cute, women responded even though they could tell it was a form letter. 
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| Dec 31, 2005 @ 12:58 PM |
"Form" letters/IMs/Emails
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Angel54214
Posts: 12,328
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I am a business woman, so I would admire a form letter, but not if it was reputitious from same contacter or same form letter used by different ones. We know a form letter is just that, it lacks the femine and masculine. Its a required contact in a business form. You certainly can't sell your self to find a special man/woman in a form letter. Contains no personality traits or charactor of the writer.
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| Dec 31, 2005 @ 1:08 PM |
"Form" letters/IMs/Emails |
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Aselune
Posts: 548
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I've recieved one very lengthy advertisement or..form letter as you may want to call it. We had emailed each other back and forth here a few times then I gave him my personal email..lol the first letter I got he forgot to "insert name here" so it was left blank. The second letter I got had my name insterted correctly..lol but it was the exact same letter. I have to admit it was very well written, and if you're looking for a pedigree this guy was it according to him..but I'd rather have a clumsily written, poor grammered real letter any day
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| Dec 31, 2005 @ 1:57 PM |
"Form" letters/IMs/Emails
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scottymac
Posts: 9
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Here's my male perspective on the subject at hand....
I've done this online dating thing off and on for a while now and have made the following observations that seem to ring true for the geographical area that I live in.
1.) There seem to be far more men on these sites than women, thus more competition.
2.) Given #1, it seems that women get far more mail than the men on these sites
3.) Given that women seem to get so much more attention, SOME appear to filter incoming mail on a plethora of arbitrary criteria i.e. he's not hot enough, he's too articulate, not articulate enough, he lives 1 mile further away than I like, etc., ad naseum.
4.) Some gals have standards or criteria that no human being could ever hope to fulfill. Note: I said SOME, not all.
SO, given these circumstances, I find no point in sitting down and taking the time to craft a personal note geared to a specific individual. More times than not, it will go unacknowledged and trashed anyway. So, borrowing a page from Marketing 101, I've crafted a "form letter" that is nothing more than a mere introduction. After all, in real life, most people meet with a "Hello! My name is *****! How are you doing today?" Why should it be any different here? Why should we go to the trouble of creating a detailed profile if someone is too lazy to look at it and wants your life story up front in an initial e-mail?
Well, that's my perspective on the subject. I've tried it both ways and I've actually found the "form letter" to be more time efficient, allows me to cover a wider audience, and just on sheer numbers actually gets me more responses which open the door to further dialogue.
Just my $.02....
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| Dec 31, 2005 @ 2:11 PM |
"Form" letters/IMs/Emails |
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Aselune
Posts: 548
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the male perspective is always a welcomed one in my opinion...and gives me insight and more understanding lol on that note..and the way you put it..I could be ok with a quick hello my name is type of form letter...just not the 3 page single spaced one that acutally has "instert name here" printed on it when you forget to put the persons name..
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| Dec 31, 2005 @ 2:26 PM |
"Form" letters/IMs/Emails
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Angel54214
Posts: 12,328
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LOL...oh the mass mailing variable form letters. Yes, they are a bit unpersonal. 
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| Dec 31, 2005 @ 2:27 PM |
"Form" letters/IMs/Emails |
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Tango42
Posts: 12
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Something generic can open the door... words instead of winks, But after that, someone had better be writing specifically to me or it gets trashed pretty quick.
Yes, I'll look at the profile, but if it's a "form" hello followed up with an ad that states that the biggest things in this guys life are all things I hate... Well, why bother?
But if I get a note and I like the ad, I will answer back with a question or two. If they are answered things can flow from there.
It helps if there is something more than 5 words in the "essay" areas of the ad. What can I say? I like articulate guys.
J
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| Dec 31, 2005 @ 2:44 PM |
"Form" letters/IMs/Emails
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Pete73052
Posts: 19,368
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I guess some guys feel their time is better spent sending as many requests out as possible. If I find someone whose profile looks like I might click with her, I'm not about to blow my chances on a wink or form letter - I'll write a letter just for her. I don't contact a lot of women, but the ones I do contact are people whose criteria I have noted, whose interests seem to align with mine and who are most likely to be a good match for me. There really aren't that many women out there that fit this. I get a tremendous response rate from the emails I send because of this - so it's not a waste of time to make some effort.
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| Dec 31, 2005 @ 10:45 PM |
"Form" letters/IMs/Emails |
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jeanc200358
Posts: 934
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SO, given these circumstances, I find no point in sitting down and taking the time to craft a personal note geared to a specific individual. More times than not, it will go unacknowledged and trashed anyway. So, borrowing a page from Marketing 101, I've crafted a "form letter" that is nothing more than a mere introduction. After all, in real life, most people meet with a "Hello! My name is *****! How are you doing today?" Why should it be any different here? Why should we go to the trouble of creating a detailed profile if someone is too lazy to look at it and wants your life story up front in an initial e-mail?
I hoped that I had clarified in my initial post that a generic letter such as that was perfectly acceptable. I mean, how many different ways can a person say hello and introduce him/herself?
What I'm talking about are those letters that appear as if they were written specifically with you in mind and especially since a year later, I get back the EXACT SAME LETTER from the same guy...I mean, right off the bat I knew then that it was a letter that he sends out to god only knows how many different women. I'm not the least bit naive, but I did get the impression that the first time he wrote it, he had just seen my profile/pic, and was interested in me and me only (at least for that particular moment). I didn't think he was using that same letter to try to get anyone who would say yes to go out with him; I thought he saw something unique about me and really wanted to go out with ME. I'm very very glad now I didn't agree to meet him. I HATE insincerity.
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| Dec 31, 2005 @ 10:53 PM |
"Form" letters/IMs/Emails
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Pete73052
Posts: 19,368
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Two things - Why would you keep this guy's first letter for a year - just curious. Also, I want to mention that most guys probably don't do this. While keeping a form letter on file is tempting, I don't think most guys drag out the same stale old form letter for every person they write to. I could be wrong (and am willing to admit it - proving I'm not all that hard-headed). I had one thing that I copied and pasted from letter to letter though. It was a bouquet of roses made of ascii symbols. Girls seemed to respond to them. Later, I decided it was too corny.
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| Dec 31, 2005 @ 10:53 PM |
"Form" letters/IMs/Emails |
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spongebob777
Posts: 7,904
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I see everyone as unique and I really wouldn't feel right sending the same letter to different people. I assume that shows in the letters I write. I often write to people I'm not interested in just because something caught my eye in thier profile.
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