Once you've written your online dating profile and you start sending messages to people, you may find that some of the people you send messages to don't respond—either as quickly as you'd like them to, or even at all. One thing you might consider doing when this occurs is sending a second message asking them what they thought of your profile, and what they "obviously" didn't like about it—not only is this irritating and detrimental to their image of you, but it's unnecessary and shows insecurity.

Asking someone what they found wrong with you smacks of someone who lacks confidence, someone who needs someone to build them up, lest they disintegrate. Asking what is wrong with your profile isn't really asking what is wrong with your profile, either, is it? It's asking someone what they found wrong or unappealing with you.

And even if the person does answer your questions of what they found unappealing in your profile, you may either not like the answer or not want to change what they disliked. Someone doesn't want to date you because you're shorter than their ideal mate? Not much you can do about that, and if you keep hearing it over and over from people you've asked what's wrong, you may start to develop an insecurity that wasn't there before.

But if it's something about yourself that you could theoretically change but don't want to—say you're an avid hunter and the person you've contacted works for animal rights charities—you may go so far as to resent their honesty.

Either outcome is not ideal—if someone doesn't answer your messages, don't ask them what's wrong with you; most of the time, there's nothing inherently wrong, they just aren't interested for whatever reason. Move on, and keep sending out messages.

image: morguefile