To date, you need to be able to make halfway decent conversation. This was true a hundred years ago, and it’s still true today. 

Dating apps are designed to get you talking to people. 

Your chances of romance are only as good as your conversation, so you need to make sure your opening line stands out.

How To Talk To Someone On A Dating App:

Have A Good Opening Line 

There are millions of people on dating apps now, and lots of them are sadly sending very boring messages. 

First impressions are important, you want to be interesting, funny, exciting, or memorable. 

So why would you send something as bland, unimaginative, and boring as ‘hey’? 

Most people won’t even reply to this. 

This isn’t because they’re rude, but because they have so many other identical messages sitting in their inbox. 

By sending that makes you stand out, you’re giving yourself the best chance of actually getting a reply, starting a conversation, and maybe even getting a date.

Keep The Conversation Going With Open Questions

Once you’re talking, and you start to relax around each other, usually the conversation flows from there. 

It’s pretty likely that at some point however, the conversation will slow down. 

It can happen for any reason, and isn’t a reason to panic. 

Starting the conversation back up can be tricky though, especially if you don’t know much about the other person. 

One easy way to do this is through asking an open question. This can be about anything, their favourite holiday destination, their favourite food, what their job is like, anything that gets them talking. 

If they show an interest and ask you similar questions, mirror them back occasionally. 

If they ask ‘what’s your favourite food?’ Don’t just say ‘pizza.’

For starters, everyone likes pizza - you have to be specific about which kind of pizza because that’s a very important factor in overall relationship compatibility, but you should also be polite and ask their favourite kind of pizza. 

This will help you get to know them faster, and more importantly it will show that you want to get to know them.

You shouldn’t make them feel like you’re interviewing them, with question after question after question. You should take what they tell you and use it to start a conversation.

You want to maintain the momentum, making it easy for them to think of a reply. 

Don’t Stay On One Topic If It’s Killing The Convo

Once you’ve asked a few questions back and forth, you’ll probably get stuck on one topic for a while. 

This can be great, especially if you’ve found common ground (or something you both hate). 

If you’ve been struggling to find a topic you both like talking about, it can be scary to leave that and try to find something else to talk about. 

But you don’t want the conversation to get stagnant. If you both love Mexican food, great, you should get some for dinner sometime, but you can’t just talk about that for hours. 

Eventually, you’ll have to start talking about something else - it’s much better than lingering on something for too long and watching the replies get slower and less interested. 

Don’t Worry About When To Text Back

Speaking of replies getting slower, agonising over how long to leave it before replying is something that everyone goes through every once in a while. 

The best advice about when to text back is: don’t worry about it. Just text back whenever you see the message. 

If you’re cooking dinner and that means you haven’t texted them in 58 minutes, so what? 

Likewise, if you’re just hanging out on your phone and you reply to every message pretty quick, don’t overthink it. 

You shouldn’t let texting someone take over your life. 

If the person you’re talking to hasn’t replied in a while, don’t panic, don’t send them another message in a desperate attempt to keep things moving, just wait for them to get back to you. 

We’re all busy, we all have other things going on. The beauty of dating apps is that they allow for conversation with all kinds of people you might otherwise never have met. 

They won’t all be on the same schedule as you, and they’ll all have other priorities. That's ok.

A conversation is shared between two people, and the best way to keep a conversation going is by having it at a natural pace, whatever that means for the two of you. 

You should now be able to start a few conversations, and see where they go!

Read more of our top tips for online dating.