Match.com Winks and Women: How to Use and Respond

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Recently I’ve received quite a few questions from women on winks so I wanted to take the time to answer a few of those questions here. I’ve discussed my thoughts on winks in great detail but I wanted to cover these specific questions as well. I would recommend you read that article first as I cover the dynamics of winking in detail there. On to the questions:

Should I Wink at a Guy I Find Attractive?

My opinion on this one is simple: absolutely. I believe that women should also feel free to write emails as well but I recommend you stay within your comfort zone. If that means winking, then that’s what you should do.

Do Guys Like Winks on Match

I’ve never heard of a man who doesn’t like that a woman would flirt with him, and that includes online dating. Keep in mind that just because men like receiving winks it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to want to go on a date with you. You have to take a chance with online dating and as a woman if you want to contact a man but aren’t sure you want to write an email a wink is 100% appropriate.

How Should I Respond to a Guy’s Wink on Match?

My advice to men is that they not wink at women and that they should be writing emails. Men who wink first may be shy, timid, or they may just not understand how online dating works. As long as you’re okay with any of those possibilities, I would recommend you wink back and allow him the opportunity to email you. If he’s contacting you, I think the man should drive the conversation so I recommend giving him the chance to do just that. An exception to this is if you’re an assertive woman who doesn’t mind taking control. In that case, you should do whatever you want. I suspect not too many women of that temperament are asking this question in the first place, though.

 

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About the Author:

Brad initially struggled with online dating but over time became quite successful using it. He met his wife using online dating and has been giving advice and helping people improve their results since 2007. He has written a Free Online Dating Guide to help others find success with online dating. You can learn more about his personal experience using online dating and running this website here.

Comments

  1. Moeen  March 7, 2010

    You need to fix the links on this page; just wanted to mention that.

  2. Brad  March 7, 2010

    Thanks Moeen – I appreciate the heads-up on that. I posted the wrong revision!

  3. Moeen  March 7, 2010

    You need to fix the links on this page; just wanted to mention that.

  4. Brad  March 7, 2010

    Thanks Moeen – I really appreciate the heads-up on that. I posted the wrong revision!

  5. durga  December 15, 2010

    I have been on match for about 2plus weeks. I have been viewed about 2,400 times by over 1,000 members. I have received over 100 emails and about 100 winks. I did not find a date from the bunch. So my questions:
    1- Is that normal or am I being too selective?
    (my reasons so far – 1- Religion mainly has been the deal breaker and 2- also some lied about their place of residence They claimed to live in my area while they are in another state or upstate NY. It’s not a big deal but I do not like the fact that or someone would like about something that basic and simple
    3- some are in a major hurry to start phone chat…etc)
    2- what am I to do with all the winks?

  6. Brad  December 15, 2010

    Durga, here are my thoughts:

    1. You probably are being too selective if out 100 guys there wasn’t a single person you would be willing to meet. Just meet them for coffee shouldn’t be require the perfect match in my opinion (and you might be surprised by what you find). You might want to be a bit more open to taking chances with those guys.

    2. I’m not really sure about the lying about where they live…I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying. Did their profile say they wanted to date someone within 30 miles of where they live but they contacted you even though you are farther away? If that’s the case, I wouldn’t really look at that as lying.

    3. I think a desire to talk on the phone or meet quickly is a good thing from the perspective of trying to find a great match (as I discuss in my guide). I can hardly complain about this approach when it was mine!

    4. As mentioned in the article above, with the winks I would just wink back and put the ball back in their court.

    Hope it helps!

  7. Nancy  January 28, 2011

    What does it mean when a man says in an e mail “I d like to get to know you better”.(wink,wink)?

  8. Brad  January 28, 2011

    Does he actually say “wink, wink” in the email? Could be sexual innuendo or it could be innocent but it that’s all he is sending, I’d recommend forgetting about him until he writes you a more compelling message.

  9. Nick  April 2, 2012

    I’ve been using match.com for some time with a little success (being able to contact others and even meeting a couple of girls).

    I find the women on there are generally quite pathetic though. Most put very little in their profiles, add posed shots and send you a wink but never reply to any email response.

    Why should men have to do all the work?

    Their usual tag line is, “Where have all the good guys gone?”.

    Well, let me tell you ladies something. It’s the same for guys and if you aren’t going to make the effort, you can roll along, thank you.

    Here’s the way I see it. Winking is very acceptable. It should be used for showing an initial interest in another person. From both sides. I usually wait until I get either another wink in return or that person sends me an email. If I don’t get either, I hide that profile and move on.

    It goes the other way too. If that person winks at me and I don’t like the look of them, I’ll block that person but if I do, I reply by a short “how are you?”, email.

    What I find massively irritating are those women that wink, you reply by email and they continue winking but don’t reply with an email. You can even try chatting with them too but they’ll still ignore you and carry on viewing your profile and winking.

    Either way, I’m finding Match.com a huge waste of my time and money and after using up my 3 month subscription, I’ll go back to conventional means. I’ve had far more success and the ladies back in the real world at least react on how they feel. Plus my success in the real world tends to be much better.

  10. Brad  April 7, 2012

    Hey Nick – to me, your approach sounds like it could be a bit restrictive…quite a few more steps to go through to start a conversation than I would use.

    Also, I don’t think winking works well for guys to initiate communication. I have received many thank-you emails from guys expressing that when they stopped winking and started writing emails their success rate went way up. It might be worth a little experimentation to see what another approach might result in.

  11. Sam  May 15, 2012

    Hi Brad,

    I’m confused about something that’s happening with only one paticular profile on match.com. I winked at this one girl’s profile a couple of months ago and she winked back at me but she didn’t respond to my email. I think match only allows you to wink at a member once a month but when I winked again at this particular member again, it doesn’t show up in my winks sent list and the “wink for free” button on her profile is not grayed out like it is on the profiles of other girls that I’ve winked at. I wondering if this member blocked me and that’s why my wink isn’t registering. Do you agree or do you think there’s just something else going wrong? Thanks in advance.

    Sam

  12. Brad  May 15, 2012

    Sam – honestly, I’m not sure how being blocked would affect winks and whether or not they would prevent a wink from registering. Match only allows you to wink once every 30 days so even if it changed to a new month, it’s the number of days that actually matter…so you might want to make sure the last wink occurred prior to 30 days ago. I do think it would be really odd for a woman to wink back at you and then block your you so I feel like something else could be going wrong. It could just be a problem with Match not showing something correctly. I’d give sending her an email another try and see if the results from that are any different.

  13. Barbara  July 30, 2012

    Men, stop winking and start typing a short email.
    All it has to say is: Hi, I think you are lovely, would you like to chat?
    Most women don’t know what a wink is? Atleast I don’t?

  14. Lori  April 16, 2015

    I’ve been on match for almost 6 months and have only met 2 guys. I send “winks” to guys I like. I have sent maybe 2 emails but gave up because they never even read them. I have had thousands of views and at least 200 winks. I have decided to wait for the man to email first. I am really interested in a guy that just made me his “favorite” & I made him my favorite but after 2 days I haven’t heard from him. How long should I wait?

    • Brad  April 17, 2015

      I’m not sure if marking someone as a favorite is enough to get them to contact you – is there a particular reason you’ve decided to wait for the guy to email you? You might want to make some exceptions if there are guys that you are really interested in.

  15. Michael  December 7, 2015

    I’d really like your opinion on something.. on a couple of occasions a women have sent me a wink, only for me to send a message back and discover they’ve blocked me – what’s that all about? I’ve not previously contacted or winked at them and if my profile was interesting enough to make them wink why’d they immediately block me? Also, women who wink almost never respond to messages I send in reply – even though I keep them simple and almost exactly as Barbara has suggested above? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

  16. curious  January 4, 2016

    Hi Brad,
    I have been subscribing to mat.com on and off for the past few years. I’ve gone on a few dates and dated one person for a few months.

    I am considering subscribing again and making another go at finding someone, but before I do, I am re-thinking my process.
    There is one guy that I am quite interested in. I actually saw his profile before and sent him an email a few years ago and didn’t get a reply. Maybe it wasn’t a good email or maybe he never even read it (for example, i’m not able to read any of the emails i recently received because i’m not a subscriber). His profile came up again in my email and it rehashed an interest.

    Should I try reaching out to him again or would this be kind of creepy? Should I wink or send an email? If i email, should i fess up about emailing him before in case he actually did get the email and remembers me? What’s the least creepy and most genuine way to go about this? Or should i just forget about it?

    Thanks!

  17. Mary  January 20, 2016

    Brad ~ I’ve had guys wink or smile at me, but they have hidden profiles. This make it difficult to know if i’m interested enough to respond. Thoughts?

  18. Bari  January 4, 2018

    For the site “match.com”, I have a question regarding “heart” on profiles. When I hit the heart, after some hours for some of the profiles heart is being disabled and I can just send message and no “heart ” any more? Just for some of them! It means they said they are not interested or what? is it random?