This is the one page on the site written equally for both of our audiences, because it is the exact point where they meet. It is the thing the men reading this most need to get right, and the thing the women and couples reading this complain about most.
These are illustrative examples written by us, not real member profiles.
Almost every deleted first message fails for one of three reasons: it says nothing specific about the person it was sent to, it is too much too soon, or it reads as an opener copied and pasted at everyone in a search result. All three are fixable, and none of them require you to be a better writer than you already are.
"Hey" or "How's it going" gives the other person nothing to respond to. It is not offensive, it is just easy to ignore, because it takes no more effort to delete than it took to send. Reading a profile for ten seconds before you message someone is the single highest-value thing you can do.
A message that is explicit, demanding or presumes an outcome before either person has said what they want reads as a warning sign, not confidence. Being frank about wanting something casual is fine and is the whole premise of this site. Assuming the other person has already agreed to specifics they have not discussed is a different thing entirely.
People can tell. A message that could have been sent to anyone usually was sent to everyone, and it reads that way. It does not need to be long to avoid this, it needs to reference one real thing from the profile it is replying to.
A good first message is short, specific, and says plainly what you are looking for without assuming the other person has agreed to it yet. Three things in one or two sentences: something specific from their profile, roughly where you are and what distance you would travel, and what you are after in plain language.
"Saw you're into hiking around the Dandenongs, I'm out that way most weekends too. I'm in the inner north, happy to travel 20 minutes or so, looking for something casual. No pressure either way, just wanted to say hello properly rather than send the usual one-liner."
Illustrative example, written by us for this page. Not a real member profile or message.
You will get a lot of the messages described above, the vague ones and the too-much-too-soon ones, and it is not a reflection on you that most of them are not good. You do not owe a reply to a message that gives you nothing to work with, and blocking or ignoring one is not rude, it is a reasonable response to being sent nothing worth answering.
Most messages, even good ones, do not get a reply. That is normal on any dating site and it usually has nothing to do with the message itself. One message, sent well, and then move on to the next profile rather than following up repeatedly. A second unsolicited message after silence is one of the things covered on our safety page as a pattern worth avoiding.
This advice applies whether you are messaging someone in Melbourne, Sydney, or anywhere else we cover. See casual dating near me for how to think about distance before you even get to the message itself.
All members of Instant Quickies are consenting adults aged 18 and over.