Earlier today, during my morning workout,  a thought popped into my head pertaining to what it felt like to be a woman who was active on an online dating site. As a 26-year old guy, I am inclined to believe that my online experience has been relatively typical to that of most men my age who have tried it for any extended period of time. I send out some flirts, a few emails and might even instant message a woman once or twice a week if I’m in the mood, but the point is that the interactions are primarily dictated by me. I occasionally receive messages from women, but I think that this is primarily due to the fact that I have a unique job as a college basketball coach, which serves as an easy conversation starter.

In spite of this experience I believe, for the most part, that it is fair to assume that the online dating community mirrors other traditional environments where men generally approach women they are interested in and see what happens from there. However, this assumption led me to consider the idea, and resulting question, that since men can “approach” far more women online in an evening then they could in a bar, does this mean that women on online dating sites are overwhelmed with guys trying to get their attention and start a conversation?

Unfortunately, since I’ve only contemplated this question for the past few hours, and therefore haven’t had the time to survey any women on the subject, I am left in the interim to pose a possible answer myself. After considering the above question all morning, the only reasonable conclusion I could come to was that women who are active on online dating sites are bombarded with messages. I mean, it makes sense that with guys all trying to increase their chances of meeting women by sending out as many messages as possible, in the process we are going to blow up the inboxes of the fairer sex.

Unlike being in a crowded bar and seeing  an attractive woman that you’d like to approach, who happens to be talking to another guy, online  men send out emails to women without knowing who else in the community is also trying to engage them. However, as a result of this conclusion, while I believe it to be accurate, two other questions can be raised that I unfortunately don’t have the answers to at this point in time. They are:  What does it feel like for women to have their inboxes saturated with our messages, and should my consideration of this circumstance lead me to adjust my casual approach to contacting women?

To be further researched, dissected and ultimately continued…