Online dating communication style beanplating Ask MeCha! I've started using OKCupid which has been fun so far but I have a few questions.→[More:]

If I like a woman's profile, I usually send an initial message that is a couple of sentences relating to something in her profile. I must do okay at this part and on my profile because most people write back, which I understand is not usually the case for guys.

It's after that point that things fall apart. Usually I'll write back a bit more next time, and if things go well we'll start writing short paragraphs. It's seemed like this has been going well multiple times in the past, but actually it's worked exactly once--where I asked someone out to coffee on the 11th message. The rest of the time, things have fizzled out at some point. I almost always reply to messages so it's usually the girl who doesn't write back. On the one hand I really like the woman I met this way (and we have a second date coming up), so I wonder if this might have been a good filter or a way of connecting with someone who is compatible. On the other hand I wonder if I should change things to be able to connect with other gals better.

I've met one other girl. On message 6 she hinted at us meeting up and I took her up on it. I have a forthcoming coffee date with another one who in her profile said she wasn't much into long e-mail conversations and preferred to meet people early, and she hinted at meeting in her very first reply, which I took her up on.

I'm starting to wonder if maybe more girls wouldn't prefer me to ask for a drink/coffee a bit earlier, and these two women are just the tip of the iceberg because they were forward enough to drop a hint.

Even after I asked the first gal mentioned above to coffee, while she has had great enthusiasm for meeting (and again a subsequent meeting), she has shown very little interest in continuing to write long messages like we did before. Which is really fine with me, but maybe she was just gritting her teeth before wondering why I wouldn't just ask her out already.

Obviously there's a happy medium in-between long romance-killing pen-pal exchanges and asking for a drink in the first message. But how do I figure out where it is?

Here's another case: a girl recently rated me 4 or 5 stars, and the system tells you when you mutually rate high. So I wrote her, but all I've gotten back since are a series of short statements with no questions. If I met a person who conversed like this in real life, I would probably figure they didn't want to talk to me anymore. What's strange is that it was preceded by this high rating. If this were in real life, it would feel as if a woman had stared at me from across the bar and then when I went up to talk to her she had nothing to say. Should I keep trying to draw her out? Just talk about myself instead like she is? Ask her out? Give up--she's uninterested or uninteresting?

Other things about my communication style: maybe I write back too quickly? Usually I try to write back within a day or so, and often on the same day. A female friend suggested writing each person no more than once a day. But whenever I've tried slowing things down like that, they've never written back again after that. Maybe they saw I was online writing to someone else and not them and got pissed off. So I abandoned that system.

Thoughts? (Two disclaimers: First, I am not nearly this long-winded in these e-mails, I promise. Finally, I know I am overthinking this. Please join me.)