I wanted to share with you all how my Thanksgiving text experiment went. It was my first time doing a mass cold text.
I texted roughly 40 girls (36 cold numbers and 4 recent leads) on either Thanksgiving afternoon, Thanksgiving evening, or Black Friday around noon. These are girls I met in person, since January 1st of this year. They include girls I’ve met at a bar for 10-minutes, to those I already took on a first date.
What were the results?
Text 1: “Wanted to touch base in case you got rich.” Sent to 15 girls on Thanksgiving Day. 6 responded, and of those, only 1 was positive.
“Wanted to touch base in case you got rich.”
“whos this”
“Kanye west”
(no response)
“Wanted to touch base in case you got rich.”
“Hi happy thanksgiving!”
“Stuffed w turkey right now?”
(no response)
“Wanted to touch base in case you got rich.”
(two days later) “I think in about two more months I will be”
I haven’t responded yet, not sure how to play it…
Text 2: “Hey Julia, describe your day with a #hashtag.” Sent to 8 girls on Thanksgiving Day. 3 responded. This opener somewhat disappointed, because once they answer your question, it’s harder to keep the conversation going.
“Hey Julia, describe your day with a #hashtag.”
“#full you?”
“#tbt at the house. 10 ppl here in pajamas.”
Given our prior communication, I hit her up the next day and just went for the hail mary, “Thinking we should get together sometime soon. What’s your schedule looking like?” and no response.
Text 3: “It’s Black Friday. Don’t get trampled when you go to the mall today.” Sent to 13 girls. 6 responded. 4 responded weakly, and 2 responded positively.
“It’s Black Friday. Don’t get trampled when you go to the mall today.”
“I didn’t go the mall today…”
That’s a dead fish right there.
“It’s Black Friday. Don’t get trampled when you go to the mall today.”
“Hey! Do you even remember who I am?”
Ended up turning this into a meet-up later this week.
Overall, I texted 36 cold numbers. It looks like I’m going to get 2, maybe 3 dates off the girls who responded positively. With girls who sent me a really tepid response (i.e. three words or less, no questions, no exclamation points), I often sent one more text, but that's where the conversation usually ended. It's not worth my time to try to re-invest further in those women. You may feel differently. These are just my results.
Here are the two text exchanges as of this morning, that *should* turn into dates:
Girl #1
We originally met at a grocery store near my house in March. She smiled at me when I walked by, so I told myself I NEED to approach her. Got her number after talking about groceries. We chatted a bit over text, I gave her a nickname, but overall, she was bad at responding, and when I asked her to hang out, she simply didn’t reply.
Girl #2
We met at a coffee shop in August. I opened her with, “You seem very focused. It looks like you’re writing the next great American novel.” She was applying for jobs. We texted only a bit, she was slow to respond, then stopped responding all together. We exchanged maybe two texts each, before she stopped responding.
With Girl #2, I thought I’d make a joke back at her when she asked me “Hah, is that a lead in to get me to make you dinner?” But I opted to just acknowledge her straight on and say, “Yes.” Followed by, “let’s get a drink first.”
A cold text to dead numbers once every six months is probably a good idea for me going forward. You don’t know who will be receptive at the outset, so canvas ALL of your girls and maybe you’ll catch one or two at the right time in her life.