[dgudkov]

>the truth is some people (yes, mostly women) are absolutely bombarded with messages that are at best emotionally vacant

That's true, men are not bombarded with messages. They would love to be bombarded with any messages but they aren't. There is a huge disproportion between who makes the first step -- in 99% of cases it's the men. I understand that women would prefer to receive only well-written, thoughtful messages with a bit of personal touch. The problem is that when men write such messages, they end up in the waste bin with roughly at the same rate as "emotionally vacant" messages. No equally thoughtful, polite response, no any response at all. You might think that in theory the response rate should be higher but in reality it's pretty much the same. Therefore, switching to "emotionally vacant" messages is a logical behavior strategy, because it optimizes time and emotional investment per response. If making more effort produces the same poor result then why bother?

Online dating is a horrible experience not only for women, but also for men. In a different way, but hardly less embarrassing.