[hahamrfunnyguy]

Well, openers are the hardest part and it sounds like you're doing that well without the bot. 10-20 messages is a lot! In my view, the goal of an online dating interaction is some light banter before setting up a date.

Once a match replies, ask some playful open ended questions and if you're telling a short story, leave some cliff-hangers to try to get a follow-up response and then segue into setting up a date. Looking at my last conversation, I asked my match out on a date in my 7th message. After that we moved over to SMS.