Anonymous asked: I'm a 22 yo female and I've just started trying online dating. I've definitely put work into my okc profile and I've received a decent number of messages from guys. But, most of them I haven't responded back because: they are too old, they have a deal-breaker in their profile (like kids or smoking), their message was along the lines of "you are pretty", or after looking at their whole profile, I wasn't interested. Should I be responding to these messages? I don't want to be rude or lead them on

Don’t respond to their messages. Don’t even worry about it. In the world of online dating, not responding to people isn’t rude. It’s normal. It’s incredibly common. It’s a mere drop in the bucket of constant rejection.
You don’t owe people a response - ESPECIALLY people who didn’t put any real effort into their message, or people who ignored what you wrote in your profile (i.e. what you consider to be deal breakers).
And responding to people - even to say, “thanks but I’m not interested” - will often lead to those people messaging you again. And again. Until you have to block them cause they won’t stop even when asked to.
So…my advice? If someone messages you and you don’t want to talk to them…don’t respond at all. Block them right away. To them, it might just look like your profile is no longer active (depending on the site). And they messaged 40 people today saying “you are pretty” so they probably won’t even notice that you blocked them/disappeared.
Why block them? So that they don’t message you again next week having forgotten that they already tried to contact you.