Fantasies promise much
One of the most fun elements of meeting people online is the excitement of a promising new contact. There are a lot of duds out there, or people who just aren't good matches (guys, that's a good thing to keep in mind when you don't hear back from a woman: there's a good chance that if you'd even gotten as far as meeting, you'd've decided, "Eh, she had promise, but, ultimately, no dice.") but there are also good matches, and you do occasionally find them, or they find you, and that's awesome.
But you don't know early on if someone will be a match or a dud, and hope springs eternal (or for a really long time, anyway), so on first contact with someone who seems just perfect, I often find my imagination running away with me. Just because he's articulate and witty in email doesn't mean that I'll like him when we meet, or, for that matter, the next time he writes to me, but it's the necessary first step. And because I'm an optimist, I like to look at those promising first emails as the door into something wonderful.
This is especially easy for me to do when he describes a fantasy sexual scenario that's perfectly up my alley. Er. So to speak. That makes it incredibly easy for me to get wrapped up in thinking about a) the fantasy b) with him. And that's a good thing from his perspective for obvious reasons.
Now, this is only moderately helpful for you guys out there, because you can't know for sure which of your fantasies might strike a chord with the stranger you're contacting, but if you pick one of your favorites, and you write it well, you'll at least be in good shape for finding someone who shares it. And that, after all, is the goal, right?
