Make your initial contact short and sweet. Five sentences or less, or under 150 words. If someone instant messages you while you're online, go ahead and IM them back if you want. Otherwise, wait twenty-two to twenty-three hours between email contacts for the first few messages. Don't send messages while most people are sleeping, even if you're wide-awake. Shoot for business hours or just after dinnertime.

Data, A Love Story: How I Cracked the Online Dating Code to Meet My Match (ed. Penguin, 2013) - ISBN: 9781101609712