What you have to bear in mind is that you are in your own little bubble of dating siteness. You can only see the women, and thus forget about the elevenygamillion blokes who are all messaging and hassling the same girls that you lay eyes on, before you ever laid eyes on them. Your carefully crafter message, your witty one liner, is something that they have probably recieved and read ad infinitum. To get a reply, nay to even have your message read, you need to quite simply have either an attractive photo, or an attractive photo in conjunction with leet writing skills, and come out with something genuinely funny or relevant to them.
Look at their profile carefully... if they've written ****-all in their description then don't write them an essay, keep it short. If they've written an essay, read it carefully and reply latching onto things they've written, adding some questions which will pique their interest. If they write like they are 5 years old (ie> chav princesses) then don't waste your time, it will go noehwere.
And the best advice I can give, which will probably fall on deaf ears is this: choose your targets carefully. You may think that girl is "uber uber hot", but the chances are that if she is, and you are not, then you are not going to get a sniff of a reply. This is not real-life, and you do not have the opportunity to use charisma on her... this is simple superficial stuff in its' purest form, and you will be judged based on looks and arbitrary message content in the space of 5 seconds. Unless you have success in real-life with attracting women based on looks, or have very nice, carefully taken pics, then go for the less good-looking girls and your success and reply rate will be greater... know your limits!
Regards,
A former POF'er.
