Trust requires experience.

Initial contacts are often abrupt and one sided. In the dating context, initial contact seems like this often:

"Tell about you. Tell more about you.

Oh, you are cool.

Can I move in with you?"

The primary purpose of initial contact should be to establish rapport. Not to weed out a candidate. The weeding will happen on its own.

Trigger Initial Interest or you are doomed, not only with me, with anyone. Find something to converse about. If you ask about work then show interest in the response. Ask more about it. If family then use it as a way to find a Subject to Converse about.

Be patient. Respond promptly. Think of a phone call; silence for long is deadly to conversation.

Conversation involves exchange and Sharing the Floor. You lead the conversation then the lead shifts to the other then back, Sharing the Floor.

How you think, what you care about, how you phrase what you say, each matters.

The same principles apply at a bar stool, and when wanting to ask for most anything. Even with your close friend it is prudent to chit chat before asking for a favor. At IBM it is called Earning the Right to Continue. The Benefit of the conversation itself to the other party is where to start.

Share easily and openly. If online then show your pictures. Tell roughly where you live, what work you do, what subjects y0u care about.

Why should the other person care about you?

Bruce