I usually look for a great smile and a happy attitude. A laugh a day is a lost day...

Two reasons.
1) If I find them to be potentially interesting
2) If I'm pissed.

Sent messages from my account have been at random, not to get to know anyone. Like a few days ago browsing member profiles Someone had a birthday so I messaged them happy birthday. If a picture, not the girl,the picture, is nice; I would message them with a compliment on it. Simple things like that.

Understanding people like their own space I generally don't message and edit most posts.

Besides, profiles are literally an image. Who's going to tell their bad points?

*EdiT*

I used to chat on AOL many years back. The first thing people seemed to be interested in there was Age, love, and Location. Frequently people would ask you A/S/L as a precurser to determine if they were interested in chatting to you or not!

On this website love is usually made clear when you look to see who is online. Age is also clear.

Location is indicated by country, which is quite a wide area and contains many opposing factions.

I would say Age, is probably the first reason one looks to see a picture and find out location within a country.

I would send a message if I had previous correspondence, and had more to say because I enjoyed conversing previously. I would also send a message if I was randomly bored, and felt like making a humorous comment about nothing in particular. Sometimes it is just like playing the lottery (you know you have no chance of winning, but you do it anyway because not playing leaves you with no hope)

I receive messages less frequently than I send them. I usually find them either bizarre, or the message just does not connect with me.

Sometimes it is a 21 year old female, with no picture, asking me to send her emails to yahoo or hotmail. What is that all about?

Sometimes it is a woman of similar age as me, but with a really flat opening line like "Hi, like your picture".

Usually, it is the responses to my messages which get further communication. However, there are exceptions to every rule.

Firstly it's the name, swiftly followed by age and location. If they message me it has to be in proper English with grammar and everything or I'll assume they're a moron. A nice picture and height is also a must, and also an original start topic.

Like others, I've decided not to message anyone anymore. Before on my previous account as are87, I would spend tons of time writing messages out to guys that I was interested in talking to and then wouldn't receive a message back or they would reply with the ever-so-intriguing "Wots ur name? Wanna cyberrr??" So fu#$ing annoying.. so I don't even try anymore.

Before I stopped messaging people, what I looked for was anything that made me smile.. be it a witty or hilarious profile, a silly picture, or a certain other quality that I knew would be a good fit. I never just focused on looks, but more on what they had to say about themselves.

I don't use flirtbox for messaging, but I sometimes message randoms on facebook!
I think I pick them like this:

1) pretty face (a must!)
2) not too overweight (I like sports so I'd hate to go out with someone who didn't)
3) not chavvy (is that snobbish?)

Personality is of course more important than looks, but the best way to gauge that is through messaging, texting, phonecalls and dates.

My criteria must sound pretty shallow!
But I couldn't go out with someone I wasn't physically attracted to, so what's the problem?

Being a Flirtbox newbie, I have only sent a handful of messages yet. Of them, only one replied (thanks wolfmoon).

Back on topic:
Age doesn't bother me too much unless she is extremely younger or older than me. I tend to judge on the profile pictures (first impressions and all that, not always fair, but a fact of life).

Then I check what she is looking for: I am looking for someone to build a relationship, so she has to be looking for something similar.

Then I check the scrolling message to see a little about the character of the person.

Although messaging isn't my big thing on here if it was I'd tend to be looking for a humourous Avatar and profile, the picture isn't of interest really I don't take stock on what people look like, looks change over time anyway so if you don't discover the inner person and what makes them tick then your on a hiding to nothing anyway.
I'm always drawn to someone that has intelligence and their humour must be dry or have a certain quirkiness.
They would be able to make me smile with one liners but I'd hope they would be great at putting the world to rights too

I have a look at the pic first - brunette is a good start and then nice facial features.

then i have a peek at the profile to check for common interests that I can use in the first msg as an icebreaker.