I've had a really hard time starting/continuing conversations with online dating...there are so many things I don't understand or know how to do I guess.

Is there an amount of time where it's too late to reply to a message? How do you initiate contact or do you just wait for others to say something to you? How do you reply to someone who initiates contact and doesn't ask a question and just says some sort of form of "hello"?

Once a conversation is started, how do you keep it going? When is it okay to initiate or do you wait for the other person? How long should someone wait between messages? How do you get from talking on a app to a date (probably via zoom at this point, but possibly meeting in person in the future)?

Are you able to figure out from chatting with someone if they're a potential match and if so, how? The only litmus test I have (even in person) is on a scale of 1 to 10, how hard is this person to talk to? How safe and comfortable do I feel talking to this person? Do I have any personality around them? Unfortunately, the more attracted I am to a person, the more I'm afraid to talk to them or afraid to show any interest.

I guess that's another whole question, how does anyone ever comfortable enough to talk to someone they're attracted to (at least in real life...there's a little more safety online) or even be in the same room. It's not really a fear of rejection, it's more of a fear of the person rejecting you also humiliating you, shaming you, or attacking you in some way. I mean, someone I actually find attractive would be way out of my league, so why wouldn't they laugh at me or shame me for being attracted to them or shame me for what I look like or even existing.

So, I guess online dating is probably the only way I could express any interest in anyone, but I have no idea how to go from "hello" to an actual date or how to tell if a date would be worth both of our time.