Thanks for all the nice replies to my last message. Really getting good advise on what I'm doing wrong. Makes me wonder why I ever had any success before Wasn't if I should add this to philros1's post or start a new thread.

So here's the question. I've spent some time today trying to make contacts on social networking sites (like facebook). So I invited one girl to be friends and that worked ok and now we are messaging. But I'm not all that interested in that one anyway, so I'm trying to think of a good opening that will have the right effect, other than a direct friend invite, which I think prettier girls might respond badly to (there is no possibility of sending a message with the invite)

So I'm considering messages like:

"that's a beautiful picture. are you also an interesting person?" This, I'm thinking, is too strong, but I'm not sure. Maybe I can sweeten it up somehow?

One more question. It has come up with the one I'm already messaging with that she has a really common name. Should I say something like "name x is really common but I'm not sure about the person," or slightly more negative "are you as common as your name?"