amorwall
Online Dating Profile; How to build right to succeed, tips and tricks, read to the end!
More and more trends are being developed towards online dating nowadays and that is then preparing people to develop a relationship oriented resume named as “online dating profile”.
It is actually a digital sell copy of yourself that you offer to attract any potential romantic matches for long term or a quick fling. This process is quite different than old school dating where it all starts with sharing a phone number or asking them out over a meal or coffee.
That first meeting was the point to start getting knowing someone while online dating scene is little different and slower than traditional one. Also, your communication has several forms and steps, and each of it has its own pros and cons.
None of the communication form is better than a face to face to communication and in online dating this lacks. It is the same process as of hiring someone for an employer. You have to put everything together in your resume with the intention that it will catch the eye of potential employers
You will receive phone call or an email before your first meeting that is the interview. Now you got what I mean? You will have to prepare your online dating profile, put it in the match making database so that match seekers may see it. Picking up one and having distant communication before first face to face meeting.
Therefore, it is of critical importance to develop something that is honest picture of you but at the same times the information in the online dating profile is laid out in a manner that would attract the right people to your message box.
Just remember, posting online dating profile is different that ad posting. Objectivity is okay but you still need to exhibit the balanced form of your emotions, passions and desires. Therefore, it is tricky and let us find out what are the thing we should pay attention to while creating our online dating profile.
We will start from classifying a profile into two main sections – Narrative Part and then the Visual Part
ONLINE DATING PROFILE – NARRATIVE PART
There are five major parts of the narrative section and one has to be thoughtful about each. These are as follows;
Name For Your Profile – You could pick anything short and quick but remember it should be something about you. This could be an adjective describing your greatest passion that derives you in your life. This could either be something that is the biggest motivation to you.
Or it could be something very general but positive. Avoid;
- Anything that is not reflective of your personality
- Anything that is offensive to the ones who you want to attract
- Using your full name because of security reasons
- Anything that gives the sense of materialism
- Anything which could have any negative connotation with regard to your values or personality traits
- Anything that may cause confusion and has dual meaning
- Using your social sites’ id’s
- Using just the numbers
Just remember, the title of your profile is that someone looks at first when a set of profiles icons including your appear in-front of others.
From my experience, I have seen people keeping it very general. Some have limited it with using some greeting word; some have used a few mixed alphabets of their first and second name.
Some have added an adjective and then completed it with some number at the end. One was quite interesting I saw, was based on the persons locations. They were a foreigner living in another country and they have use initials of both countries – something like ABinCD.
This actually gave an idea that where that person was from and now where they are. The only thing to remember while preparing your title/name for your online dating profile, that it is your initials. Just give people a glimpse of your identity through it.
Tagline or Headline- This depends on the site you are on but usually this is the part of it. Again, this line of limited characters could be a line that fascinated you and you have watched in some movie.
Or you could use a question that has brought you to the site and led you to the creation of your online dating profile. It could be a statement that is the principle of your life and you feel it has its connection with your sought relation.
Just keep it positive or neutral. I don’t want to use the word intriguing. I give you an example here. I have subscribed to a lot of media pages and what I see at the top of my page—many of those pages have prepared a report and the title is like trickily giving you a clue that there is some really hot news inside.
You can’t resist clicking on that and when you read, nothing good comes out. It makes me frustrated about that media post and I tend to avoid anymore news from that specific page anymore. Because instead of giving a sensible and reasonable clue in the heading, they entirely try to trick that didn’t seem ethical to me.
I lost trust in those media papers as this seems a cheap trick to make someone click at the headline. Have you ever noticed the credible and reputable reporting media never do that? They might use the most attractive line from their news and summarized it in their title and you trust them.
So, consider this thing while creating your tagline/headline for your online dating profile. Also, if someone says, make people curious to read more, I tell you there are 100s of profiles and people have 100s or 1000s of options. They will pass by your profile if you will try to play puzzle games with.
Be genuine yet interesting. This is the best strategy.
Brief Overview of Yourself and Your Partner – This part contains the summarized overview of your personality and of what you are seeking in your partner. Just remember it is like defining yourself in a few limited words.
List or description – You can use different ways to do it. Most of the tips are, never go for a boring list of your or their personality traits rather start telling a story.
To a great extent, I do agree with it. Listing down the traits could be really boring and seems like you are trying to buy a match instead of attracting one. But telling the story doesn’t be taken with its literal meaning.
The way you narrate your story could be something telling in an engaging manner. To give someone a flowing sense that who you are. Also, when they say avoid creating a list, it means to be more descriptive of telling the other person who you are and what your thinking patterns are.
Let it flow and keep it concise and consistent. Dragging something for long, wouldn’t work. People will lose interest. I speak for myself. If I see a dating profile and I have to choose the one, I will pick the one which more information but it should useful information.
People are not here to listen to your life story by reading your online dating profile – once get connected, you will have so much time to tell your life stories. This is why I used the word “CONCISE”.
Also, I don’t want you to keep it too short that people don’t get any idea of who you are or using the same words that everybody uses – laidback, fun, open minded, playful etc. be more descriptive and specific about yourself. Avoid very general terms.
Highlight the Bright and Important Areas – This means tell people what you enjoy and about interests rather than telling what you don’t enjoy or what disgusts you.
It is also about being honest so, do mention something that is not among very positive things but other person should know about it and also if you don’t have any other place in your online dating profile to talk about it.
If you have disability, be upfront about it. You are not here to let someone evaluate your personality and it’s not a personality test. Tell it in a manner that the other person knows that it won’t affect your time together or you have the potential to make your moments memorable despite of that.
Highlighting your likes will attract the people with similar interests. The purpose is to find out common things about each other rather than finding differences. If you get well-connected, you can work on balancing differences.
Writing Summarized Description of your Match – This could be a challenging part of your online dating profile. If you know what you want, you can easily describe it. It has the same application as I shared for your own description.
I know you can’t be as descriptive about them as you were for yourself. So you can use a few lines but the ones that are meaningful about your search. Avoid any negative phrase. For example, such and such people stay away. Rather mention what you look for and this will bring the ones with those qualities to you.
Avoid phrases like — this or that is a must! Something like this with an exclamation mark will appear as you are in the market. If you think, they must have some particular trait; write it like— people with this or that trait are my biggest attraction etc.
Other Questions – If you have filled out your summarized description part already then make sure your other question and answer section goes in-line with it and further throws a close light on it by explaining your specific likes and dislikes/preferences about activities.
ONLINE DATING PROFILE — VISUAL PART
Remember it’s a Dating Site. Only Words are not Sufficient – I am sure all of you would prefer to see the person first before thinking to contact them.
The worst thing I have seen on many of the profiles is people tend to hide their face. There would be no picture on their online dating profile and there is a long narrative part out there for you to read and that person would have sent you a message and might be waiting for your response.
I will call this a very nonsense and deceiving attitude. If I would be site owner, I have probably have banned such profiles because I am not sure, if they are real people or just some robots and why they have issue showing their face.
Believe me most of such people are fake and just a spam on the site. They are not there for any serious purposes so don’t be one of those. Put a profile picture on your online dating profile that shows your face.
Try Using your Current Photos – It is ok to use a picture that is a year or two old and since then your looks haven’t gone into any significant changes.
But there are times when I have seen people born in 1951 and are on the dating site with their main profile picture from 1975. Don’t cheat the people. Nobody likes tricks and no one likes being fooled. So be respectful towards others and you will find the right match, if it is meant to be.
Number of Photos – This is entirely up to you. If you want to stick with just one photo and upon meeting the right match will share more, this would be fine. But in that case use the one that is clear and recent.
It is recommended, use two or atleast three. One could be face focused; other could be in some activity etc. Let your pictures speak about your personality and we know a picture tells a lot of stories about ourselves.
For example, I went through a profile with its main picture focusing their face. In the other one was the same person standing with their mother and brother. This gives an idea that they are quite close to their family.
This was supported by narrative part of their online dating profile while once I started talking to that person, it was very much obvious from their nature of activities. Those were mostly with their family members.
Use Your Own Photo as a Primary Picture – Don’t try to impress other person with someone else’s photos. I have seen it on many online dating profiles, that as a primary photo they have selected the ones of some movies stars or models.
I am not sure what do they have in mind while posting these pictures but that definitely doesn’t show any pure intentions for being on this site. I will again call it they are spammers, who are on this site just for time pass. Maybe they don’t have any good leisure activity so what they do is fool the people around with their online nonsense.
ONLINE DATING PROFILE – OTHER CONSIDERABLE POINTS
Stay Genuine – If you are just not roaming around, the only ethical manner is to stay genuine and transparent about yourself from the very beginning.
As I said above, being genuine doesn’t mean that you put all positive and negative sides of you but it means, be truthful about whatever you say in your profile. For example if you are 67 years old, write the correct age. Don’t try to manipulate the numbers.
Same is with the information about your appearance. In order to trying to be attractive, don’t make reduction or addition of fake information in your online dating profile.
Many people are very much concerned about your ethnicity, so instead of hiding it, be open about it. I have seen many of the profiles hiding their ethnicities with the purpose to engage people in communication first and then will reveal that.
This is not a good strategy. Although, I don’t mean to promote any racism but people for whom it is important will go away anyway even if you were able to get into initial interaction.
Positivity – This is one of the most important things. I have already talked about keeping it integrated into all sections of your online dating profile. Nobody wants to hear a sad and tragic or a hateful story so try narrating down the things that make you feel good about yourself or that you enjoy doing.
Be Clear about What you are Looking For– This is actually before starting writing your online dating profile. You should be very much clear if you are looking for something long-term or some good moment without any commitment.
Be what you are. Just don’t say one thing in the profile and then when talking to someone change the statement. This is not a cool manner. Being fully cleared from the very beginning will make it easier for you to create your profile.
Desperate of Arrogant – Being genuine is the crux of whatever you create on the dating site. I have seen people saying there is no need to show yourself as a desperate person or an arrogant self-centered person.
I tell, you to be who you are. It doesn’t matter as long as it connects you to your match. If you are desperately looking for some kind of date, it will be obvious from your style anyway. Your words and tone speak way louder than you could think, even though you don’t say it through words.
I was reading a profile and the person who created was actually putting their profile as an example and they were asking others to follow the pattern.
They were indeed very much successful in getting attention of many match seekers through their online dating profile but if I could tell them, I would have said they have attracted only their kind of date. They can’t apply the same strategy on every person’s online profile.
I felt no attraction in that profile—although it was well written but their style was very much self-centered. If I would be on the site, I would definitely have skipped their profile. This means, without their knowledge and using these words, their writing style has spoken all about them.
So be whoever you are, maintain your style. There is nothing wrong or right. Those who share the similar interests or personality traits as yours will definitely feel attracted to you.
Blank Parts – While talking about pictures part, I told you that don’t leave it blank. Nobody would like to talk with faceless person. It also gives a signal that you are not confident about your identity therefore hiding it.
Also, it happens that the Introduction (summary description) part about yourself and your match is left blank. People have either said, will tell later or don’t write anything at all.
This is no good example of yourself especially if you are looking for your other half. This shows that you are either very lazy or not very serious with this.
If you are really not serious, you are more than welcome to leave these places empty but if you are, don’t do it. It will not be a good impression in your online dating profile. As I said, nothing is right or wrong but, your every action (including your words) there, speaks about yourself.
Sleep Over it for a Night – Most of the times when you are writing something, you get into flow. After finishing it, a reading right away is not very helpful. Complete it and then close the page. Open it the next day and you will be able to fix any errors if found.
One more tip, I would like to add in here is that do the writing when you feel you can get in a flow or with lots of distraction, it wouldn’t give that great affect as desired.
CONCLUSION – ONLINE DATING PROFILE
Creating an online dating profile has to follow to main tips. You have to genuine, no matter who you are and what your like and dislike are. There is always someone waiting out there with something common with you.
Don’t try tricking people with manipulating information. Keep it in mind that your profile is similar to your resume. Keep positive aspect on the surface. Avoid using any words with negative connotation.
Also, if you are not comfortable with some obvious kind of personalities or person, instead of mentioning in the profile just name the opposite positive counterparts of these.
Later, when you receive messages, with paying a little close attention to their profiles you can filter and decide if you want to communicate with them or not. I wish you luck for success with your online dating profile.
