Dear Horatio – Online Dating profiles that attract your kinda man!

Dear Horatio,

I have been doing the online dating thing for a while now, and I have had a few good dates and managed to avoid the multitude of crazies that populate those sites, BUT I haven’t really met anyone that I really connect with.  Could it be my profile?  

Un-Harmony

 

Dear Un-Harmony,

Thanks for sending the details of your profile.  I have read it and although there is nothing wrong with it, it also doesn’t inspire me either.  Fear not, this is not the end of the world.  We have to just remember that meeting people online calls for different dynamics and rules that don’t apply in a bar or coffee shop.  I have been meaning to write a list of things women should consider when they are writing their online profiles.  Here they are:

Vanilla is a great Ice Cream flavor, but sucks as a profile.  Too many profiles I come across look as if they were all written by the same person.  (A mid-level office worker somewhere in Ohio who has never taken a risk in her life.)  In an effort to come across as a pleasant, well rounded individual, too many women end up coming across as bland and generic, when they are everything but that.  If you don’t have plans to date 90% of the male population, why are you writing to please them?  We KNOW that you are comfortable sitting in and watching a DVD on the couch with a bottle of wine, and we KNOW that you like dressing up and going out occasionally.  Stop stating the obvious.  If you want a special man, then show that you are special woman.  So what if you have quirks!  So what if you have unusual passions!  Those are the things that make you who you are and since you most likely will not change them, don’t hide them.  Own them!  A woman doing things in her life that make her happy is truly attractive.

If you show me your passion, I will show you mine. Instead of saying, “I love being outdoors”, how about writing about the why?  Write about the way you like the quiet of an early morning forest, or the spiritual feeling you get when you are hiking on a high mountain trail.  Don’t worry about your passion not appealing to most men.  You don’t want to date most of them anyway.  Showing your quirks and passions will attract men of equal passion.  He will be more open about who he is if you are open about yourself.  Expressing your passion shows us that life with you will not be cookie-cutter.  It will be an adventure.   You can’t have chemistry if you are not even adding the best part of your formula to the equation

Stop sabotaging yourself. Ok, if you are seriously trying to find a guy online, why are you writing things that guarantee the good men will stay far away???  Online profiles are NOT the place to allude to all the baggage you are still carrying from your past relationships.  When you write things like “Looking for a man who doesn’t lie, cheat or play games”.  Duhhhhhh!!!! What? Do you think that all the other women that don’t explicitly say that are looking for that?  What you are actually doing is putting any potential date on the defensive from the first moment.  Instead of relaxing and allowing themselves to be themselves, they are too busy “self monitoring” in order to not cross any of your red lines.  The consequence of this is that a smart man (the ones you want) won’t even get into that kind of situation.  Why should he try and make amends for some other guys screw up?  A smart guy KNOWS that we all have some baggage from previous relationships, but we want to go into a new relationship knowing that we are being judged on OUR merits and not the failings of others.  At least knowing that you are giving us the opportunity to show you that we are men of character starts the relationship off on a good foot.  Save the drama for your mama!!

So think about these things as you write or re-vamp your online profile.  And while you are at it, get rid of the pics of your little “Paris Hilton” dogs.  Nothing screams “high maintenance“ like a pic of a Chihuahua.  But maybe that’s just me.

Horatio has spoken.

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