An ideal profile would have your most recent photo that shows you in a best way, as close to what you look like in real life as possible and one or two paragraphs that would compliment your photo, describing exactly who you are and what you want in your ideal relationship. If you really think about it, your goal is to attract your ideal mate, not to get as many replies as possible. If you post a deceiving photo that hides what you think your imperfections are, you will attract someone who may like your misleading photo and have a wrong idea about what you really look like. Unless you goal is to go on as many dates as possible to get good at dating, it is actually better to have fewer quality dates than many 1st dates that lead you nowhere.
Your photo makes up 70 percent of your profile, what you write is an extension of your photo that further describes your personality. By looking at both, you photo and your brief description people form their vague idea of who you are and then decide whether or not they are interested in getting to know more about you. Again, the goal is not to attract as many people as possible but to attract someone who's vague idea about you would be as accurate as possible. This seems simple, but many people would rather put a photo that's too blurry or too small, hardly shows their face as long as it does a good job hiding their imperfections. One of the biggest complaints I receive from my clients who do online dating is that people don't look like their pictures. And then there is another extreme, a possibility to miss out on a good candidate because your photo didn't do you any justice. People will not see you the same way you see yourself. Sometimes they find something very attractive about you that you never even thought of being attractive. It may be a good idea to actually get a professional to do your head shot. You don't have to spend hundreds on it but I'm sure there are plenty of services out there who do just photographs for online dating.
Some profiles I see out there go on and on and on, while others prefer to just say a few words like 'I'm open to whatever comes.' I can see where you come from, but the problem with either way is that people don't really get the chance to 'get to know' you before they move on. And that's a recipe to attract a lot of what you don't want while missing out on an ideal partner. If your profile is too long, most people won't read it and move on to someone else. If it's too short, then people will mostly judge you by your photo and you will either miss many qualified candidates because you didn't add anything to grab their attention or you will get a lot of responses from people who are not a good match for you. Of course, you want to be flexible but to a certain point and if there is one thing you don't want to compromise on it's your core values. It is an absolute must to include what you're passionate about.
One of the biggest 'don'ts' is don't lie on your profile. People will always find out the truth and when they do, they will get frustrated and turned off. Not so much because they found out the truth, but because they found out you lied. Years ago, when I was doing online dating, one guy wrote to me. On his profile his age was 38, he was 42. Not a big difference really, but he lied about his age because he wanted to get into the 30-40 box. I can see where he was coming from — he wanted a woman who was in her early thirties. Some women in their thirties don't mind dating a man who is a decade older. The problem is that by fabricating his age, he was trying to get attention from the ones who were looking for men under 40. So he was setting himself up to be rejected. Lying is also an indication of low self-esteem because you are giving out a message that you're not comfortable with the truth about yourself. That can be unattractive. On the other hand, being comfortable with who you are, makes you even more attractive, especially to your ideal mate.
----------------------------------------------------
Katherine Bouglai
Dating Coach
http://www.coaching4singles.com
|
|
|
last viewed articles
