If that’s a coffee you’re drinking with two hands, I’d worry that you’d be really jittery.
If it’s cereal milk, that’s kind of a deal-breaker.
If it’s beer, are you free for dinner?
In their defense, you might as well just message the cute ones, because women’s profiles are almost all interchangeable and mostly suck. Oh, you love going out sometimes but staying in other times? You like to run 5Ks? You like to travel? You want a man who is equally comfortable at McDonald’s and Eleven Madison Park? The most private thing you’re willing to admit is that you’re using a dating site? What a unique little snowflake.
Don’t forget that she’s never done anything like this before.
Yeah. I’m inclined to agree. The first thing I did was click on pictures. The opportunity cost of me wasting my time reading a generic profile (myself included) vs taking in a thousand words at a time via the pictures is just not worth it.
I think nitpicking her profile is really nitpicking for nitpicking’s sake. She just wants to interesting people. Not desperate for love or anything like that.
First impressions, I would say that your’e cute, but on the short side. A little too crunchy granola for my taste, and way too many sunglass pictures. I think your best picture is the one without sunglasses and dressed the most… conservatively? That could be personal taste.
Also, you don’t show your teeth when you smile, heavliy accessorize the wrist and ears, and really into fingernail polish. Not judgments, just observations.
Yeah, could you, like, change that?
The point of critiquing a profile is not to say whether or not she’d be good for you, personally, but rather, to help her “sell” or “explain” better who she is so she can better attract the right type of guy for her.
I agree with previous advice that I would try and be a little bit less generic. Not that you have to be wacky when you’re not, but it’s better if there is something a dating prospect can grab onto. Like, the already mentioned “trivia du jour” or say something about the theme of your novel. Something that someone can ask you about. And yes, a lot of guys won’t because they only looked at the picture. And if you’re like me, you’ll forgive the really hot ones. But a good guy will ask something about your profile if you give them something to latch onto.
Yeah, and every guy’s profile doesn’t begin with “I’m a laid back guy. I’m funny and can be pretty sarcastic at times” appended with similar drivel about how they love to travel and music is important to them, bla bla bla. So no, you may as well not just e-mail the cute ones. E-mailing the *interesting *ones would be a better idea than firing off the same shitty e-mail to everyone you see who looks vaguely attractive and is getting the same exact e-mail from other guys who have done the same exact thing.
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If it’s cereal milk, that’s kind of a deal-breaker.
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OK, see, for me that would be a +1. You would totally get points for drinking cereal milk like that, extra for actually posting a pic of it. I guess it’s the whole “your trash is my treasure” thing.
I don’t send the same shitty email to every vaguely attractive woman. I send a different shitty email to every vaguely attractive woman.
Oh. Well that’s legit.
Effort is sexy. I’m guessing here. I’m married so I don’t know what sexy means.
I’ll add more detail to the profile then so it’s not just a long line of lists. I will need to think of some random trivia to add on there. The Law Student asked me to name as many Roman emperors as I could, but that’s note cute or fun.
I get a shitload of messages on this current profile and I got a shitload of messages on my silly one, so I figure for most guys it doesn’t matter if I look cute or am silly.
It was a big giant cafe au lait at a French restaurant.
My website for writing is http://tragedyofthemundane.com/. I also have a few things on http://belowthefloorboards.com/ and am a contributing writer to http://ezkool.com/. Should all be safe for work.
As an aside from all this, Law Student texted me to say he should be free today then after I told him I was done with work said he coudn’t. I told him it sounds like he’s not very interested and that perhaps we should just let it be and he said 'Woah woah, I just work 24/7." To which I replied with all the stuff I have planned and to let me know if he doesn’t have any 24 hour days planned in the near future.
Really Boring Guy just sent a text saying “Hey” and a few hours later another “Hey” this time with my name. I didn’t reply.
Maybe add some things that you’ve done recently that you found fun. Something that says “if we did this on a date I’d have a good time”.
If you want common interests, perhaps you need to join a group or club to meet like minded men.
For boring, nothing beats one date I went on where the woman said nothing, zero, nada. I got the feeling she really just wanted a free movie out of the “date”.
Needless to say, we didn’t go out again.
It’s not about trivia!
Your profile is a little dull because you don’t seem to express any passion about anything. You sound depressed, especially in the self-summary part. You highlight the negatives a lot - getting nauseous in cabs, not being fashion-y, not eating animals, not being a well-known writer… it’s a huge downer. It shouldn’t be about what you hate, it should be about what you love. Flip those over and say you just love riding your bike everywhere because it’s faster than traffic and you like the workout. You’re a vegetarian because you’re mad about sprouts. Embellish a little, and make it more interesting. If you’re a writer, you should already be good at this - why not use those skills in your profile? Instead of “my bicycle”, try something like “My sweet green ten-speed with the bell on the handlebars” or something.
[QUOTE=Your Profile]
I went to college for Fashion Merchandising. I’m not that fashion-y though and prefer clothes from the thrift store to anything designer.
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Well, then why did you go to school for that? What are you doing now besides wearing thrift store and designer clothes? Where do you work? Also, saying you like anything from thrift store to designer makes me think that you ARE fashiony and interested in clothes, so I’m confused.
Do you have any friends you could ask to write up that section for you, maybe highlight aspects of yourself that you aren’t bringing up?
All that said, there will still be tons of losers who don’t read it and message you because you’re cute. The way I see it, a solid profile is more important for when you’re messaging guys you like, because they’ll come back and check you out a little more attentively than the drive-bys will.
I think it is just as good as most of the profiles out there. Problem is you are in NYC - and that is competitive.
I would suggest a few things:
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Don’t make your primary photo one with sunglasses. On the ones you have now - I’d pick the one with you in the black top sort of in a yoga pose.
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Get a pick with at least one other person. It makes it look like you have friends.
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Have at least one pick with a smile. I have no problem with pics where women aren’t smiling - as long as I can see one with her teeth. Otherwise guys are thinking - what is she hiding. If you have perfectly nice teeth - this may have not occurred to you. Once you go on a date with someone with bad teeth that wasn’t visible in her pics - it will ALWAYS occur to you.
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Put the date on one of your most recent pics - so people know you haven’t ballooned up to 200 lbs.
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If you have no problem with meat eaters - say that - otherwise you are going to alienate all the men who do eat meat.
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How do you plan on going on dates together that aren’t in walking distance? Do you really hate the train to the point you won’t ride one with a boyfriend?
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Do you live with your mom? If not - I’d leave the part out about you having pets at your mom’s place. Most guys don’t care if you have title to a pet. They care if you have pets living with you.
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Answer more questions. The way the algo works - you’ve only answered 25 questions which means they put in a margin of error that will be fairly high in your case. You won’t be able to even get higher than probably around a 95-96% match - which puts you 3-4 points behind other people.
You are cute - which is great.
There is no shortage of vegetarian women with cats though. It doesn’t even have you listed as looking for short or long term dating. Most guys aren’t looking for just friends. I would suggest flushing out your profile with activities that you like that a guy could ask you out to do.
Antigen has some very good observations. You never want anything even slightly negative in your profile, no matter how innocuous, as it plants a little negative seed the reader’s head that makes them feel negative about you. I would remove every reference to what you are not or what you do not like-- even “I am vegetarian” is much better than “I don’t eat meat.”
Then I would work on articulating what you are enthusiastic about. Your profile comes across as oddly non-commital. You never really show much excitement or investment in anything except writing (which is pretty vague- are you writing slash fiction? political commentary? travelogues? scholarly tomes?), which you immediately say you aren’t good at. After reading it, I’ve learned some facts about you (you studied fashion, you wear thrift store clothes), but almost nothing about your personality or what makes you tick.
If you want to attract interesting guys, try to convey what makes you interesting. Try to seem vibrant, fascinating, exciting, and enthusiastic. Make them want to learn more about you.
Your profile just makes you sound serious and dull and high maintenance: no trains, no cabs, vegetarian, fifty year old movies. It’s like you wrote a profile of what you think you should be, or what a guy would be interested in rather than who you really are. Do you really spend your days walking the city, eating bean sprouts, and watching black-and-white movies? Doubtful…
Antigen has some good advice–write about what gets you going, not what you’re not into…
You didn’t address my observation that your punctuation choices reflected a lack of knowledge of proper punctuation, except by offering up these links.
So I visited the first, randomly selected a short story, and in the second paragraph therein I read:
Do you not see the problem with that second sentence?
Paris isn’t that much fun?