I just wanted to list some obvious mistakes that people make on profiles generally.
I hope this doesn’t sound too “judgey”…certainly from the number of responses my profile gets, I have a lot to learn too…
Anyway, a couple off the top of my head:
Pictures with your ex
Ok, maybe it’s your friend or brother. But if your friend or brother looks a similar level of attractiveness to you, and you look super happy hugging him, in a photo that’s just the two of you…probably don’t use that on your profile.
Talking about how your child is “your world” or whatever
It should go without saying that your child is more important to you than some rando from Tinder. Using the first few lines of your profile to explicitly say this, seems a bit weird and like you’re anticipating a fight over you.
No real photos
e.g. just long distance photos, or a picture of a landscape or whatever. I get that you think personality should be more important than aesthetics. But I think most people are going to need to at least see an adult woman before they will start investing their time.
I know you’re just writing from your point of view, but this phrasing separates the world into “people” and “women”, like those are the two options. And there’s no need to gender it at all, as women probably also like to see pictures of women or men that they are potentially interested in.
The reason I phrased it like that was just because I’ve only seen profiles from the women category, so I don’t know if profiles from other categories have the same issue. And I didnt want to make any assumptions about the gender of the viewer.
I accept that, despite writing it deliberately like that, it was still awkward phrasing though.
Nope, not unless you’re in the witness protection program, in which case I wouldn’t date you anyway because I don’t want to get “whacked” along with you when they do eventually find you.
You get bonus points if the picture is you with your cat.
While that would be nice (I agree posting what you can offer is important), if you don’t say what your “type” is or what you find unattractive, then you’ll end up wasting all your time shooting people down, which is no fun, and it wastes their time too. Either that or you just ignore their messages which is a crappy situation as well. I think it’s more of a defense mechanism than anything, in part because some dating apps that have a very limited amount of space for profile text, so you have to pick your battles.
Back when I looked at dating profiles, the most frustrating ones were the ones that cast too wide a net.
“I’m open to anything from a night of dinner and dancing to pizza and TV on the couch”
“I’m comfortable in anything from tuxedos and gowns to jeans and a t-shirt”
I have no idea if you are compatible with me if you are trying to be compatible with everybody on the planet.
It’s been a long time since I was involved with online dating profiles but the ones that bugged me were ones that highlighted interests that 90% of people have. Oh, you like going to movies and hiking and eating out at restaurants and swimming at the beach and relaxing at home? Amazing, me too! It’s like we were born for each other!
The A #1, be-all, end-all mistake people (men, anyway) make in their dating profiles is making it about themselves and not about what they bring to the table for the other person.
It’s an advertisement. Do successful ads talk about what the company wants or doesn’t like? Of course not. They talk about why their product is great for you, or what they can do for you.
With that in mind, write your dating profiles with that in the back of your head- you’re basically trying to make yourself stand out and explain to someone why they should want to go out with you.
So figure out what the people you want to date are looking for (i.e. read a shitload of their profiles and look for commonalities), and then tailor your profile to meet those commonalities, or if you don’t match them, re-evaluate why you’re looking to date those people in the first place.
