ummm… who’s e.e. cummings? :o
also, thank you! i’m all smiles now! 
<<hugs-n-kisses>>
good luck on saturday 
An early 20th century poet who didn’t have much respect for traditional rules of text layout. If you’ve got a few minutes, plug his name into Google–he did some good stuff.
It’s David Sedaris, isn’t it? Drop the part about your previous intro sucking.
You also get an invite to the SDMB real friends club.
I agree with ultrafilter, drop the negative part where you come down on your previous profile sucking. Other than that, it looks good. You mention you work out 3 days a week? Maybe have a body shot of you that shows off that hard work? (not hitting on you or anything, just giving a suggestion. I’m sure it would be a draw for some ladies ).
Somebody messaged me about my profile out of the blue! :eek: This is first time since I’ve had the profile up that somebody noticed my profile and messaged me. Up until now it has just been me messaging women, and getting their replies back. I always hoped someone would message me out of the blue because it would be a better indication of how interested they were in me!
I’ve been pretty active in the critiquing, and it’s been a while since I posted the link to my own profile (in fact, I just realized that I haven’t posted it in this thread yet), so in the interest of being fair here’s me. I feel pretty comfortable with my profile, but I don’t want anyone to feel that I’m not willing to experience some quid pro quo.
Dude, much better. Pics are good, and I actually get a feel for who you are now . . . also, your answer in the “most private thing” section made me laugh.
Looks fine to me.
Hey, I think all of the critiques here should be taken with a grain of salt – including, if not especially, mine. We don’t know each other personally. Besides, it’s always harder to write your own profile than to critique someone else’s!
What ultrafilter said; specifically, I was referring to your lack of capital letters. {grin}
Yay!! See, patience pays off . . .
NOt to get oo off topic (though I think we already have…) what is a good thing to say if I message someone?
Obviously, I want to avoid things like:
“You’re hot! Wanna get to gether?”
and, “u r 2 cute msg me, k babe?”
but beyond that I’m really have no idea what to say. In a couple other online sites like this, I would generally just say I thought they looked attractive and that I liekd their profile. But this jsut seems so generic. Odds are, fifty other guys are saying the exact saem thing.
::gulp::
Okay, I figure after four pages I can take the plunge. I know everyone’s first comment will be to add pictures, but I don’t have home internet right now so that’s tricky. I’d love some input on what is there though.
Drop the first few sentences of your self-summary–you know which ones I mean.
Thanks. Like I said, I’ve been spending a lot of time on it lately and that’s the end result of hours of tweaking and it’ll probably undergo dozens more subtle revisions before I’m finally satisfied with it.
Good question. I just ran across someone that seems incredibly cool and I’m at a loss as to what to say to her or if I should even bother since “gee, you’re swell” probably wouldn’t be the best way to introduce myself. Plus, per her “you should message me if” entry, I’m pretty much the opposite of what she’s looking for – she’s looking for a local woman to date whereas I live 50 miles away, am male, and don’t really want a relationship – but she did say she was open minded and … blah.
I didn’t even want to join this stupid site. I’m going to hurt **ava **the next time I see her.
Find something interesting in her profile and talk about it. The generic “wow, I think yer purty” usually get deleted. For example, I mention my obsession with Japanese and one guy even went to the trouble translating “greetings” into Japanese for his header. Got it wrong, but the effort was cute. And in the body of his message, he mentioned a book we had in common. That’s what’ll get you noticed; women tend to get a lot of “generic” messages so you have to show you’ve actually read her profile.
Also, just pick one or two things to mention. Don’t feel like you need to go through her profile line by line and comment on every single sentence. I had a guy do that recently and the email was like two pages long. (you should have seen the paragraph where he tried to reconcile his tastes with my line about hating yo-yos ) That combined with his incredibly long profile convinces me that he never freakin’ shuts up IRL. Make the initial email fairly short and punchy, just like your ad.
Here’s my advice on something that took me a month to hammer out:
When you see their profile, bring up Microsoft Word (or whatever word processor you use) and start writing them a reply in there. That way, you can quickly identify spelling errors and run-on sentences. Since the program still can miss some mispelled words, be sure to proofread! Once you're done, copy/paste it over in the 'reply' field. I like to have their profile up while I'm typing, that way I can mention certain details about them while I am writing. The best thing to mention is the parts of their profile you found interesting, and any common ground. I like to have a mix of a little about myself, and a little of what I liked about their profile. If there are some details you are curious about, ask! The advantage of meeting local people is you have a better chance of mutually knowing certain places, "Have you ever been to ____?". Try to make statements/ask questions that would beckon the person to reply, because you are so damn interesting they want to know more about *you*.
Paragraph breaks are good. Be sincere; chances are the shy pretty girl is going to be more interested in the one message that talks about what a great sense of humor she has, rather than the 99 messages that say, "dam ur hot!". Put a lot of thought into the title; I avoid having titles like 'Hi!' or 'Nice profile!'. Instead I might put in some movie quote/reference that she mentioned she loves, or some detail about her interests/hobbies to show that you actually read her profile and find something about her interesting.
Incubus
Can you guys tell that work is slow today?
My advice is to pick something she mentions in her profile (especially if she mentions anything specific in her “message me if” section), and expand on it. I’ve only initiated messaging twice, but both times I got a good response that led to a real-life meeting; and both times, I used that method.
The first time, the guy’s “message me if” section had a list of 4 things, and I matched 3/4 of them. He also used an unusual word (salutary) as one of his adjectives, so with a subject line of “Salutary, Eh?” I wrote:
The second time, the guy mentioned a strong interest in politics, including a love of discussing/debating them. So I used that as my opener, and also incorporated a couple of other things from his profile and one of the qualities OK Cupid ascribed to him. With a subject line of “I still have a lot to learn about politics . . .,” I wrote:
So those are just two examples, and they probably wouldn’t have “worked” on anyone but the guys I was replying to, but you get the idea of the method I’m talking about.
An example of a message I liked that I received also used that method, where he addressed everything in my “message me if” section:
I was happy to see that he paid attention to my profile, and I found his comments amusing, so I replied.
Anyway, these are just some ideas . . . you’ll find your own “style” eventually. Just don’t come up with a template that you copy and paste every time: those are always obvious, and I find them quite annoying.
As usual, I agree with ultrafilter. And I’ll add my usual rant: Post a photo! Post a photo! Post a photo!
I think if you make it clear that you’re just interested in a friendship, you could go ahead and message her. Make sure she knows that you didn’t ignore her “message me if” section. She might not be interested in making new friends, especially ones far away, but if your opener is clear and considerate enough you should at least get a “thanks but no thanks” reply.
Several years ago I was using matchmaker.com, and for a lark I looked up profiles of women in my area (checking out the competition, doncha know). I saw a profile of a woman who lived near me and seemed really, really cool, so I sent her a message! I made it clear that I wasn’t hitting on her (but also that there wasn’t anything wrong with that, as she was bisexual), just that I saw her profile and thought she sounded cool. She was impressed that I had the (figurative) balls to write to her, and we wound up meeting and being friends IRL for about a year. So you never know!
(Dammit, every time I preview there’s another new message or two . . . but I’m giving up for now! ;))
While the person I’m referring to is indeed gorgeous, it’s her profile that actually made me really take notice. On personals sites like this, a pretty face is easy to find someone attractive, an interesting personality is a bit more difficult, but a combination of the two is almost impossible. To me, at least; all the really attractive people always seem to be nothing like me and share no common interests.
Of course, since I am not looking for a relationship, it’s a little odd that her attractiveness is even a factor but I’m a guy and I can’t help it.
Or something like that.
Easy enough. Considering how nervous I was about it getting ripped to shreds, I find it oddly comforting that this was the only comment. Thanks!
Okay, my turn.
I know the “About Me” essay needs rewriting. How good is it so far?
And I’m glad to see that my idea started the SDMB friends club.
Thanks!
For as many times as I’ve gone over my profile, it’s hard to believe I missed the spelling all that time. I think the negative came from getting a little punchy after looking at it for so long. Thanks for the invite…accepted:)
I’m working on that. I’ve got my friends scouring their hard drives!
And one more time for good measure…thanks
I have tried to stay away from this thread because I think I’m too harsh, so sorry if this offends! Hope it helps…
Change the photo, looks like a mug shot.
**My self-summary: **
When did you do this travel? Reads like it was last weekend.
Wow, you had so much fun in Europe, you want to spend a **whole ** week there? Easy tiger! Perhaps reword to say that you’d like to spend a longer time there. You visit your family on public holidays? Not very unusual surely?
This is basically all about travel, not telling us much about you as a person. You could also reword slightly, it’s all pretty simple, needs more adjectives.
**I’m really good at: **
Check the tenses here, you flip in and out a bit (i.e. perhaps “I have done very well in competitions over the past 2 years” is better) .
Also it’s a little blah - nothing quirky here, nothing that makes me say “Hey, this guy would be fun to date”. Perhaps pull in some of your spontaneous travel stuff here? What are you good at that a girl might enjoy?
**My favorite books, movies, music, and foods are: **
It’s Caribbean I think.
“I’ve hardly met a book I didn’t like” - OK, but this could also mean, “I have no taste in literature and I’ll read any old crap”. Specify what you have recently read at the very least.
This seems quite short - are there sections missing?
I think your six things part sounds pretentious. Since you probably can and do go without Paris in the springtime, for example.
You’re welcome.