I worked with a guy in the States on his match.com dating profile. And between us we created the perfect profile… or so I thought.
He came up with a great line himself that we added into his profile; it was words to this affect… ‘Looks to me are not important, what is important is that a woman has a good sense of humour and is ambitious’.
When I asked him how he was getting on with his match.com profile he was very disappointed. He had a lot of interest but not interest from the type of women he wanted.
Can anyone hazard a guess what sort of women would reply to an ad with this sentence in?
It was those women that genuinely believed this comment. So he had a lot of over weight women contacting him, and as someone that went to the gym 6 days a week he wanted to date women that were physically fit. That is fair enough because there is someone for everyone, and some guys prefer larger women, but this sentence is completely misleading. I didn’t think to question it, because it was something he came up with, it didn’t occur to me that this wasn’t true.
N.B: You must never write things that you think women want to hear, if you don’t mean them.
When you are creating an online profile you need to think about the sort of people you want to attract (this goes for women too), and word your profile to attract those people. If you don’t want to waste your time then the clearer your profile is about what you offer and what you are looking for then the less time you will waste.
Isn’t it better to get less women contacting you, and for them to be the women you want to date, than to have lots of women contacting you that aren’t your cup of tea?
For example to get the women he was looking to date contacting him, he should have said this….
‘Keeping fit and the gym is a big part of my life. I’m looking for someone sporty and physically fit’
This is a subtle and kind way of saying that you don’t want to date someone who is overweight.
Lets look at some other comments and how they are interpreted (these are all things I’ve seen on dating websites):
‘I don’t really know what to write here all I pretty much do is eat, sleep and work’
Translates as: I’m a complete bore and have no life
‘in my spare time I go to the gym 7 days a week and I’m studying for my xxx, which take a lot of my time’
Translates as: I don’t have time to date
‘I don’t want any bunny boilers’
Translates as: I attract bunny boilers and I’ve been out with a few so I’m not a good judge of character
‘I’m looking for a wife’
Translates as: I’m desperate
‘Looking to have some fun’
Translates as: I have a girlfriend and I’m bored so I don’t really want to date. I just want to send inane messages back and forth, hopefully they’ll get a bit sexual so I can get off on them, and if you’re lucky I might be up for meeting for a shag.
You need to think carefully about your profile and how it’s worded because it’s the ‘read between the lines’ stuff that’s most interesting. We all do it, and maybe a lot of the time the assumptions are wrong, but it’s good to have think and try and preempt what people will read into what you say.
Remember: The clearer and more concise you are in your profile then the better.