Online Dating Profile Tips and Peeves – Men

Mar 04, 2009 14 Comments »

A guy’s profile on a dating site is like a needle in a haystack, and not a lot of women like searching through haystacks, especially during allergy season.

This is why it’s so important to make a standout profile. Obviously. Also important is to avoid putting anything dumb in your profile. Once someone actually finds you amongst the thousands of others, you don’t want to give them a reason to move on.

Do – Put up good pictures. Note the plural. Note the good. Sure a lot of women out there say that looks aren’t important, but unless they’re reading and comparing what’s written in every single profile, you need something to draw them in.

Do – Smile. Just like meeting people in real life, it helps a whole lot if you don’t look creepy. Better yet, try to look approachable. Hence the smiling. You don’t need Hollywood looks, you just need to make someone say, “Hey, he looks friendly.” Of course, this means you should be smiling in your photo. You can pout all you want while browsing the site.

Do – Be original. So you’re funny, you like movies, enjoy music and going out with your friends? Writing just that is on par with a restaurant using “We have food” as their ad campaign. Really, try finding a few guys who don’t think they fit that description. Find things to write about that actually paint a picture of the kind of guy you are.

Do – Talk about things you are looking for. This doesn’t have to be overly detailed. Actually, it shouldn’t be. It just has to demonstrate that you have standards. Even if you don’t.

Don’t – Be bland. “I cook, like to read, work at a bank, and am looking for someone fun.” As great as it must be to find a man who cooks, for some reason women also want men with personalities. Write your profile in a way that creates a more personal feeling, something that suggests what you’re like in person.

Don’t – Use shirtless photos. This goes double for us string beans. For some reason, even women who are posed in Playboy Channel lingerie seem to look down upon this flaunting of hulking builds. Of course, maybe you’re only looking for the one’s who’ll drool and then email, in which case oil up and flex away. A compromise would be to get active shots of you on a beach. That way the photo is saying “Look how much fun I had last summer… oh, golly, are my hard abs showing?” This apparently neutralizes the turnoff factor.

Don’t – Write about how you can’t believe you’re on a dating site. “Man, I can’t believe I actually came to your party.” It doesn’t translate well in any situation. Unless you’re trying to attract someone who goes to online dating sites in hopes of finding men who don’t use online dating sites, it’s a pretty useless, let alone hollow and tired, statement to make.

Don’t – Talk about what you’re not looking for. Negatives just don’t set the right mood. Also, statements like “I don’t want to meet any backstabbing, cheating, no good, liars,” may subtly suggest you’ve got baggage.

A final thought: Writing emails is a hard task for a lot of people. When writing your profile, try to give people something to reply to or ask about. Make it easy for them.

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