Tips for writing the perfect dating profile
A large part of the work I do is either writing or revamping clients’ online dating profiles. I do this via Zoom, where clients can share their phone screens with me (isn’t technology grand?), and I can see exactly what’s going on in their accounts.
The conversation usually goes like this:
Client: “Online dating isn’t working for me.”
Me: “What part isn’t working? Are you not getting matches on the sites? Are the conversations fizzling out before the date? Are the dates not going the way you’d like? Are you meeting nice people but just not feeling a connection?”
Depending on the client, the answers vary, but some part is usually that they are not getting enough matches on the dating apps.
So then I look at the profile. I’m usually shocked at how little information the client has shared.
And then, of that information, how generic — or, dare I say, boring — it is.
For example, I was on a session with a client the other day, and the Bumble prompt read, “I get way too excited about …”
She had written “books.” That was it! Not the genre of books, not paper books vs. audiobooks, not bookstores or her personal shelves. Just books.
So I asked some questions about her life. “What’s your favorite snack? (My personal favorite question.) What kinds of things do you like to do on the weekends? If your friends teased you, what would it be about? Do you have any hidden talents/ party tricks?”
No, these are not questions that get to the core of her being. But they are certainly ones that make her stand out on the dating sites.
With the new information I had garnered, I rewrote the answer to the prompt as, “I get way too excited about … momand-pop bookstores, Broadway soundtracks (especially ‘Avenue Q’), no-alarm mornings, a wellmade Negroni, Tuesday holidays (so you can take Monday off).”
We just learned so much more about her in under 200 characters than we did with “books.”
In addition, she has now provided so much “message bait” to the people who may be interested in her, meaning they have a lot of options to engage, like asking about her favorite bookstore, where she gets the best Negroni, what time she wakes up in the morning sans alarm.
Once you have a good conversation going, it’s much easier to convert it into a date.
The conversation should be like a funnel. You start broad, say, asking about the bookstore. Then, you narrow it down, “Do you have a favorite?” Then maybe you talk about what neighborhood it’s in. Then perhaps, “Oh, maybe we should check it out together.” And it’s a date!
Will it always be that easy? Of course not. But we want to give ourselves the best chance possible, and we can do that by making the profile unique and specific.
When writing your profile, think about whether the information you’ve provided makes it easy 1) for someone to learn about you and 2) to facilitate a date. If not, take a step back to think about what makes you, well, you!