Online dating is popular, but definitely not easy. What advantages and pitfalls it brings are summarized in our article Online dating – unlimited possibilities or a painful path? The first look at online dating is precisely the user’s profile, but considerable demands are placed on it. The profile should be interesting, at the same time true, authentic and should reflect the personality and what the person is looking for. But how to achieve all this in a relatively limited format? Here are some tips and tricks.
The photo is alpha and omega.
Online dating sites are a place where the quantity of potential candidates is filtered based on photos, which is where it all starts. As shallow as this selection is, that’s just how online dating works. If a photo is to attract attention, it must be relevant and somewhat unconventional. Have a photo of you cooking, baking a cake, hiking, skating or cycling. According to surveys, this type of photo receives up to 40 percent more messages than photos with only a face. The most successful photos on dating sites are those where a person is doing interesting activities, with pets or while traveling. On the contrary, photos with a person with alcohol receive far fewer reactions. It is good to be careful with photos of the opposite sex or with children, even if they are family members, because it can appear more unclear and scare away potential applicants.
A profile that is general is fine. However, specific is best.
Anyone who has ever been on a dating site knows that in addition to the photo, the description below can also be quite interesting. Well, not necessarily always. Many descriptions are, so to speak, copied. Enumeration of general characteristics, and list those that you expect in the person you are looking for. You probably won’t offend anyone, but you probably won’t impress anyone either. It is good to be more specific. Instead of listing all your good qualities, it is better to choose only a few and describe them in more detail. Instead of a blunt “I enjoy sports”, it is better to state, for example, “I have liked to swim since I was a child and recently I have been training intensively for a triathlon”. The same goes for the blunt “I like to read”, try replacing it with specific authors, genres and why you like them. There are no limits to the description, and of course the more engaging, the better. It is possible to describe your hobbies as traveling through a specific experience that a person has from a trip. Hitchhiking, camping, non-traditional travel experiences.
It is better not to fill in the information than to lie.
As with photos and personal information, people tend to manipulate them to some extent. Why add something somewhere and take something away, for example height, age or weight. According to surveys, people on their profiles add three centimeters to their height, lose two kilograms and report that they are one to two years younger. It is not necessary to fill in everything on the profile, so things that a person does not want to admit to do not need to be mentioned, better than lying. A lie has short legs, and the truth will most likely be revealed at a potential first face-to-face meeting anyway.
Briefly and clearly.
Even if the description on the profile doesn’t lie, few people want to read cute essayistic works there. Searchers mostly only spend a minute or two on the profile, and the length of the text needs to be adapted to that. If it’s a bio/advertisement of some kind, five shorter sentences is the ideal length. Of course it depends on the type of online dating site. Some give space for more branched sentences, but some don’t even allow you to write more than a certain number of words in terms of content.
Even though creating an ideal profile may sound difficult and even unrealistic, you can’t go wrong if you are truthful and especially authentic, because this is what weighs the most during a personal meeting anyway.