How to write a great dating profile
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Someone recently asked me to edit her dating profile. I told her I was the last person on earth she should be asking because I have never been an online dater and would probably be terrible at it.
There is, for instance, not a single picture of me in existence where I look warm, approachable, smiling or fun. I am, however, a writing professor, so I tried to help. When people are nervous or self-conscious, as the dating profile writer likely is, they write toward what is expected, toward clichés and platitudes and predictable tropes.
“Looking for someone sweet and funny." “Looking for someone sensitive and kind." But if you are trying to distinguish yourself from a sea of people, you don’t want to use the exact words everyone else is using. In dating profiles, as in all writing, generic is bad; specific is good. Think of the qualities you are looking for and try to telegraph them in a setting.
A man looking for someone independent could write: “Not afraid to eat a hamburger alone at a bar." At all costs, avoid beaches, travel, sunsets. If you really must include a beach, render it with details: “Reading a Graham Greene novel under a palm tree." In conveying the unpredictable, the distinct, the unique, contradictions work well. For things you like, “High heels, 19th-century novels, mojitos" is better than “Netflix, staying in, cozy beds." Something like “Diva, brainiac, sex kitten" is more intriguing than “Bookish, nerdy, erudite." People often feel the need to present a more perfect, polished, gleaming version of themselves.
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