What does your online dating profile say about you?

Woman holding her phone in front of her laptopSo many of my female friends have asked me to have a look at their online dating profile and give them feedback from a mans point of view. Some of them have even made me write their profiles and choose which pictures they place online. I’m happy to say that I have a 100% success rate in matching these girls with the type of man that they were looking for. An online dating profile is almost like a CV for most people now. When I was online dating I found that there were so many women who were trying to pack in as many of their good points as possible.

The overly comprehensive and the very short profiles are not ideal so it’s about finding a middle ground.

One girl who’s profile I was writing said that she was keen to show the guys that she was fun, well travelled, bilingual, ambitious, intellectual, caring, raunchy, a good cook, someone with great values, one of the guys, one of the girls, was cute in a onesie, was hot in a dress, comfortable getting dressed up to go out but equally happy to snuggle in pyjamas on a Sunday and so on and so forth. Her first draft contained 27 pictures, a 1000 word description and countless other bits of information. Some of the pictures were of some scenery and did not contain her face. She wanted to show her future prince charming all the places that she had been to. She also put up pictures of her posing with her mother so that he could see what she would look like as she aged. The 1000 word description listed every one of the abilities that she possessed as well as her likes and dislikes. From start to finish it took me 9 minutes to go through her profile. She was happy for me to share her first draft with the guys.

I had to find out what different things meant to different men. Also in order to get a good set of opinions I took this conversation to 67 men overall. The purpose of this was to see what they made of a comprehensive profile and how much time they spent on average looking at a woman’s profile. Most of the men said that they looked at profiles in this order, Pictures (if not appealing they would immediately move on), height (to make sure she wasn’t too tall, interestingly not many said too short and I had some guys who were 6’5 plus) age (making sure she wasn’t too old) racial preference (to make sure that she would date them and it wouldn’t be a waste of his time to message her). Most of the guys said that they only skimmed through a few sentences in the description and would only read the full thing if they started talking to the person.

An online dating profile is almost like a CV for most people now.

The guys then mentioned which words were most likely to get their attention or what opinions, certain words made them form of the girl. A girl was more likely to get a skimmers attention if adventurous appeared within her profile because it meant that she was exciting and out there. When it came to pictures none of the guys had an interest in pictures of mountains or landscapes and in fact were surprised to find out that the reason women posted those pictures was to show off their travel scenery pictures. The guys thought that it was pretentious and said they’d rather see the pictures of the lady and find out about where she’d travelled to when they got talking. The picture preferences that the guys wanted were at least 3 clear, current ones where you could see the face, at least two full body shots and (no surprise here) some bikini shots. This was what was most likely to get their attention and all that was needed for them to make a decision.

Another popular picture that women put up was of them posing with a glass of wine, some sort of cocktail or a big jug of beer. The girls I spoke to said that they were trying to convey that they liked to go to bars and enjoyed a good drink. The guys were 50/50, some said that it looked a bit like the person might have a drink problem while the others said that they at least knew that they could hang out in bars with the girl. The guys said that a good headline was always welcome as it could help them form a quick impression of the girl.

Regardless of how you look at it, a dating profile will always be superficial as there are so many layers to a person. A dating profile shows you only the best bits and it’s very difficult for a guy to get to know you regardless of how much information you put on there. You’ll naturally get to know each other as you spend time with each other. Some of you will disagree and say that it’s important to put as much out there as possible in order to find someone with common ground, yes indeed there are many dating sites that cater specifically for people who want to be comprehensive but we all know which one is the most successful and it doesn’t require more than a few pictures and a two sentence description. The overly comprehensive and the very short profiles are not ideal so it’s about finding a middle ground.

About the author

Munir Bello is our resident male dating blogger: ‘Men Uncovered Blog’. Each week he will answer the most common questions posed by women about men. Munir Bello is the Author of The Break Up Recipe, A 5 star rated romantic comedy about break ups and relationships from a mans point of view, available on Amazon as a download or paperback. . Follow Munir on Twitter @munirbello1983 or www.facebook.com/thebreakuprecipe
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3 Responses
  1. interracial romance

    Dating sites are probably as old as the internet and with the range of services that the internet offers these days, you might think that even the best dating sites are changing. It is gearing to help people in their cities connect with each other with easy access and a better way of communication. Once I started using interracial romance , everything changed for the better.

  2. Great post Munir – as someone who met their second husband online this was very interesting.
    Yes there is hope out there ladies!

    For me it was first of all about finding the right site before I could find the right man.

    Some of them were too generic and had a zillion people on them – it was a case of quantity versus quality.
    Others required someone else to write your profile which you could not amend.
    And finally some matched you to the person directly so you couldn’t even browse for pictures.

    It was an adventure and am wishing Jeri above the best of luck.

  3. I’ve recently entered the dating arena again after nearly 16 years of marriage. There is certainly a lot to learn now that social media is in the mix… and yes I am on match.com!