Internet Dating Profile Writing Advice: Aim for Positive Phrases

When you write your online dating profile for the singles apps and websites, be sure to aim for positive phrases in the text body of your internet personals ads.

I see it all the time, plus professional internet matchmaking profile writing clients of mine email me examples of dreadful dating profiles that singles around the world are posting.  You might think that with online dating now a mainstream mating and courting phenomena that I wouldn’t need to coach about this, but when you see those profiles, then you know there are plenty of love seeking singles who could use reading and implementing my dating advice.

You want to aim to keep all of the words you use in your dating profile upbeat and positive.  A number of sites encourage you to ponder and surface your “Non Negotiables” and “Must Have” attributes for what you desire in a romantic relationship with a potential boyfriend or girlfriend.  And while that is a useful exercise to do for yourself to know and for your own mate seeking and searching filters, to actually cite the negatives specifically in your internet personals ad is unattractive.

Why is it a problem to include any negatives in your personals ad?

Quite a number of the singles sites encourage their members to builds lists of characteristics and hobbies to cite like a tick list or to do list in their profile.  Naming a few of your specific hobbies in your profile is an excellent idea.  Then your profile readers can get a better sense of who you are uniquely.  But do refrain from listing what you do not want.  Neither list them nor cite them.

It’s problematic to specify the negatives you do not want because of how our brain functions.  When we see or read something, we immediately conjure up that item in our mind.  Some people do it visually, others might smell or hear it more in their internal impression creation area.  Then you have seeded and suggested the very thing you do not want.  Allow me to give you an example so you’ll get the experience yourself quite rapidly.  Please don’t think of a Pink Elephant in the Living Room.  Whatever you pretend, don’t imagine a large Pink Elephant complete with trunk in the Living Room?  Did you see it and possibly even hear it?  Yup.  Just like that.  That is what the brain does.  That is how it works.  And once you have planted that impression in your readers’ mind, you very likely turned off all of the good ones.

It used to be in the era of Personal Ads in print physical Magazines and Newspaper that singles needed to cite a few of the items they did not want.  This became so common in the vernacular that 2 and 3 letter acronyms became common place to convey that information quickly and cheaply.  Using the acronyms saved on the cost of placing your relationship ad.  In that world, citing specifically that you wanted a Non-smoker made sense.

Additionally, there are websites serving the 12 Step community.  In that boutique market you could reasonably and appropriately cite that you desire another non-drinking mate.  However, in the mainstream singles websites, you no longer need to be so overt that the person who approaches you must not smoke.

What can you do instead in your profile?

Rather than whine about how you don’t desire to date a couch potato, you would be better served to emphasize your active outdoors lifestyle.  You could reflect this in both in the body of your personals profile as well as in your photographs for emphasis and so that potential dates really get a clear impression of who you are and what you’re looking for.  Notice how doing that created a positive and attractive feeling in you with no negative internal cringing.  Even if your reader doesn’t match with you, when your profile reads positively with poise, the feeling they have while reading that you’re an attractive single, whether they are personally interested in you or not.

Whether you are checking out the other singles online at the plethora dating sites or the social networking sites that encourage flirtation remember to aim to keep the majority of the message of your profile and photos fun, upbeat, and positive.  Then you are much more likely to attract other fun and healthy relationship seeking singles like you.  And isn’t that the whole reason you posted your profile so you could flirt, message, and meet more singles?  You’re doing great!

Happy Dating and Relationships!

April Braswell
As seen in Dating for Dummies, 3rd Ed.
Midlife Singles Expert Topical Columnist at DatingAdvice.com
April Braswell is an expert columnist at DatingAdvice.com and speaks to singles in Singles Groups and Church Singles Ministries as well as Divorce Support Groups.  Looking to Book April to speak at your Singles Event?