It's Not a Match.com

Not a great profile writer.

There’s really only one rule to follow when you’re creating a profile for a online dating: Be Different. OK…wait, no, there’s two rules. Be Different, and Avoid Hardcore Racial Slurs. Alright three rules. Just three. Be Different, Avoid Hardcore Racial Slurs, and Try To Abstain From The Phrase “Sweet Ass Titties.” I’ve learned that one the hard way.

Seriously though, being different is the only important thing. There are so many profiles on each site, and so many of them are earth-shatteringly boring – you need to make setting yourself apart the goal. Here’s a profile the other day that caught my eye…

“Secretive conservative sensory quiet mastered the art of listening without the words.”

That’s it. That’s the whole profile. Maybe she was crazy, or really super foreign, or just operating on a different plane than you and I – but either way, I remembered her. No way in hell I’m sending her an email, but two days later she’s still occupying some space in my mind – and that’s what we’re looking for. Jump out to your reader, wake them up, make them the forget the 10 ridiculously lame profiles they just skipped past to get to yours. The best way to do this? Avoid every lame ass Internet dating cliche out there. In case you’re new to the online romance game, I’ll do my best to collect these banalities for you here, in one easy-to-read locale. So here then is a summary of Every Internet Dating Profile Ever Written.

First, the obligatory picture from too far away to actually be useful…

then…

ABOUT ME

Gosh, what do I say in these things? [Anything really, just try to avoid cliches.] LOL! [Too late.] I totally never thought I’d be Internet dating, but I know a bunch of people who’ve had good luck on here, so I figured, why not give it a shot? [You mean, other than price, time, unlimited potential for failure, and the requirement to write an appealing and attention grabbing profile? Other than that, yeah, why not enter into things flippantly?] Hey, if we hit off, we can just tell our friends we met in a bar! [Exclamation point!]

For the rest of this post, and a whole mess of other It’s Not a Match favorites, buy my new book Not a Match: My True Tales of Online Dating Disasters. 

Available for your ereader on Amazon and iTunes. It’s inexpensive, very funny, and only somewhat sad!

Shadoe987

When I joined Match.com a few years ago, it was for one girl: Shadoe987. Sweet sweet Shadoe987. So lovely, so innocent, so eccentric in her spelling choices. I had taken a half-hearted swing at Match a few years previous, so they had me on their “bother to the point of certain insanity” email list. They sent a plea with a silly headline like “Look at All You’re Missing Out On!”, then a simple little picture of Shadoe987 and a few sentences about her and, well, it got me hook, line, and also sinker. “Yes, look at what I am missing out on!”, I said to my cat as I happily entered my credit card number. There was just something about Shadoe987, she was so…attractive, so wholesome, so forgiving. The kind of girl who would absolutely not judge you for being duped by yet another promotional email from a company you had no interest in. So I signed up for Match, fired off a carefully crafted message to Shadoe and a few other incomparable young women and waited for the responses to come rolling in. And you know what happened? Jack shit.

I never heard back from Shadoe987. Who knows where she is now…maybe living in Paris with her playful yet reliable husband who’s taught her more about wine than she ever imagined. Or maybe she died in a horrible farming accident. One of the two. But I will always remember her fondly for the lesson she taught me: Internet dating is a numbers game. Because after I didn’t hear back from Shadoe987, I emailed fifteen or so other women with a far less carefully crafted message and you know what? Five of them wrote back. Five! That’s a lot of people. Sure, ten totally ignored me, and the subsequent dates resulting from those five ladies were awful BUT…I got five dates. In a half hour of work. And suddenly my mission was born: create the formula for the perfect introductory email and send it to as many women as possible.

Every person you write.

Look, if you wanna send every person you meet online a deliciously personal email that it took you twenty minutes to craft out of thin air – go for it. You’re a gentleman and a scholar. But you’re also an idiot. I’ll say it again: Internet dating is a numbers game. And they’re not small numbers, they’re really really big ones. It is more likely that the person you’re writing WILL NOT write you back, no matter how charming and eloquent you are. Believe me, Shadoe987 got every bit of my charm and eloquence and she didn’t even thank me before she was killed under that tractor. So in order to be an effective Internet dater, your first email should be something quick, delightful, and seemingly personal which then allows you to move on dot org. That something can be an easily forgotten two line message OR it can be the most genuine and well-intentioned form letter in the history of the written word.

Listen to what I’m going to tell you now – the recipient CAN NOT know that you are sending them a form letter. If they do, you’re done for. I’ve seen some mass messages that men have sent thinking they’re carefully disguised, and it’s enough to make you weep. Long paragraph that’s just about them? Form letter. Vague platitudes about how “pretty and cool” the lady seems? Form letter. Random jokes about how crazy the world of Internet dating is? Form letter. And last but not least: long, rambling love poem in broken English that gets uncomfortably sexual in the final stanza? Sadly, that was also a form letter. How do you avoid making your email look like a form letter? By not making it a form letter at all.

A form letter that’s not a form letter?! Brilliant!

A form letter is repeated word for word to each recipient. What I have instead is an equation, and it is perhaps my greatest Internet dating secret. The perfect introductory email has taken me years of trial and error to develop, and got so good that at one point my response rate was up to 50%. That’s right: 1 in 2, motherfuckers. It’s my best friend, and I know every step of it by heart. If I ever get sent to some awful prison in a Midnight Express-type situation, my introductory email is what I will recite in my head to keep myself sane. Some men put their children on their knee and tell them about the time they scored the game-winning touchdown in the big homecoming game, I will tell my son about the time I created the perfect email that let me meet only fantastic women. OK, a few fantastics and a lot of crazies. Now I pass on the formula to you, guard it with your lives.

Part 1: A Little About Them

This is where the magic happens. Read your future betrothed’s profile, find one thing about it you find funny or interesting, then write two sentences. One sentence is too little to make an impression, three sentences is desperate hand-wringing, two sentences is just right. This is real, this is genuine, this must be original for each person you write. See, not a form letter!

Part 2: A Little About You

If you’re a cad, you can copy and paste this section every time. I preferred to create from scratch in each email, but my goal for the portion was the same…

In as funny a way as possible, tell them a little about yourself, accentuating your most date-able characteristics. If you’re tall, work it in casually. If you do something heart warming and awe-inducing like teaching deaf kids, subtly drop that hammer. If you’ve got a great rack, just come out and say it, guys will probably forgive you. Sell yourself in three sentences MAX.

Part 3: Say Goodbye

That’s it. Say goodbye and sign your name. Plain and simple.

Seems so simple, so obvious, but it’s not. You’d be amazed at how many people’s first emails are a complete disaster. They write one line, then hit send. Or, even worse, they write six paragraphs, cry a little bit, then apologize, then cry again. Nothing more awkward than a tear-stained email. The perfect intro message is so basic: talk about what you like about them, what you think they’ll like about you, and get the fuck out.

Don’t mess with me.

Is it dirty pool to use a formula on someone I genuinely want to go out on a date with? Yes, a bit. But all I’m really doing is simplifying the task for myself and you, should you chose to follow. I never lie and my goal is always completely genuine: find a good girl. But I’ll warn you, these powers must be used for good and not evil. Should you use my formula to go out with as many people as possible to just feed your ego or get laid, then it won’t work. You’ll cut corners in paragraph one, your reader will know, and you’ll be done. And the world will hate you and a horn will grow out of your head. But use this it to increase your chances of finding the person that’s right for you, and the Gods of love and Internet will smile down upon you.

Unless she happens to be named Shadoe987. If so, let me spoil the surprise – she ain’t writing back.

Good advice, right? For more, buy my new book Not a Match: My True Tales of Online Dating Disasters. 

Available for your ereader on Amazon and iTunes. It’s cheap, and awesome! Please help support the site!

Nothing says "I'm a cheap bastard" like OKCupid.

Common Mistake: you’re not sure if Internet dating is for you, but you wanna give it a shot. Somehow, it seems, the current routine of going to bars and talking only to your friends has failed to yield romantic results. So you’ll dip your toe in the seedy waters of Internet dating – but you sure as hell aren’t gonna pay for the experience. I mean come on, you’re not desperate. (Spoiler alert: Yes you are.) So you sign up for one of those free sites, put up a profile, a few pics, and wait for the emails to coming rollllling in. And then…nothing. A couple of weeks go by and all you get is a few notes from weirdos, maybe a promising conversation or two that end without explanation, and then a whole lot of jack squat. Oh well, you gave it a shot, I guess Internet dating just wasn’t for you. Good thing you didn’t blow any money on one of those fancy pay sites, right?

No. Not even close to right. In fact, totally wrong.

I don't understand why more people aren't messaging me.

I’ll try to be diplomatic about this…free dating sites are for hobos, drifters, and vagrants. OK, hobos, drifters, and vagrants who are interested in meeting someone special. And have access to email. Freebie services like OK Cupid and Plenty of Fish sound nice because they’re low commitment – but think about it, do you really want to go on a date with someone who can’t even handle a month long commitment to a website? You want to be seeing people who are serious about trying to meet someone, not ones who think “oh well, worst case scenario I’m not out any money!” If someone’s throwing down $20 to be there, chances are they’re gonna put in legitimate effort and actually care about the outcome. If they’re there for free it’s entirely possible they’re just screwing around. Look, you admitted above that your point of view was “I’m not sure if Internet dating is for me, but I guess I’ll give it a shot.” (OK, I admitted it for you, but come on, I was totally right.) Do you honestly want the job of trying to attract, interest, and ultimately date people with a similar ambivalence? Then go for it. OK Cupid is your wonderland. But if you’d rather go for someone who says “I wanna find the best person for me, and I don’t care if that takes a little more time or money”, then go with a service with a fee, like Match or Nerve.com.

Internet dating requires a bit of work…searching through profiles, crafting emails, going out on a lot of first dates. If you’re not willing to pay a little to be on a well organized, good looking website, then chances are you’re not going to be willing to do that work – and anyone emailing you is wasting their time. But, on the other hand, if you’ve paid a membership fee you’re gonna be more likely to chat it up because, in the back of your mind you’re probably thinking “Well Christ, I paid $35 to be on this stupid thing, I might as well respond…”. And that is all we’re looking for.

This guy is always a hit with the babes.

So, always remember, Internet dating is like toilet paper and trash bags – if you don’t pay a little extra you’re gonna end up with a real mess on your hands. (Already I regret writing that sentence. And yet…it’s not deleted.) You gotta spend money to make money. Now, if you want to know which pay website is the right one for you…well you’ll just have to check back another time for that.

Not me.

Periodically on this site we will offer advice, because I’ve found unfailingly that when people find out I’ve done a bit of Internet dating, they have things they want explained. Which is fine as long as they understand, as I say in the title, that I am an idiot. The fact that I’ve been on 100 Internet dates doesn’t mean I’m really good at it. If I were, I would’ve been on like 3 dates, met someone awesome, and deleted my charming and alluring dating profile. But that’s not what happened. I’ve been on 100 of these suckers because after each date at least one of us has left saying “well, no way hell I’m going out with that asshole again.” Asking me how to handle a date is kinda like asking a guy in jail how to get away with the perfect crime. If I had any idea, I wouldn’t be in this situation, now would I? But hey, you’ve got questions and I’ve got answers and clearly neither of us has anything better to do, so let’s get to it.

The first thing people always ask, after wondering if I can take my hand off their leg, is “how often do people lie in the world of Internet dating?” The answer: a lot. “BUT,” I then say dramatically, “how often do people lie in the world of traditional dating?” then they nod, getting my point, and being entirely blown away.

Look, people lie on the Internet. I’ve been out with people who lied about their age, appearance, accent, job, sense of humor, political affiliations – really everything imaginable. I even went out with a girl who lied about the level of her religious devotion. Cue story…

They said at 13 I was the best they’d ever seen.

Before the date she asked me a lot of questions about Judaism – was I Jewish, did I have a lot of friends who were Jewish, had I ever been to temple, had I seen Yentl etc etc. I told her I happened to grow up with many Jewish friends, and was jealous of any culture that found a reason to eat potato pancakes on a regular basis. However, I said, religion – regardless of the faith – was not a big thing for me, and if it was for her that we may not be a great match. She said “don’t worry about it, I was just wondering.” So we decided to meet.

Now, when someone says “don’t worry about it”, what you should do is worry about it. Worry about it a lot. But, like I said earlier, I’m an idiot. And I’m a motivated shopper. I want to find a great girl, so I’m willing to put up with a little complication. So I didn’t worry, took a chance, bought her a drink, and spent 90 minutes hearing about how hard it is to find a boyfriend when you’re in the process of becoming a female rabbi. Which she knew about firsthand from the time she’d spent trying to become a female rabbi. She then let me pay the bill, told me she could never date someone who wasn’t Jewish, and left in a huff. Why did she lie about not being that into religion? Who knows. Who cares. The point is: they all lie. And if I met her in a bar, she probably would’ve told the exact same lie at first too. Internet really has nothing to do with it.  Whether you meet them online or in line at the supermarket, they all lie. Even the rabbis.

So here is my advice on lying: do it. Within reason. Describe you on your best day, or – even better – what would your Mom say about you if she met a friend at the drug store? There’s your dating profile. (Unless your Mom is at the drug store to pick up a prescription for the weird rash you have on growing on your private parts. Then say something else.) Somehow people got the idea that anyone who…tidies up the truth a bit on their dating profile is dirty nasty liar. Horse feathers. The idea here is you’re trying to get dates. This is like a job resume, except instead of employment, you’re trying to get laid – so go ahead and rosy things up. Smoke everyday? Maybe change the description to “socially”. Losing your hair? Pick pictures that minimize it. Insecure about your job? Feel free to brush past that in the employment section of your page. Internet dating is essentially a sales job, and you wouldn’t focus on the bum muffler and shitty transmission if you were trying to sell your car, would you? And yes, shitty transmission is a metaphor for impotence. Well done.

I turn 27 in August.

But you can NOT say anything aggressively untrue. Don’t think that I’ve given you carte blanche to put “athletic and toned” down as your body type if you’ve never seen the inside of a gym. That’s not cool. And if that car we mentioned was made in 1981, you can’t say 1987 and hope they don’t notice. That’s bullshit. They always notice. And furthermore, when the buyer shows up and sees that the “car” has bald tires and is roomier in the trunk than they expected, you’ll be crossed off their list entirely. Not because you don’t look how they hoped, but because you were lame enough to lie about it.

In my experience, men lie about their height and women lie about their age, and everyone lies about their weight. So be prepared. If you’re in the danger zone on any of these categories, work on fixing what you can (go on diet, invent time travel) then present the rest as optimistically as possible. But no aggressive untruths, jerky. Also, daters tend to be hesitant about the divorced, smokers, the unemployed, and Republicans. So consider how you might rosy them up while still living generally near the truth. And if you’re a divorced, jobless, nicotine addicted Conservative, lock the doors and turn out the lights. It’s all over for you.

One last thing – always always always post real, up to date pictures. Do that and some soft selling on the words will be forgiven. But when in doubt, just tell the truth. Like David Mamet says, it’s the easiest thing to remember.

Now please, do the exact opposite of everything I said.