5 Things You’re Doing Wrong In Your Online Dating Profile
Navigating the waters of online dating sites and apps takes the right amount of effort and mindset from singles. Unattached men and women of all ages who venture online are joining a huge pool of hopeful singles all looking to get noticed and find their perfect match. Even the best dating sites can be exciting and daunting, easy and yet impossible all at the same time. If you’re not getting what you’d hoped for from your online dating efforts, it could be that you’re just destined to be single forever. Kidding. You probably need to review your online dating profile and make some tweaks. Here at UrbanSocial HQ, our top online dating site experts can reveal their top 5 things you’re doing wrong in your online dating profile that could be a game changer.
1. You Haven’t Nailed Your Online Dating Photo
The biggest pitfall that singles fall into with online dating revolves around their profile photo. This is your biggest selling point, your intro to the world. Without nailing it, you’re immediately shrinking your chances of success. There’s a whole host of things you could be doing wrong in your online dating profile photo without even realising. Here are just some things to check.
Use A Photo That Looks Like You
Use a recent photo of yourself. Not one from years ago when you caught the right angle. Don’t edit and filter the hell out of your photo so you look so different even your mother wouldn’t recognise you. If you don’t look like yourself, you’re setting yourself up for a fall.
Check your Background
For reasons that shouldn’t need an explanation, avoid uploading photos of yourself in places like the bathroom, lying on your bed, in the front seat of your car or lazing on the sofa. Chilled out and informal photos are good, but looking lazy it isn’t the look to go for in your dating photo. Check out the backdrop behind you. These all act as a distraction and can put people off. An unmade bed, dirty cutlery, bulging wardrobe. Aim for a neutral and clutter-free background for your photo.
Use Good Lighting
Shadows and bad camera angles can ruin what would otherwise have been a flattering shot. Play around to find your best angle that masks wrinkles, extra chins. Find your best side. Angle lighting in front of you, not behind as this can cast unsightly shadows.
Avoid WebCams
It might be convenient when setting up your online dating profile to simply grab a photo of yourself as you sit in front of your laptop. But from our years of experience approving thousands of online dating photos, we can confirm it’s categorically impossible to get a better picture of yourself using a webcam than on a camera or phone. That’s all we need to say.
Smile
Moody shots might look good on Insta, but when you’re trying to stand out from the crowd, looking friendly and approachable is first step to drawing attention to yourself. A smile instantly makes us more appealing and welcoming. It’s all about good vibes when online dating.
Photo Bombers
It may sound simple, but it’s something that frequently gets overlooked. Make sure that you are the main subject in the photo, and leave out photo bombers that can detract from you. That could be your cat, dog, car, pint of beer, silly hat, oversized sunglasses or your friends. Potential daters want to see you at this point, not the other stuff.
2. Lying About Your Height
You know it’s important, because you wouldn’t think to lie about it otherwise. Height is something that you just can’t get away with fibbing about. Be confident in yourself, and don’t waste your time and your prospective dates time pretending to be a height that you’re not. You can only hide behind a picture for so long, so it’s worth being honest from the start. The right match for you will be happy with you just the way you are.
3. Not Filling Out Your Description
Attracting the right attention from well-matched singles is the aim of the game with online dating. But you can’t do that is you don’t put the effort in and give people at least some insight into who you are. Looking aloof or lazy with a non-existent or minimal description about yourself won’t give off the right impression. It won’t bring about intrigue. Singles will just scroll on down to the next profile. You don’t need to tell your life story, but a few interesting facts about you makes you at least look interested in meeting people.
4. Being Negative
Look at this this way. Would you be attracted to sending a message to someone who was negative, moaning, pessimistic, or downbeat? Probably not. So make sure you don’t sound like that yourself. Focus on the positive things about yourself, your life and what you’re looking for in your partner. Don’t be tempted to list the things you don’t want in a partner or a relationship. By all means by clear about what you’re looking for, but set the tone right so as not to alienate yourself or turn people off thinking you’re a prima donna. Avoid phrases like “no timewasters”, “no drama queens”, “nobody likes me”, “I”m fed up” etc etc that make you sound like a prickly character.
5. Acting Aloof
If you’ve gone to the effort of joining an online dating site to find a suitable partner for a real relationship, you need to put the effort in. Looking lazy, not bothered or aloof won’t win you any dates. Steer clear of sounding like you’re not really interested or not committed in using the site – “My membership is almost up”, “message me instead at my private email”, “I’m not on here now”, “not a paying member.” You’re either in or out.
If you’re guilty of doing any of these 5 things wrong in your online dating profile, the future of dating may well be bright for you. So take some time to look over how you might be coming across to other singles, and tweak it for the better.
Photo Credit: Sammy Williams from Unsplash
