Dear Women — Here’s Feedback on Your Online Dating Profile From a Man’s Perspective

You’re the reason you’re not getting replies.

Last night, I hung out at Sean’s fancy-schmancy house. We’ve been dating for two months and it’s going well (despite that I will have to make a choice, soon, between him and another guy I’m seeing). There were loads of talking, drinking, and boning.

I brought my laptop and over wine, showed him the female side of Tinder. “You ready to see your competition?” I joked.

As we scrolled through the guys who popped up, I explained the logic as a female as to why I would or wouldn’t go for a particular guy. Dirty bathroom mirror selfies are out. Saying “no drama” is out; it means he’s the cause of drama. Guys who posted pictures with their young children were out. Guys who only had pictures of wearing sunglasses were out. Guys who had a mix of a beard and clean-shaven were out.

In turn, Sean grabbed his phone and we went through the women that Tinder suggested. We live in Southern California. I assumed a fair number of women would be gorgeously peppered with a few crazies. I was wrong.

As we scrolled through and Sean provided his input, I realized how many of these women were shooting themselves in the foot. I wanted to redo their profiles because they have the potential to reach higher-caliber men.

Note: I can only speak for profiles of women between 30 and 50. Outside of those age ranges didn’t show up.

Stop showing group pictures

This applies to men too. It’s your profile, not your profile with your friend. Guys don’t want to guess which one is you and, even worse, find your friend more attractive. It’s not hard to crop out the other person. No one cares what your friends look like.

Stop showing pictures of your children

This is downright creepy. The last thing you need is for some horny guy, looking to get laid, seeing pictures of your children. Mention your children in your profile but it’s unnecessary to show what they look like.

It’s also a boner killer for the guys who are not perverts. You don’t need to throw your kids in their faces before even meeting them. They want to see you, not your children. Limit it to a single sentence about having kids and their ages.

Ditch the fuzzy pictures

If you have to download a good picture of yourself from your friend’s Facebook page because you were at their wedding five years ago, it’s going to be both old and a horrible resolution. Guys don’t want to guess what you look like because the image is pixelated.

As someone who struggled with posting pictures, I understand the struggle. I couldn’t find anything recent and remotely attractive.

In that case, suck it up and take the pictures yourself. There’s a reason car selfies look so good; natural daylight is nature’s filter. Slap on makeup, get outside in the morning before the light is glaringly bright, and take some outdoor selfies.

Show your whole body

Now that you’ve taken outdoor selfies of yourself, you’ll have to set the timer and walk further away from the phone. Having only arm’s length images aren’t enough.

I get it. A lot of women are concerned about their weight. But unless you can show up on a date without your lower extremities, they’re going to have to see that anyway. Find an outfit that rocks your curves or whatever your body shape is and have the balls to take a picture with all of it.

If you don’t have any full-body pictures and you’re not getting matches from guys who want more than just a booty call, that’s probably why.

Make an effort in your appearance

“What’s wrong with her?” I point to the next woman Tinder presents.

“She looks like a mom,” Sean replies.

“What the hell does that mean? I’m a mom!” I yell.

“No, you’re hot. She looks like a mom,” he says.

Sadly, he’s right. This woman has the “mom haircut”, no makeup, and a frumpy sweater. She didn’t need to look like a bombshell. But she could have gotten her hair styled. Beachy waves look great on shorter hair. The sweater looked like it had seen better days.

Even if makeup isn’t your thing, it’s needed for pictures. It just is. Photos wash out all the good features and accentuate the bad. It’s up to you to introduce those features back into the image. After a decade of yearly family pictures, I learned that it takes twenty pounds of makeup and fake eyelashes for a woman to look “natural”.

You’re not giving the wrong impression when you wear more makeup than usual in your pictures. You’re just trying to compensate for the camera’s tendency to make us look worse than we appear in reality.

Don’t use filters. They’re inauthentic and men can see through that crap. It feels like you’re trying to catfish them.

Don’t use the word “drama” anywhere in your blurb

This applies to both genders. If you write “looking for someone drama-free”, that means drama has occurred often enough that you need to add it as a disclaimer. If drama happens that much in your life, the problem is you, not the guy.

This word appeared in at least thirty percent of the profiles we swiped through.

Don’t list boring shit

No one cares that you like to bake, hike, travel, hang out at the beach, whatever. When scrolling through profiles at a rate of ten per minute, they all become a blur.

Talk about the things that are unique to you. Like your collection of Star Trek comics. Or your ability to recite your elementary school speech on cookies at lunch by heart. Or your weekends riding dirt bikes. In mine, I wrote that I’m into nerdy stuff and I like to argue dumb things like whether regular fries are better than sweet potato fries.

By writing that, it provides a segue for men to jump into a non-awkward introduction by talking about something interesting from your profile.

Don’t use emojis

For the love of God, use fucking English. If your sentences are full of emojis, you’re alienating yourself from the average guy who has no time to interpret that shit.

Don’t be aggressive

It floored me how many women were defensive or aggressive in their profiles. It’s like they had an ax to grind and they wanted to ward off men who were going to use them. Unfortunately, it wards off all men.

Some women yapped about how “mask-wearing sheeple need not apply” and ranted about politics. Others practically yelled about how they’re not into playing games.

Any guy who meets those women’s criteria will still swipe left and reject them. Don’t start off confrontational.

Show your flirty side

It’s weird to flirt with someone who doesn’t exist. I get that. But so many women treated their profiles like a job application. Men are physical creatures. Men eventually want to have sex. Even if you’re not putting out until marriage, you won’t get a date if they don’t view you as a sexual creature.

Here are a few strategies.

“I may not be as strong as you but I can lift a ten-pound dumbbell. Want to arm wrestle?” This works because you’re clearly not trying to emasculate the guy by saying you can lift ninety pounds. But you’re acknowledging that you want to get physical with him in a fun, cute way.

“I love horror movies but I can’t promise that I won’t curl up next to you with my eyes closed during the scary parts!” You’re explaining something unique that you enjoy (most people simply write “movies” as an interest which is too generic), but you’re popping in the illusion that you want to touch him. I have yet to meet a guy whose primary Love Language isn’t Physical Touch. Use that to your advantage.

“If you dare me, I might even show how I tie a cherry stem in a knot with my tongue.” Pretty self-explanatory on the flirty part.

On mine, I mentioned that I’m 5'2 and I bought 4" stilettoes during the pandemic that I’m dying to wear out when things open up again. This works on many levels. First, guys calculate that at 5'6, I’m still shorter than them.

Secondly, it lets them imagine me wearing ultra sexy heels with, most likely, short skirts. Thirdly, it gives them the perfect opening line; at least half of the guys who reached out to me all said, “I’d love to take you and those sexy shoes out to dinner sometime” right off the bat.

The goal with an online profile isn’t to appeal to every guy out there. If you’re not a size zero blonde and that’s what some men prefer, there’s no way around that. But you want to hedge your bets and get a second glance from guys who are stuck scrolling through the endless carbon copies of profiles.

Creating my profile was daunting and downright exhausting. I planned for days which outfits I would wear, what time of day had the best outdoor lighting, which makeup looked best, and what fake eyelashes wouldn’t make my eyes water within seconds. It angered me that I was even doing this because of a pandemic that made every other way of meeting someone impossible.

After seeing the other women’s profiles on Sean’s account, I see that it was well worth the effort.

I disabled my account after my first date with Marc because I knew that juggling two fantastic guys would be plenty for me. Still, at least I know what works and what doesn’t thanks to this experiment.

While scrolling on Sean’s phone, I accidentally swiped right on a random woman’s account. Tinder flashed and said “it’s a match”, meaning she swiped right on his profile earlier.

We fell on the floor laughing in hysterics. “Don’t let me stand in the way of your true love,” I told him.

When I texted him later to say that I got home safe, Sean sent me a screenshot of the woman I matched him with. “Lol. I unmatched. Don’t judge me.” he wrote.

I couldn’t be any more grateful for the whole arduous process because, in the end, meeting Sean made it all worth it.