Three Online Dating No-Nos
If you've been single for a little while you may be thinking of breaking into the world of online dating. One of the most daunting tasks when you decide to take this leap is to create an attractive, unique and truthful profile which paints you in your best light. You want to be authentic and positive, but also to avoid revealing too much information to potential matches in case they are scared off by your oversharing. There are also issues of safety and security to consider when sharing details of yourself and your life to strangers via a dating website.
It can be so easy to fall into the trap of well-worn dating profile clichés in order to get a profile created and activated quickly. However, taking a bit of time over your profile will really benefit you're dating potential in the future.
Avoid the following three clichés and see your matches sky-rocket!
Generic terms – a quick look at the profiles on any dating website will demonstrate just how often terms like ‘I love to laugh and have fun with my friends', ‘I love to have fun and smile' and ‘I love life and I live in the moment' are used….well so what? I don't think I've ever met anyone who doesn't enjoy having fun and spending time with their friends. Writing this on your profile doesn't actually tell your potential date anything about you. Try to be a bit more specific about what makes you laugh and what you do to have fun and let your hair down.
Saying ‘I love adventure' – again, this is something which you see time and time again! Many people think that they need to appear to be the most adventurous person in the world in order to attract people to their profiles. However, there's no point in making out that you're a risk-taking extreme sports enthusiast is you'd prefer to go for a nice relaxing walk with the dog! Dating sites use your profile information to match you with potential mates and if you've filled your ‘about me' section with terms like ‘rock-climbing', ‘skiing', ‘base jumping' and ‘white water rafting' then you're only doing yourself out of finding a well-matched partner. Instead, fill you're profile with your real-life loves and passions and reap the benefits!
Stating what you don't want in a partner – many people include a sentence on their profile which explains the kind of person they're not interested in. Term such as ‘gold-digger', ‘drama queen', ‘work-obsessive' and ‘player' are present on most profiles, and in my opinion that's totally unnecessary. Nobody wants to date someone who can be described using one of those terms, so don't waste your time spelling that out? Instead, concentrate on something positive.