5 Simple Rules For Your Online Dating Profile

Building your profile on an online dating site after divorce is a daunting task. You’re going from “off the market” to available and looking, perhaps after your “lifetime guarantee” proved to be a lie. You are no longer the person you were the last time you were dating and you no longer are interested in the same people. Your self-esteem may have tanked along with your self-knowledge, leaving you hesitant and uncertain.

So how in the world do you construct a dating profile that enhances your assets, attracts the kind of person you want and refrains from revealing more than you intend?

Follow these 5 simple rules –

1 Activate Curiosity

It’s easy to try to tell anything and everything in your profile. Resist that urge. Instead, focus on sharing just enough to make somebody want more. After all, that’s what inspires a person to message you. Think about parts of your personality that seem to be in opposition or interests that you have that would usually contradict each other. Capture a potential date’s interest by placing these at the beginning of your profile.

2 Avoid Red Flags

I was amazed at how many profiles I saw when I was dating that waved red flags in my face – diatribes about crazy exes, self-defeating paragraphs about current life status or signs that somebody needed a therapist more than they needed a date. But the most common flags? The subtle ones that either make a person come across as too independent or too needy. The best way to avoid red flags is to have a trusted person read through your profile before you publish and give you honest feedback.

3 Tell the Truth (But Not the Whole Truth)

Divorce isn’t final? Disclose that. Have sole custody of four kids? Put that in. Heavier than you wish you were? Tough; record your honest weight. However…don’t add the details about the divorce drama, the stress of caring for the kids or your conflicted feelings about your weight. Those supporting details are better added later and in person. Overall, be honest – you want somebody who wants you for you and hiding the truth is a sure sabotage.

4 Don’t Try to Please Everybody

You aren’t trying to create a profile that will please everybody. Unless that is, you want to date everybody 🙂 So many profiles are bland, avoiding anything that might offend or alienate. But the result is like the beige wall of internet dating – not a turn off, but also not all that interesting. Be you. Show the weird. You will inspire some people to move on. But that’s okay because they’re not a match.

5 Use Pictures That Show What You Love (Not What You Fear)

Choose your pictures based upon how you felt in the moment they were taken more than how you feel looking at them later. So often, people select photos that unintentionally reveal their insecurities – airbrushed perfection hiding image concerns, action pictures concealing a fear of risk or status symbols belying a fear of not being successful. Instead, find those pictures that make you feel good about you as you are. Not as you wish you were. That confidence and joy will show and speak louder than any Pinterest-perfect pic. I promise.