Dating Profile Tips for Guys

The changes that improve a man's dating profile most are the dull ones. Make the first picture clear and well lit. Fill the rest of the set with different places and different days. Replace every factual answer with one that tells her what an ordinary week with you is like. And stop writing the lines every other man writes. a dating coach says the single most common problem he sees is a profile that is not bad, just boring.

It decides whether she opens the rest. Show your face clearly, in daylight, with nothing in front of it. No sunglasses, no mask around your chin, no car seat, no group where she cannot tell which one is you.

My critique of the ordinary profile is that the first picture is a decent guy standing in a normal room with nothing special about it. Nothing is wrong with the photo. It just gives her nothing to notice.

Use four to six pictures that answer different questions. What do you look like? Do you have friends? Do you go anywhere? Do you do anything? One close shot, one full length, one with people, one doing something you actually do, and one that only you could have taken.

Different outfits and different places also prove the pictures came from different days. Five shots from one afternoon read as one afternoon.

My favorite trick is a curiosity picture: one that makes her wonder what is going on. His is a shot of himself in front of a bed covered in foreign money. It is not his best-looking picture and it is not his most impressive, but it is the one that gets him the most replies.

Women who like a profile often have trouble thinking of what to write. A picture with a question hidden in it solves that for them. They send a message instead of a bare Like, and the conversation starts at a higher speed. Pick something true from your life, with a short story ready for when she asks.

A prompt that states a fact does nothing for you. My examples of facts that miss are a favorite book, a favorite meal and a place in history he would like to visit. They are fine, but they say nothing about what the experience of dating you would be.

Choose prompts about the two of you, then answer in a way that sounds like you. "A typical Sunday with me involves a long walk and an argument about where lunch is" gives her something to picture. "I love tacos" does not.

"Gentleman who knows how to treat a lady" is on thousands of profiles. So is "looking for my partner in crime" and "I will be good to you." None of them is false. They are just what she has already read forty times today, so she moves on out of boredom.

The same goes for the opposite extreme. My second most common profile problem is trying too hard in a gamey or sexual way. She wants to be attracted without being able to point at what you did to cause it. A line that shows effort breaks that.

My point on profiles is that what you write decides what you get. A profile that reads like a hookup gets hookups, and one that says you want something long-term gets that. In our view the pictures you pick send the same message.

Say it in a sentence. You lose some women who were never going to fit what you want, and you gain the ones who now see you as clear about it. Staying vague to keep every option open usually reads as casual.

Use pictures from the last few months, not from a good stretch long ago. If you have a beard now, show it. If your hair is shorter, show that.

A woman who meets a different man than the one she swiped on does not stay for the drink. Honest pictures also work in your favor on the date, because there is no gap for her to notice when you walk in.

Leave out the shirtless mirror shot unless you are certain it helps. coach tells a story of a client with a good physique who was getting average matches. The shirtless picture put him in direct comparison with men better built than he was, and removing it helped with the higher-end women.

Leave out jokes about how bad your profile is, long lists of what you do not want, and captions on every picture. coach thinks captioning is overdone and can look try hard, and the one exception is a short caption on a picture that is already a conversation starter.

Change one part at a time and give it a few weeks. If you change five things at once, you cannot tell which one worked.

A short plan works well. Replace the lead picture first, because it affects the most women. Rewrite the prompts second. Then add the curiosity picture. After each change, watch what women comment on, because their comments tell you what your profile is actually saying.