The Negativity Problem in Dating Profiles

A bio that lists what you do not want, such as "no drama," "not looking for games" or "don't waste my time," reads as a warning label rather than a filter. The woman reading it does not think you have standards. She thinks someone hurt you, and that she is about to pay for it. You can keep your standards and drop the negativity by saying what you want instead.

You write "no drama" as a screen. She reads it as a fact about your history.

A man who has to say it has presumably met a lot of drama, and a reasonable reader starts to wonder why it kept finding him. The same goes for "not here for games" and "tired of time wasters." Each one tells her you have been burned and that you expect her to do the same to you.

None of this is fair to you, and it does not need to be. She spends a few seconds on each page. A line that sounds defensive costs you that moment before she has learned anything good about you.

The logic behind these lines is sensible. You want to screen out women who would waste your time, and writing the warning seems efficient.

The trouble is who it filters. The women you wanted to avoid are not stopped by a warning, since nobody thinks of herself as the drama. The women you did want, the relaxed and confident ones, are the ones who read it and decide you sound tense. The line removes the wrong half of the audience.

A line about what you dislike carries no picture. "No drama" tells her nothing about your week, your friends or what a date with you is like. A positive line puts a person in her head: someone who cooks on Sundays, who plans trips, who laughs at himself.

Negatives also invite a reaction she did not have before. Telling a woman not to bring drama plants the idea that she might. A man who writes nothing of the kind sounds like he is not worried about it.

For almost every negative line there is a positive version that does the same filtering with a better tone. Here are some pairs:

• "No drama" becomes "I like things easy and honest"
• "Not looking for games" becomes "I say what I mean and I like it when she does too"
• "Don't message just to say hi" becomes "Tell me one thing that made your week better"
• "Looking for a serious woman" becomes "I want something that goes somewhere, and I plan to enjoy getting there"

The positive lines still screen. A woman who wants games will not respond to "I say what I mean." But the lines do it by describing you, not by accusing the reader.

You are allowed to have a standard, and a few honest words about it help you. The trick is to put it in terms of what you offer and what you like, with no complaint attached.

Be specific about the thing. "I like a woman who is direct" works. "I hate people who play games" works against you. Keep the standard short, one line at most, and keep it away from the lead of the page.

Let your photos and your answers do most of the filtering. A page that shows what your life is really like screens better than any warning line, because women who do not want that life move on by themselves.

Read your page as if a stranger wrote it, and ask what he sounds like. Count the lines that begin with "no," "not," "don't" or "never." If more than one sits in the whole page, rewrite them as a statement of what you want.

Then ask a friend what they think happened to you. If the honest answer is "he has been hurt before," the page is carrying a message you did not mean to send.

Cut the negative lines first. Replace each with a positive line only if you have something real to say, and leave the space empty if you do not. A short page with nothing defensive in it beats a long one with a warning on top.