What Are the Best OkCupid Bios?

The best OkCupid bios are short, specific and written for one woman instead of all of them. They say what an ordinary week looks like, give her one small thing to disagree with, and state plainly what the man wants. Nothing in them could be pasted into another man's page without it being obvious.

A bio has one job. It turns a stranger with a nice photo into a person she can picture across a table.

a dating coach says a page attracts whatever it describes, and he adds that on longer-form sites like OkCupid the written part matters more than it does on a photo-first app. So the bio is not a formality you fill in on the way to the good part. For a woman who has stopped on your photo, it is the good part.

That also explains why the famous bad bios are bad. "Easygoing guy who loves to laugh" describes ten thousand men. She learns nothing and has nothing to ask.

Most strong bios hold three things, in roughly this order.

A scene from your week. One or two sentences about something you actually do. A Saturday, a job, a habit. It should have a person or an object in it, so she can see it.

One mild opinion. Something she could argue with and enjoy arguing with. Food, travel, how early is too early to leave a party. It shows you have a view and it gives her an easy way to start talking.

One plain line about what you want. "I am looking for a relationship" or "I want to date properly and see where it goes." Say it once, in your own voice. A page that sounds like a man after something casual brings in women after the same thing, and the reverse is true too.

These are samples for the shape, not scripts to copy. If you paste one word for word, she may have read it already.

The man who cooks. "I cook for friends most Sundays and I am not good at it yet. Last week's risotto turned into soup and everyone ate it anyway. I will defend pineapple on pizza until you are tired of hearing about it. I want to date someone properly, with dinners that get planned and a phone that stays in the pocket."

The man on the trail. "Most weekends I am on a trail with my brother, who walks faster than I do and mentions it. During the week I teach high school chemistry, so I am used to jokes landing a minute late. I am looking for a relationship with someone who likes a plan and a good detour."

The man in his forties. "I own a small bike shop, which sounds more relaxed than it is. I fix things all day and I am bad at fixing my own sleep schedule. I think most people should eat breakfast for dinner more often. I am done with casual and would like to meet one person worth a second date."

Each one has a person in it. The brother, the soup, the shop. A woman can ask about any of them without thinking.

Each one has a small joke at the writer's own expense, which reads as confidence. A man who can laugh at his risotto is easier to meet than a man who lists his virtues.

And each one ends on what he wants, in a sentence that does not apologize and does not demand. That is the line My rule points at. Say what you are after, and the page does the filtering for you.

My short list for any dating page is nothing negative, nothing needy, nothing strange and nothing that rules out too many women. In a bio that means cutting a few specific things.

• Complaints about dating, apps or women who "play games."
• "No drama" and every other rule about who should stay away.
• Your ex, unless one fact about a divorce is needed, and then only one.
• Stock phrases like "work hard, play hard" and "looking for my partner in crime."
• Lists of adjectives. If you must say funny, show one thing you said that was funny.

Three to five sentences is plenty. A short bio gets read to the end, and a long one gets skimmed to the first sentence. If you have a lot to say, put it in the answers to the questions and in captions on your photos, where it can be read in pieces.

OkCupid also builds its percentage from the questions you answer, so the honest answers carry part of the work the bio cannot. A bio that says you want something serious and a set of answers that say the opposite will confuse everyone, including the app.

Cover your name and read the bio aloud. Could any man in your city have written it? If so, add the one detail only you would know. The name of the place, the thing the nephew said, the dish that failed.

Then show it to a friend and ask what they would ask you about. If the answer is nothing, a woman will not have a question either.

Keep the version that gets quoted back to you. When a woman repeats a line from your bio, that line is doing the work. Write the next draft with more like it, and change one thing at a time so you can tell which edit helped.