Message From Mars: Online Dating Profile Tips for Women

By Matthew Stefanson
[Personals]
Do you know the three ways you can screw up a profile photo?  Matthew Stefanson fills you in on that and more.
The internet may have evolved into little more than a parking lot for pornography, but there is one thing that it does well:  connect people.  More and more people are flocking to the internet to find friendship, romance, discreet evening encounters and even true love.  There is a revolution happening on our information superhighway.  People are posting personal information about themselves and then meeting people with similar interests!  It's a radical process and it's one that is very easy to screw up.  So I've come to guide you through the dos and don'ts of internet dating to let women know, for good and all, what men are looking for in the digital representation of their wife-to-be.

For profile tips for men, see Sarah's View From Venus column.

Experience is Overrated

I am a person of no great experience in the field of internet dating.  I have never created a Lavalife profile.  Before writing this article, I had never before browsed potential mates.  I have Facebook and that is as far as I am willing to go with the whole internet thing.  Confessing this may seem like an odd turn for someone who is deigning to offer definitive advice on the topic, but I say that it makes me eminently more qualified for such.  The goal of internet dating is, after all, to find someone to date.  And, much like listing your house on a real estate website, the good ones aren't up for very long.  Crappy houses stay on the market and quality people don't spend a lot of time collecting dust on the shelves of Match.com.  You want someone who is fresh and eager, someone not jaded by the morays and quagmires of the web.  That someone is me.  Fresh, faced, wide-eyed and prepared to delve fully into the world of internet dating.

Creating a profile is an odd process.  People don't have to sum up their being in a 200-word synopsis very often and it can become difficult to boil it down to something workable.  When you're meeting people in the real world, you're free to make an impression in a variety of different ways.  You can be judged on your posture, your handshake, your diction and intonation, but on the internet, all you have is your words.  For some people this is a daunting prospect, especially with our text message heavy culture in full swing, but there are a few simple rules that you can follow to great effect.

The Photo

The photo is what most people will judge you on.  It's the first thing they'll see and it's much more important than any of us want to acknowledge.  We're visual creatures.  We all make snap judgments and say what you will about book covers, but you can learn a lot from them.

Here are a few ground rules:

No wedding or grad photos.  People would rather see you as you are every day, not dolled up for some special occasion.  I would personally rather see someone in their civilian clothing than in a bridesmaid's dress or their formal attire, because even for a burgeoning socialite such as myself, weddings and box socials only represent a small portion of my social calendar.

No pictures that you took with ex-boyfriends (the reason should be obvious).

Photoshop is a great tool.  It does wonders for everyone.  Throw on the black and white, maybe take out the redeye, but the second that you actually consider putting the invert colours filter onto your picture, shut down your computer and go for a long walk to think about what you've done.
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