Online dating can involve a lot of tedious time spent sifting through hundreds of profiles trying to pick out anyone who sounds like she’s got potential to become a suitable partner.
This time consuming activity is often made worse by the abundance of nearly identical profiles, full of online dating clichés. Don't let your profile become one of those! Here are a few of the most common clichés to avoid when writing your own profile. If you want to find more just check out other women's profiles, note the stuff that seems to repeat again and again in most of them and simply leave those bits out of yours.
Online dating cliché #1: Reeling off a long list of adjectives
There is little use in saying you're funny, caring, happy and fun-loving as these things can mean different things to different people. So many women start off their profile with such a list that you'll find yourself skipping over these anyway. On the whole, it's far better to show and not tell – talk about things you do or enjoy that will tell your readers about who you are. For example, saying you tend to go out every night and train at Thai kickboxing is better than saying you're "active" and "sporty". You may indeed want to stick many of these in the activities and hobbies section rather than the bit where you talk about yourself as a person, and that's fine. Online dating profiles don't actually have to be very long.
Online dating cliché #2: Starting your profile with talking about how you hate writing about yourself
Guess what? Everyone hates writing about themselves. What they probably hate even more is reading about how everyone hates writing about themselves.
Online dating cliché #3: "I like long walks on the beach"
It seems like walking on the beach is the nation's favourite pastime. Lord only knows what people do with their free time when a beach is not available (which, for many of us is 99% of the time). Unless your walks on the beach include walking on your hands, taming lions or bringing about world peace, it's best to concentrate on your other favourite activities in your dating profile.
Online dating cliché #4: "I Enjoy going out to restaurants / bars / films / with friends but also happy to stay in with a DVD and a nice bottle of red"
Apart from walking on the beach, it seems this is what everyone in the world and their dog seem to do. This could make you think that anyone you'll meet on a dating site is the same as anyone else, which is blatantly untrue. You could go out and catch a film with one lady and be instantly bored while another could make for the most exciting evening of your life. So instead of talking about mundane activities everyone ends up doing (which are a given in any relationship) try concentrating instead on the things that make you stand out – your world view, your quirks, your unique selling points.
Online dating cliché #5: Saying you're average/ usual / normal
Average = boring. It's the default option for anyone who can't think of anything good to say in her profile. Chances are, people who write that they are average are actually quite interesting in person, but most readers wouldn't stick around long enough to find out. Remember that when you write a dating profile you want to stand out from the crowd to make women reading your profile stop and think you may be interesting to meet up with. So leave out the stuff that makes you just like everyone else and write about stuff that sets you apart. We are all different, so even if you think you're the most standard person, there'll be things that set you apart from the next dating profile. You just have to spend a bit more time thinking about them.
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