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How not to set up your online dating profile

By Camila Kukulski

Dating is difficult. Whether you find someone in-person or online, it’s hard to not only find someone you connect with, but it’s also hard to have them connect with you. Dating online is particularly tough because you can’t gauge a person’s reaction to your go-to “two guys walk into a bar” joke when you can’t see their face. So how can you make sure your profile isn’t screenshotted and shared on stranger’s group chats with emojis that cry of laughter as the description? Just don’t do some simple stuff.

Don’t post a photo of your arms around someone that you might be dating, or might have dated.
You might look super cute in that photo of you where you’re shirtless on a beach with your second cousin twice removed, and they’re family so to you it’s not weird, but unless you’re clearly looking for a third person to spice things up, you’re sending the wrong message.

Don’t write about your dislikes or pet peeves.
You might have a very understandable reason never to date someone who wears fingerless gloves, and that’s okay. But if you write it in your bio even people who wear full fingered gloves will see you as negative and annoying. Just don’t do it.

TyposIt doesn’t matter how good you are at writing, every device on earth that you would be using to type out your bio has auto-correct. Use. It. This includes writing letters instead of words. Its nice that U think I M A QT, but this isn’t 2003. Real words are sexy.

Don’t mention your height.
Unless you want your next date to come armed with a measuring tape to make sure you’re not a liar, then don’t write it. If that’s what you’re into however, all the power to you, tape measures on first dates can be sexy.

Don’t post photos of someone else’s kids.
Are the parents super stoked that a photo of you and their baby will help you get laid with strangers you meet on the internet? It’s creepy, take it down.

Don’t post shirtless photos.
You may spend hundreds of hours in the gym to look like a marble sculpture of a Greek God, or you may not. Either way, it’s good to be proud of your body, but it’s better to be pleasantly surprised in person than to know you spent an hour and a half flexing your muscles in your parent’s bathroom mirror just to get the best angle.

Don’t post photoshopped photos.
If your profile shows a photo of your face on the body of a centaur but in person you cannot gallop on your four hoofed legs, your date will be thoroughly disappointed. They matched you because your profile photo was what they were looking for, but you clearly can’t be ridden into battle so you’re just another letdown.

“I look better in person”
Do you? Do you really?

Don’t provide only photos of you in groups.
I shouldn’t have to conduct a detailed analysis of your profile photos, complete with scatter graphs and a venn diagram just to be able to figure out which person is you in your own dating profile.

“I’m a nice guy” or “Nice guys finish last”
You write that, you’re very unlikely to finish at all.

“I never use dating apps, and don’t really know how this works.”
Really? If I can see your photos and read this in your bio then you clearly use dating apps and know how they generally work. It’s not that complicated. Swipe left.

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