Adventures in the Online Dating Trade

s you may or may not know, I am constantly pursued by the laydays. They love me. It's a gift... but also, sometimes... a curse. Because I am so constantly pursued by the laydays, I needed to find a way in which I could meet a few good women without knowing that they were indubitably only interested in me for my sculpted physique, chiseled good looks, and thick, Levantine coiffure. So, having photoshopped a few pics of myself to tone down the Adonis-like handsomeness, I ventured into the world of online dating -- primarily using free services since I am way too friggin' cheap to pay for dates, let alone pay for finding a date.

Pretty much the only free dating service worth a damn is OkCupid, so I'm just going to ignore the others, although what follows here is applicable equally to all of them, and probably to pay sites, as well [NOTE: Apparently you can browse profiles on Match.com without paying for them, so I updated this with info from that.] See, this blog entry was supposed to be about my adventures in the online dating world, but those turned out to be fairly typical of dating generally, and not all that interesting -- unless you want to hear about night after night of massively mind-blowing, singularity-creating quantum supermassive power sex; and that's just quotidian for most of us, I'm sure. No, instead I'm going to write this as an advice column: the do's and don'ts of profile creation for women (and men, too, sure. I'm betting this applies more or less to men, too.) on the sites I tried. Go ahead and extrapolate it to every dating site ever, though.

That's right, bitches get crazy for dudes who chew with their mouths open.

All of the below is information culled from my own (extensive) experience, from interviewing friends and acquaintances about this, and from hour upon hour of statistical analysis -- well, more like a good half-hour. I numbered these for ease of tracking, but don't infer that they're ranked by importance. I have an importance ranking in my head, but I didn't care enough to rejigger this list with copy and paste and all that crap. Just rank them your damn self, what do you think this is, first class on Singapore Airlines or something?

#1: Don't Say It, Be It
Here's what you get a lot in the first paragraph of girls' profiles: "I'm funny, intelligent, and attractive." or some other flatly descriptive information. Problem is: saying you're something doesn't make you that thing -- if you're funny and intelligent, show people that by actually being funny and erudite in your profile. If you're attractive, look attractive in your pictures. It also doesn't help if you use some kinda third-party endorsement to make these statements indirectly, either: "My gynecologist says I have the prettiest vagina he's ever seen." That may be, but without actually seeing your vagina in your profile I have no idea if your vagina even exists and that's just lame.

"I have incredible stage presence." See? I proved it with this picture!

#2: Don't Give Irrelevant Information
Please, people, keep the stuff you write about yourself or your interests on point. Irrelevancy makes me bored and also makes me wonder if you have the capacity for higher order brain function. What counts as irrelevant? It really depends on what your angle is for your overall profile. If your angle is "funny and irreverent," then hell, you can put a lot of shit in there and, if it's funny and irreverent, guys will stay interested. If your angle, though, is "earnest and forthright," "sweet and innocent," or the oft-used "trying-to-be-edgy-but-really-just-being-bitchy," do us a favor and don't throw in things that nobody cares about. For example:

Hi, my name's Tammy [don't give your name; nobody cares at this point and it makes it seem like you don't care about your privacy like sane people do], LOL! [never, ever use internet-speak unironically] I'm a little scared of online dating, [see #5 below] and I come from Phoenix. [who cares?] It's so hard to talk about yourself on these profiles, I don't know what to say! [shoot anyone who uses this line] Sometimes I forget to put my turn-signal on while driving! [is this an attempt at demonstrating your cute klutziness? I have no idea, and it has nothing to do with anything, so don't say this.]

Nobody cares about stupid crap like this, it has nothing to do with whether or not we want to date you. This would be like showing up on a date at a restaurant, and I open the convo by asking you if you like movie/band/book/sports team X, and you spent 15 minutes talking about why you choose paper over plastic at the supermarket. It's not relevant to what we're discussing, and it would never be relevant to what we might possibly be discussing, because in no universe ever would any parallel version of me give a raccoon's garbage-filled turd about what kinds of bags you use at the supermarket. Nobody would. I know you're nervous and you don't know how to get started writing your profile, so you want to spend time writing insipid crap like this to prime the pump -- but just skip it.

#3: Don't Give Overly Detailed Information
Related to the above: don't go overboard with the stuff you describe about yourself. Nobody cares about what boring town you're from, but neither does anybody need to hear the abstract of your graduate thesis on human behavioral psychology or the thing this swami told you in India and how it affected your chi or whatever.

TMI falls under this category, too. Telling me about how you love how your farts smell is a) grody, and b) not something that matters to me in the slightest. Presumably you will not be farting a large amount around me, at least on the first few dates. I also don't need to know what kind of sexual positions you find stimulating, that you recovered from being mentally retarded as a child, or that some awful disaster happened to someone close to you and now you're all scarred and shit, but still positive about life. This may all be stuff we want to share with each other at some later date, but don't put it on your profile. You're selling yourself here. Your profile needs to be a marketing pitch for your product's strengths, not the troubleshooting section of the instruction manual.

I wouldn't tell women that this photo of me existed right off the bat.

#4: Don't Use Terms Without Defining Them
"I'm a country girl at heart." What the hell does that even mean? You like country music? You come from a ranch where ma and pa still raise llamas? You meant to say "cunty," but can't spell? Don't make me guess, just tell me: "I like country music and also, I am a cunt." Thanks, now I know what I'm working with.

#5: Don't Explain Why You're Doing Online Dating
I know, I know: you're all embarrassed about having had to resort to online dating, and you're afraid that people are going to judge you for being on this website and not being able to get a date in the real world, or something. Hey, guess what: I'm on this site, too. And do you know what I infer when you spend a whole paragraph explaining why you are the exception that slipped through the cracks and totally not like the normal losers who would fall back on online dating? I infer that I am one of those losers. Thanks a lot, dick.

Also, this is irrelevant information to me (see #2, above): we're on a dating site -- I'm here to learn about you, not to hear your excuses for why you're on here. It's doubly annoying when people put crap like: "My friends made me do this!" or the thinly veiled excuse "I just moved here from out of town, so I thought I'd give this a try." Because you were a frickin' marriage machine back wherever you're originally from, right? Please.

The lone exception to this rule is if you want to say something positive about online dating in general: "I'm hopeful I'll meet somebody great on here!" That's not really super relevant, and it's pretty fucking obvious, but hey, at least it's not an excuse.

I tried going to the clubs, but this is the only dance move I know, so I'm trying online dating now...

#6: Don't Have Cats
I cannot stress this one enough. It seems like every unattached female on OkCupid has one or more cats. Here's a secret: cats suck. Guys do not like them. Also, owning them makes you seem desperate and pathetic. A dog is fine (not more than one, though). No birds, they're loud and dirty. Fish are cool. Nonstandard pets... well, it depends. I went out with a girl who had a pet millipede once and I refused to enter her house because all I could do was picture her sexually with the millipede crawling all over her and it was a complete turn off and also she said she didn't want to have sex that night so screw her.

If you must have a cat or other pathos-inducing animal, don't cop to it on your profile. You're 90% more likely to turn dudes away than you are to attract them with your ostensible compassion and love of animals. If you have multiple cats, just give up on life completely. Or kill the cats and live a life of joy and carefree ecstasy immediately thereafter.

#7: Don't be a Vegetarian
Or have any kind of significant food restrictions, really. No matter what the reason is, such limitations narrow you and make you seem like you have a stick up your ass. I know, I know -- maybe you genuinely are lactose intolerant and shit actual flames if you have so much as a pat of butter -- but you don't need to let everybody under the sun know that right out of the gate. Just go out on a date and avoid dairy, or meat or whatever; if your date notices, then go ahead and explain. If not, cool, nobody noticed and it wasn't an issue. But don't put restrictive stuff up on your profile because it just makes guys think "Crap, where the hell am I gonna take this girl to dinner... and who is gonna cook me a steak up in this bitch?" and guys don't like inconvenient stuff like that. Except for Al Gore, but he's a total douche.

Doesn't matter if your eating restrictions are religious, either. I mean, you may as well say if you're a religious fanatic and only looking for other religious fanatics, but if you're not a psycho Muslim/Jew/Buddhist/Mormon, yet still keep to some sort of religious diet, again, no need to advertise this. If you're a vegan, just fucking kill yourself. You're a useless sack of shit and nobody likes you or being around you. Seriously.

Just eat and drink like a normal person and all will be well.

#8: Have Some Real Pictures
Of yourself. Not of you and four other girls, not of your dog (or, God forbid, your cat), not of your nephew, and not of you in some ridiculous getup/mask/makeup/state of disheveledness. Have at least one picture that shows you full face or three-quarters. Profile is fine in addition, but not by itself -- it's fine to emphasize your good side (everyone has one, usually because everybody's nose bends slightly one way or the other), but hopefully your good side isn't a shot down your shirt. If you want to show off your cleavage, hey, I won't object, but at least put the rest of you in there somewhere. Please don't make the "kissy face," or as my friend Stacy calls it, the "Sexy Duck Face." This makes it impossible to take you seriously.

Additionally, include at least one or two full-body shots. This does not mean a shot that you took yourself holding the camera almost directly above your head and cropped to obscure your fatness as much as possible. Somebody else should have taken this shot of you -- and again, you should be the only person in it -- and it should, like all your pictures, have been taken within at most a couple of years of posting it. Well, check that, any picture that is an accurate depiction of how you look now is totally fine, regardless of age. Just make sure that how you look now really is how you used to look. Ask a third party to compare recent with older pictures if you have to. Sound embarrassing? Maybe, but not as embarrassing as showing up on a date and being 15 pounds heavier than your pictures look, and then having your date straight walk out on you. [EDITOR'S NOTE: Guys, don't ever, ever do this. Be nice. Fat girls are people, too -- you will also be unattractive some day.]

Some very important things: don't put up pictures that obfuscate important information (and don't lie to yourself and others when you do this -- you did it on fucking purpose). That means: no giant sunglasses, no goofy masks or Halloween makeup, no pictures of you with a gaggle of similarly attired females, no picture that's been post-processed or 'shopped for "artistic" purposes. You cannot make yourself into a pretty girl if you're not by hiding behind a bunch of smoke and mirrors like this. I will never, ever message girls that put up bullshit pictures because it just shows a lack of respect for the process, and, by extension, for all the guys trying to meet women on here. We're really not this stupid. I know, I know, guys do this crap in their pictures, as well. Whatever, they're assholes, too -- doesn't make you less of a cock.

Also, don't have six pictures of yourself, all of which you just took this minute, all in the same outfit, in the same setting. Have some variety -- your pictures can also show me a little bit about what you're like, what activities you like, who you hang out with, etc. Don't be a one-picture wonder.

ProTip: Everybody looks better in black and white. If you want to use a black and white photo to lead off, good call! As long as it doesn't violate the above rules, hit it.

Don't make this face -- it totally makes it look like you're about to rape a dude in the ass.

#9: Have a Real Job
Or at least have the common decency to admit that you're unemployed. Don't be all: "I'm an actress, but I wait tables to pay the bills." You're a fucking waitress, I'm sorry. If and when you get paid on the regular to act, then you can say you're an actress. Oh I know, I know. And yes, it's true, it's true -- you are an actress in the sense that it is your passion and pursuit and you may be very good at it, and you may one day have a big break and be awesome. Fine. But that is not the question. The question is: what is your profession? How do you pay the bills? I may want to be a professional soccer player, I may play with a team on the weekends and practice after work, and I be really damn good and get called up to play in the Premiership one day. But when someone asks me what I do for a living, I tell them what my actual job is.

I realize that many of you may not be from L.A., and therefore may not be used to the "I'm an actress" spiel (for men, this is often the "I'm a screenwriter" spiel). To that end, this rule also encompasses people who just have bullshit jobs, or who bullshit about having a job, in general. Look, if you're 18, cool -- you can say you work at Burger King or whatever, it's all good. But if you are over 23 and you have not graduated from college/landed a real job -- that's totally fine, too! (Went the other way on you there, didn't I?) It's fine, really. If when you're reading this, the U.S. has continued going on the path that it's on when I'm writing this, the economy probably really sucks balls and finding work is probably hard. No sweat, mamasita; only, don't lie about this or make some weird excuses or gloss over it completely. There's no shame in being unemployed (as long as it's not because you're, you know, in prison or something), so just effing go ahead and say it. Be yourself, even if you don't like everything about where yourself is at the moment. Honesty, contrary to Billy Joel's theory, is not necessarily a lonely word.

All that said: try to have a job. It's better if it's a job that you don't hate hate hate. To be sure, very few people looooove their jobs, and that's okay. We all accept as humans that we have to eat some shit in order to put our kids through private school. But if you truly loathe your job, you're likely to be an unhappy or even depressed person, and the sad truth of life is that negative people -- even those who have very good reasons to be negative -- generally turn other people off. I'm not saying you should be all chipper and thrilled about being a waitress -- service is one of the toughest jobs there is -- but neither should you bitch and moan, or worse, lie about it. Just accept it, let me know that you've accepted it and are hopeful that better will come your way, and we'll be golden. But yeah, try your best to have a good job; as Grampa Neigher always says: "Money isn't everything, but it can't hurt."

I'm not a lawyer, I'm a professional pianist! Just look at the way I enthrall the masses!

#10: Invite Messages from Others
Speaking of being negative, it's important to convey openness and positivity in your profile -- warmness. It's fine to be snarky, witty, whatever, but don't be a bitch and don't say shit like: "Only message me if you think you're at least an 8 on the hotness scale and you can name at least 20 elements with atomic weights above 75, off the top of your head." You will only intimidate nice guys, piss off assholes, and set yourself up for being trolled constantly. If you think you're hot shit, cool, be hot shit (see #1, above) -- but online dating is impersonal enough as it is, don't make it a fucking audition to take you to dinner, that's just retarded.

Corollary to this, you need to have enough stuff in your profile, both in terms of quantity of text and quality of it, to give people some way to initiate a conversation with you. The fact of the matter, at least in my experience, is that guys initiate the conversations in online dating like, oh I'm just gonna say... 98% of the time. You have to both give us a reason to want to initiate a conversation with you and something to talk about when we do.

So here's a picture of me making a face, with a halo over my head. That's a good conversation starter!

#11: Don't be Fat
Yep, pretty straightforward. Look on the bright side: the analogue for guys is: don't be short, so you've got it a lot easier than we do. It's also important not to be ugly, in general -- or more precisely, to look as good as you possibly can. If you're okay with pulling in ugly dudes, hell, be fat and ugly. But if you are interested in attractive people, you're going to need to not be fat. I'm not saying you have to look like a supermodel, but you need to look like you at least care that you just cut out a slice of cake and then ate the rest of the cake and left the slice for everybody else. Also, never, ever use the fat-girl-angle photo to disguise your fatness. That's terrible.

Oh, and if you're a really tall girl (over 5'9"), you're going to have a tougher time meeting guys. That sucks, and there's nothing you can do: you're going to have to reconcile yourself to the fact that the pool of dudes that're tall enough for you is relatively small -- really tall dudes are fairly rare, and really tall, good-looking dudes exceedingly so. Sorry. Guys, should do their best to not be short. It's really our fault, in the end.

#12: For God's Sake, Look Like Your Pictures
So, building off #8, above: if you put up some pictures of yourself it's really, really critical that they represent the way you look currently. No excuses here. If you've gained 5 pounds and you're thinking: "Ah, what's the difference?" The difference is 5 pounds, motherfucker, put up some accurate pictures. There is absolutely nothing worse than showing up on what's essentially a blind date and the girl is heavier than her pictures, has terrible skin, is five months pregnant, has a facial tattoo, etc. Do not hide or obfuscate relevant visual info because that's just going to piss me off. I'll still probably buy you dinner, because my momma raised me right -- but I will make jokes at your expense with my friends afterward, because you fucking deserve it for hoodwinking me.

Here's a photo I had a friend take of me literally 5 minutes ago. Accurate and up to date.

#13: Use Contractions
One thing to remember when writing in general, and especially when you're writing conversationally (as you should in your profile), is that's the way you want to write: conversationally. Just write as if you were having a conversation with someone. Kinda like I've been doing in this blog entry. Just because something is written down on paper, some people seem to think it suddenly takes on some formalistic, arcane quality. Maybe this is the fault of our awful educational system, maybe it's just because writing well is a lot harder than most people think it is, who knows? But trust me. You don't need to try to use big, "impressive" words, although if you feel that a sesquipedalian verbosity suits your personality and writing style, go for it. But realize that it tends to make your profile sound clinical and cold, not "intelligent" -- and remember what I said about conveying warmness (#10, above). Being a good writer means being able to express yourself in any context -- a good writer has the tools to sound all highfalutin and shiznizz, but a really, really good writer knows when those tools are needed and when you can just jury rig the thing with a piece of gum and a bread-bag tie. Now, having said all that:

#14: Use Proper Grammar, Spelling, and Style
Of all the items on this list, none is more important, with the possible exception of not being fat, than this one. If you have bad grammar, typos, poor spelling, "internet speak" (clutch the pearls!), crazy formatting/spacing/capitalization, non-sequiturs, malapropisms, etc., in your profile, you will be instantly judged by people knowledgeable enough to know that these things are in your profile. Other guys may not care or even know, but those are the kinds of guys who are only on this site to find women to cheat on their wives with. Having that type of stuff in your profile will make it way, way less attractive, and make you seem really dumb. No excuses -- if you're dyslexic or just a bad speller, have a friend proofread for you. If you just can't understand the basic grammar rules of the English language, you probably should get back to Mrs. Davis' sixth-grade class and stop posing as a 25-year-old on a dating site, little girl.

It's great to express yourself, and you need to do it in your own voice, sure, but that doesn't include illiteracy. Run afoul of #14 at your peril.

Sup?

Okay, enough already. I think that pretty much covers the major issues I've encountered in dating profiles. Hopefully, armed with the knowledge I've given you here, you, too, can improve your dating lifestyle, and score one for the kids.