How to write a dating profile that gets replies

Almost every bad dating profile fails the same way. It describes the person accurately and gives the reader nothing to say back.

That is the whole problem. A profile is not a biography and it is not a résumé. It is the opening of a conversation, and its only job is to make the next message easy to write.

The test

Read your profile and ask: if a stranger wanted to message me, what would they say?

If the honest answer is "hey" or a compliment about a photo, the profile is not working, no matter how true it is.

"I love travel, food, and laughing" is accurate about almost everyone and offers no handle. "I have been trying to find a decent bagel in this city for two years and I am starting to think it is a conspiracy" is the same amount of text and three people a week will tell you where to go.

Specific beats impressive. The thing you actually did last Saturday beats the thing you are theoretically interested in.

Four things worth putting in

Something you actually do, in detail. Not "I like hiking" — which trail, and what you think of it. Not "I cook" — what you made last week that went badly.

Something slightly unflattering and true. Not self-deprecation as a bit, which reads as fishing. An actual limitation: you are bad at texting back, you leave early, you are the person who suggests the restaurant and then changes their mind twice. It makes everything else more believable.

An opinion. Mild is fine. An opinion is the easiest thing in the world to respond to, agree with, or argue about, and a profile with no opinions in it gives a reader nothing to push against.

What you are looking for, said plainly. Not a specification of the other person. A description of the thing you want — something serious, something casual, someone to do a specific thing with. People are bad at reading between lines and good at responding to clear statements.

Four things to take out

Lists of dealbreakers. "No drama, no players, don't bother if you..." Every item might be reasonable. The cumulative effect is a profile about the people who have disappointed you, which tells a reader what your last year was like rather than what you are like.

Height, salary and body requirements stated as filters. You are allowed your preferences. Stating them as entry conditions sets a tone you will have to live with.

"Ask me anything." This is the request that hands the entire job to the other person. It is the opposite of what a profile is for.

Anything that is true of most people. Coffee, dogs, music, trying new restaurants, the Office, travel. None of these are wrong. They just do not do any work.

Photos, which matter more than the text

The text decides whether someone replies. The photos decide whether they read the text. Four to six is the right number, and they should show different contexts.

Lead with a clear photo of your face. Taken from a normal distance, well lit, nothing obscuring it. Not sunglasses, not a hat brim, not a filter, not a photo from eleven feet away.

Never lead with a group photo. The reader does not know which person you are and will not work it out. If they have to guess, they move on. Group photos are fine further down, once it is obvious.

Include one full-length photo. Leaving it out is widely read as hiding something, which is a worse outcome than whatever you think you are hiding.

Include at least one of you doing something. Not posed with a prop — actually mid-activity. It gives someone a question to ask.

Take out: the fish, the car, the mirror selfie in a gym, the photo where someone has obviously been cropped out, anything over about two years old. The last one in particular — a photo that is no longer accurate costs you nothing online and costs you the entire first ten minutes in person.

On honesty

The temptation in a profile is to be a slightly better version of yourself: a bit taller, a bit more adventurous, a bit more recently photographed.

It does not work, and not for moral reasons. It works for about one message and then it costs you. Every small inaccuracy has to be managed in person, and the other person spends the first half hour recalibrating instead of getting to know you. You end up making a worse first impression than the accurate version would have.

The accurate version also filters correctly. A profile that describes you as you actually are gets fewer replies and better ones, and the number you want is not replies.

Keep it current

Profiles rot. The thing you were into in March stops being true, the photo stops looking like you, the opinion stops being one you hold.

Rewrite it every few months. It takes ten minutes and it is the single highest-return thing you can do, because a profile that describes your actual current life produces conversations about your actual current life.

One aside while you are in there: your profile photos are public, and reverse image search is the first tool anyone uses to check whether a stranger is real. That cuts both ways, and it is covered in the guide to spotting a romance scam.

If you only change one thing

Go through your profile and delete every sentence that could appear on anyone else's. Then add one specific, slightly odd, completely true thing.

That single edit does more than any other advice on this page.