Re: The Same OLD Stories: Dating Profile/Message Advice

[reboot]

Hi Tistur, your self summary and what I am doing read a little choppy and abrupt. They are horribly awkward sections to write and your discomfort comes through. I might go into more depth.

[nearly_takuan]

The format of your description of your current TV shows gave me a chuckle; I think it comes across as subtly humorous/self-deprecating in a good way. Cheers for LaTeX, too.

I don't agree at all that you're coming across as rambling or incoherent; are there specific things in there that you think are especially rambling? To me this just reads as you being unafraid to show some personality and personal investment in the profile, which is something I'd personally like to see a lot more of elsewhere on the site.

I mean, I agree with reboot that your self-summary seems unnaturally terse, but then your section on your favorite entertainment shines, and that's kind of a rare thing.

The comment about Brandon Sanderson seems like it might put some people on the defensive. That's okay if the issue you're alluding to is especially important to you, and/or if it has something to do with Judaism directly so that it's a filter for the exact kind of Jewish man you're looking for. (I don't actually know what it is you're talking about, which is weird because I usually follow Sanderson pretty closely and pay attention to his views on non-heterosexuality and non-Mormon religions and atheism.) Otherwise, though, I would worry that I might not have the exact correct opinion about Brandon Sanderson and avoid the subject entirely (the easiest way to do that being to not send a message).

[nonA]

In no particular order:

-Looking over your questions by "she cares about", I'm going to assume that being jewish is very important.  As is not being christian, muslim, hindu, etc.  The nature of these questions and OKC's point-based system will work against you.  Most people do not follow more than one religion, so they'll get a nice chunk of points just for the ones they don't follow.  Marking irrelevant or outright skipping will usually work better for you.  Just the judiasm one, and being conscious of how you use your ratings, should make the algorithms work better for you.

-Most people know that Game of Thrones is a book.  Real fans of the book series refer to it as A Song of Ice and Fire.  Nothing about you specifically, but people who say they love reading Game of Thrones give themselves away immediately.  (Not that there's anything wrong with preferring the TV series to the books.  There were several seasons where True Blood beat the Sookie Stackhouse series.  Just that a lot of people try to imply that they're serious readers while giving away a huge tell.)

-Your profile really picks up around Six Things.  You seem a little rambly by nature, so a little rambly is okay in your early sections.  More than bare facts, you want the reader to get a sense of what it'd be like to be around you.  Just the facts makes the whole thing feel like an exercise in online shopping more than anything.

(Not applicable to you, but because of the times I have seen it:  People who try to put their worst traits first make me wonder what they're hoping to achieve.  Mopey and negative is not a good first impression if you want a healthy relationship.)

-Not being in Chicago.  You seem like you'd be fun to nerd with.

--Although stepping back a bit, you play the "I read!  I like board games!  I'm Jewish" card a lot.  Not necessarily bad, but you won't have a problem finding a generic jewish nerdboy.  You're a reasonably attractive nerdgirl, you'll get attention.  If you want something more specific, it'll take some digging to show just what flavor of nerdgirl you are.

As for your disclosures, there's a match question about dating someone who still lives with their parents.  Answer it, guys who it matters to can see it for themselves.  Mostly it'll be an issue in the case of "your place or mine", which your relationship history says you should avoid.

Meds and relationship history are nonissues for most people.  What the latter says about your interest in jumping into a relationship - or into bed - with someone is relevant, but can be covered in its own match questions.  The former, so long as your issues are under control, isn't really relevant for someone you just want to grab hot cocoa and play Catan with.  That changes if things start to get serious with a boy, but for now a simple focus on dating for its own sake seems more up your alley.

[The Wisp]

Here's my first draft of an OkCupid profile. I struggled to write some parts, particularly the "what I'm good at" and "what I'm doing with my life". They feel underdeveloped. Also I worry I come off as boring and too academic. Anwyay, critique away! 

http://www.okcupid.com/profile/ThePeon

[reboot]

I think you have to do something to make it publically visible

[The Wisp]

Erm, try now.

[nearly_takuan]

What I got from that is that you're shy, intellectual, and like popular entertainment. You're also a writer, or maybe you just think about being a writer.

You mention an interest in philosophy a few times, but aside from the "message me if" mind-game (which I happen to like, assuming you mean it to be read as "you may subjectively assign any truth value you wish to a meaningless self-referential statement, thus this collapses to the default case where you message me iff you want to", but YMMV with the other subjective viewpoints reading your profile) there isn't much indication of how or why you philosophize.

Other than a couple sentences re: the Rockies, it also reads kind of like a fact sheet or resume, which is safe but doesn't do much to help you stand out from all the other male math/philosophy nerd-men on the site. If someone was going to send a message or reply to you, what would you want them to ask you about? What would you want them to tell you?

(Now that you two have gotten me to look at that site again, I think I need to nudge myself toward answering those questions, too, and also: what kinds of people do you already get along with?)

[Enail]

<mod>Just to let you know, Tistur, I've deleted your thread about this to keep things tidy. </mod>

[reboot]

Wisp, one line I would drop is about being a good writer. You are but since OLD profiles are so restricted you can not show it here and it made me think, "You are? I do not see it" which is stupid because the format does not allow anyone to show their writing skills, but there it is.

As mentioned, philosophy is a big topic, so I would specifically mention what specific schools of thought appeal to you. It can also screen out people with incompatible philosophies. I just can not see you with a nihilist!

You use the word "interesting" a lot. Interesting things, interesting people, etc. but I do not have a clear picture of what you think is interesting. Also, everyone thinks they are interesting and thinks the things they care about are interesting, so it is not a great way to screen out the incompatible.

[nearly_takuan]

General question: is there a strategically meaningful difference between screening out the incompatible and inviting the compatible? I have some vague notion that certain people might need to do more of one or the other somehow. Certain things, e.g. establishing that you're a devout follower of a certain religion, definitely go a long way toward both, but what of things you and/or your target audience don't feel as strongly about?

[reboot]

General question: is there a strategically meaningful difference between screening out the incompatible and inviting the compatible? I have some vague notion that certain people might need to do more of one or the other somehow. Certain things, e.g. establishing that you're a devout follower of a certain religion, definitely go a long way toward both, but what of things you and/or your target audience don't feel as strongly about?

It is kind of similar and in many cased the same in that it does both at the same time.

For example, if you have kids you mention it to screen out anyone who really does not want to date a parent but it is generally not something that is said to specifically draw people that want to date parents. Saying you have a specific media interest, though, in more to catch the eye of people who will think, "Hey! I like that too" rather than to screen out people who have never heard of it or do not like it, which might be an incompatibility or might not.

[Mel]

General question: is there a strategically meaningful difference between screening out the incompatible and inviting the compatible? I have some vague notion that certain people might need to do more of one or the other somehow. Certain things, e.g. establishing that you're a devout follower of a certain religion, definitely go a long way toward both, but what of things you and/or your target audience don't feel as strongly about?

I would say it's a difference in positive vs. negative feedback. Statements that would screen out the incompatible should also invite the compatible, and vice versa, definitely. But statements focusing on the former are going to tend to be about what you aren't or don't want ("Not much of a partier" "No players please" "I'm not looking for anything serious"), and statements focusing on the latter are going to tend to be about what you are or do want ("I'm happy just cozying up in front of the TV" "I'm straightforward and appreciate the same in others" "Looking for something casual right now").

From a strategic standpoint, I think you're likely to get more compatible responses taking a positive, invitational approach vs. a negative, screening approach. You may also get a few more people who don't self-screen themselves out and contact you despite incompatibilities that are less blatantly stated, but I think you'll avoid having people who would be compatible self-screen themselves out because they're not sure exactly how you define your negatives and don't want to bug you in case they fit your definition. Also, negative statements tend to give a downer sort of impression--the sense of someone who's critical and judgmental--which can be a turn-off in itself. People are probably going to enjoy a profile that encourages them to picture how they'd fit into this person's life more than a profile that encourages them to think about how they might piss this person off.

So especially for issues you don't feel that strongly about, my feeling is it's best to focus on showing who you are and what you want, and let those who'd be incompatible infer that, particularly if you're aiming to increase the responses you're getting rather than decrease.

[readertorider]

Tistur-- I really liked your profile (and would like to play board games and drink hard cider with you if we lived anywhere near each other). As people already said, starting with your 'favorites' everything really picks up and is quite a bit more fun/interesting to read. IDK, overall you just seem very comfortable with your self/family/hobbies, and I like that you keep the "geek cred" stuff to a minimum by not naming specific games or trying to shoehorn in obscure references (will disagree with nonA--Game of Thrones is the name of the first book in A Song of Ice and Fire book series, your way of mentioning it seems seems both elegant and clever to me).  

One thing you might want to change is this bit--"(Ask me which drinks placed highly the hard cider tastings I occasionally host!)". I think you're missing an "at" and might be a bit too wordy overall, "(Ask me which drinks placed highly at my hard cider tastings!)" seems slightly less convoluted to me.  

I did also get the impression that there was an implied Jewish and "pick one" in the 'contact me if' section, but it might be a good idea to make it explicit if that's the case. Also, here I definitely agree with nonA, your medication is not currently relevant, and I would not say your living situation is either--provided you don't expect your potential friend/date to move in with you

Wisp--I really really like that you say you're a Rockies fan and how you mention it--it gives everything an extra dimension and provides a possible activity for me to do with you. I think your profile could use a little more "this (2+ person activity) is what I have fun doing" in general--one of my college friend groups were all engineering/physics people, but we spent our free time trying to get onto campus roofs, playing old video games, and board gaming, and campus dates were usually along the lines of seeing a group performance, walking around the plantations, or dinner+movie--is there anything you like to do that could become a date-type thing?  Are there campus groups that do musical performances? I would mention what (non sexual things) you want to do with a date/friend in the 'you should message me if' section.

To me the "I love getting to know intelligent and wise people with interesting things to say." bit is a little over the top--should I only be contacting you if I think I'm intelligent and wise? Who determines what counts as intelligent and wise? Also "I'm kinda shy, that doesn't mean I don't open up interesting people. I want to get to know others better"--hopefully doesn't mean that you want to get to know people by opening up them up Maybe "I'm kinda shy, but I like meeting new people" and include topics (not philosophy) you like to talk about with new people.

My personal bias is that it's hard to talk philosophy without a common ground, and that for causal sex and short term dating you don't need someone who you can talk philosophy with (if you do I suggest focusing on your school's philosophy club, or getting to know your classmates better), so you may want to emphasize other things on your profile. I really do like your 'favorites' section--it gives me an opening to talk about stuff and make media recs! Maybe pick one other section to go into greater depth with--"I'm really good at" section could be a chance to showcase an obscure talent, and since a lot of writing focuses on "show, not tell" that may be something you can delete. Best of luck!

[readertorider]

From a strategic standpoint, I think you're likely to get more compatible responses taking a positive, invitational approach vs. a negative, screening approach. You may also get a few more people who don't self-screen themselves out and contact you despite incompatibilities that are less blatantly stated, but I think you'll avoid having people who would be compatible self-screen themselves out because they're not sure exactly how you define your negatives and don't want to bug you in case they fit your definition.  Also, negative statements tend to give a downer sort of impression--the sense of someone who's critical and judgmental--which can be a turn-off in itself.  People are probably going to enjoy a profile that encourages them to picture how they'd fit into this person's life more than a profile that encourages them to think about how they might piss this person off.  

So especially for issues you don't feel that strongly about, my feeling is it's best to focus on showing who you are and what you want, and let those who'd be incompatible infer that, particularly if you're aiming to increase the responses you're getting rather than decrease.

I definitely agree! Especially since I want a partner who is kind, flexible, and easygoing, even pointed statements like "I know humans evolved" would put me off because even though I agree, you aren't telling me anything interesting about yourself (unless you're an evolutionary archaeologist speaking tongue in cheek) but just differentiating yourself from another group. Your opinions on evolution matter as much to me as your cheap shots at teenage pop stars (unless you make me laugh).

I do think positive statements can be more screening statements though--especially once you start becoming very specific. I like board games, but I don't like Puerto Rico, so a "message me if" statement like "you want to spend an hour scheming to make the most of your colony (possibly while drinking a rum and coke)" might cause me to sort myself into a maybe pile, because someone who hasn't played the game before might love it, but I already know I don't.

[The Wisp]

Hrm, this dating profile thing is hard.

I guess I'm kinda a boring person. I'm interested in philosophy, but I don't really have any strongly held philosophical views yet (I figure that they will just be overturned many times over by the time I get through undergrad and grad school). I guess I have some interest in history. My social life is pretty barren, and has been for a while. I'm not really super motivated to work to build a social life outside of dating either, at the moment. I spend most of my free time either thinking about my mental health issues (which I'm not going to be sharing on OLD, obviously ) or just vegging out reading baseball blogs, playing video games, listening to podcasts, hanging out here, surfing the web, and other boring stuff. I don't like going out to parties and clubs nor am I outdoorsy (lots of the latter out here in Colorado). In fact, I really have no life.

I want to filter for people who would be okay with mostly doing low-key, introvert-y hanging out. The thing is, I think I'm even more of an introvert than most introverts, so I feel like I come off as a stick in the mud. I'm not looking for a manic pixie dream girl to liven up my "boring" life, rather, I want somebody who'd be okay with somebody who is "boring". But, I also want them to have an interesting personality and be intelligent, but I don't really have anything more specific than that.

Honestly, after sleeping on it, I'm feeling more down about my profile, and I'm not sure how to fix it. Any suggestions? Or am I just not ready to date (e.g. not interesting enough, not attractive enough personality, etc.)?

[reboot]

Are there any particular schools of philosophy you are more interested in exploring right now? You could phrase it as, "I like philosophy and am currently exploring utilitarianism, positivism and reductionism. Right now I am leaning towards X, Y and Z but am still exploring."

For the not being particularly social issue, are there any things you now do alone that could be done with two people? Things like going to museums, hiking, movies, theater?

[The Wisp]

Those are certainly options. There are many things I do that could easily be done with another or there are similar things that could be done with another. I tried to be general about the philosophy because I worried being too specific would alienate good matches, but maybe if I was more specific it would actually be less intimidating.

I think Nearly is right, I'm taking this profile too seriously and making it too much like a resume. I'm noticing that the profiles of ladies I have a high match percentage with are generally shorter and more casual than mine, which makes me wonder if I should have a completely different mentality when making it.

[nearly_takuan]

I'm not looking for a manic pixie dream girl to liven up my "boring" life, rather, I want somebody who'd be okay with somebody who is "boring". But, I also want them to have an interesting personality and be intelligent, but I don't really have anything more specific than that.

This is more or less where I'm at, too. But a question that came up a few posts back was, what counts as an interesting personality? Because that, I think, is something that looks different to different people. Also, I don't think there's an especially strong correlation between a person's self-evaluation of their intelligence and their actual intelligence(s), so if possible you might want to leave a trail of puzzles that you think would be a good fit for the kind of person you want to meet; Tistur's ASoIaF screen is one example. The sequence of inferences required to obtain extra information from the odd phrasing of some of my essays might also be an example, but might be mis-aimed i.e. I might need to be more direct in certain places.

I think the logic puzzle match questions already do a fairly good job of filtering for the kind of intelligence I appreciate, actually; anyone who can't be bothered to run the thought-experiment and touch her fingertips to each other to determine that an inside-out left-handed glove is a right-handed glove... might not be putting a lot of careful thought behind the things she chooses to say in real life either (not that I'm always such a paragon of this, but I usually try). The permutation+analogy (stale/steal) question seems potentially less reliable because a lot of people mentally invert the "is to" relation without realizing it, especially if they lack formal training in maths/logic (which in American "math is hard" culture is sadly common).

I subscribe to a belief that almost everyone's personality is complex in some sense, and has multiple layers to explore, but an "interesting" personality would be one that I personally am interested in exploring, which means the criteria for such a thing is subjective and possibly very difficult to measure. That doesn't automatically make it useless, but if you can't think of any common themes among the people you already do find interesting, it seems fair to say that you don't actually know what you're looking for there (I've used this to conclude that I don't) and therefore it might be best to leave that sort of thing off your profile entirely.

Entirely orthogonal to interesting-ness, it does sound like you might want to meet someone with a quiet, reserved, introverted, or "homebody" type of personality. (And yes, there are definitely women like that using OLD just as much as there are men.)

[Nerdator]

I think it's time for me to post my OKC profile here again: http://www.okcupid.com/profile/Nerdator

I made it more than a year ago (got next to no feedback in the old forum), it brought me a good deal of responses and a few conversations, though never leading to anything offline – even though at least one of them was otherwise illuminating and valuable – with some of them ending suspiciously and abruptly the moment anything offline was mentioned. In the last five months, I've had no responses and no conversations (I'm not counting the recent encounter with a Swedish woman, who was either brain-dead or uninterested or both, as the only responses I got from her were incorrectly-spelled monosyllables). I have changed a number of things over time – but all of them were minor improvements, corrections and updates.

I wonder if I could get more specific criticism this time. And please do tell me that my picture is shit – I'll just stop bothering: this is the only one left at my profile that I can tolerate, and I continually fail to make a picture of myself that doesn't make me want to delete it immediately.

[The Wisp]

Did you ask to meet them in person fairly quickly?

[Nerdator]

Did you ask to meet them in person fairly quickly?

It varied and tended to be later at first (as in a few weeks later), and after I got burned a few times, I had decided to cut the crap, and started asking after 3–6 messages, depending on the context.

[nearly_takuan]

Not sure if your "message me if" thing is going to come across as challenging (bad) or playful (good). Actually that applies to a lot of your profile; a certain kind of person would probably be charmed by the sarcastic attitude you have going throughout, but another certain kind of person might feel like you're just being grumpy or insecure or PUA-y or something. I think a description of what sort of person you want to be filtering for would be helpful here.

[The Wisp]

Did you ask to meet them in person fairly quickly?

It varied and tended to be later at first (as in a few weeks later), and after I got burned a few times, I had decided to cut the crap, and started asking after 3–6 messages, depending on the context.

Okay, that's good. If you're getting messages, then it seems you are attractive enough to message/respond to. Some possibilities are that you're screwing up the messaging portion, or your profile is attracting the kind of woman who is more shy and flaky, or just bad luck.

Unfortunately, I suck at OLD, so I'm not really qualified to help you improve. I'm sure others can give some good advice!

[kath]

You should definitely update your "on Friday nights ... " section to say what you do on nights you are doing stuff, even if those nights are normally not Fridays.

I do think that as soon as you can make a better photo happen, you should replace that one. It's very dark, and doesn't say a lot about you. Also you might want to add a caption clarifying the oreo is an oreo (I assume it's an oreo).

I also think there's a lot of clever and somewhat scathing commentary going on, and I think a bit more directness might be great. Your self-summary is pretty esoteric, which is cool, but ... it's so esoteric it's hard to get much out of it. Your "what I'm doing with my life" makes it sound like the people who pay your bills are stupid, and there's a lot of other general negativity, both about yourself and others. Also some of the jokes are funny, but wouldn't make me want to be a potential target of them. It seems like if I were hanging out with you, there would be a lot of snark about everything. I find that really exhausting. If that's an accurate picture, leaving that impression in may be better than taking it out, but weeding out people who won't like that is then a feature, not a bug.

[Nerdator]

Not sure if your "message me if" thing is going to come across as challenging (bad) or playful (good). Actually that applies to a lot of your profile; a certain kind of person would probably be charmed by the sarcastic attitude you have going throughout, but another certain kind of person might feel like you're just being grumpy or insecure or PUA-y or something. I think a description of what sort of person you want to be filtering for would be helpful here.

Quite frankly, I don't expect people to message me, and they don't – I assume this also because the pool of OKC users here as well as their turnover aren't big. Plus, I am not used to people showing interest in me as a person, so those initiating the conversation would go under heavy suspicion immediately.

Also, I get 'grumpy or insecure', but 'PUA-y'? Seriously?

Did you ask to meet them in person fairly quickly?

It varied and tended to be later at first (as in a few weeks later), and after I got burned a few times, I had decided to cut the crap, and started asking after 3–6 messages, depending on the context.

Okay, that's good. If you're getting messages, then it seems you are attractive enough to message/respond to. Some possibilities are that you're screwing up the messaging portion, or your profile is attracting the kind of woman who is more shy and flaky, or just bad luck.

I am getting responses, and there's a huge difference, and people respond for different reasons: in my case, never for the reasons I am interested in. Though I might say this is just luck (granted, this persistent lack of luck isn't making me feel any better), or the women with whom I've had conversations just don't give a crap what I have in my profile – the latter may well be true, as come think of it, I don't remember anyone asking specific questions about my profile.

You should definitely update your "on Friday nights ... " section to say what you do on nights you are doing stuff, even if those nights are normally not Fridays.

Except that I don't do anything special – I certainly don't 'go out' (in that sense). So I can just say that On a typical Friday night I am 'not.' or '[does not compute]', or 'producing stool.'

I do think that as soon as you can make a better photo happen, you should replace that one. It's very dark, and doesn't say a lot about you. Also you might want to add a caption clarifying the oreo is an oreo (I assume it's an oreo).

No, in this case it's actually a small black biscuit-shaped dick. It's the lens cover from the camera I took this picture with.

I wish I could make a better picture, but nothing decent comes out – ironically, I'm not as fat now, as on that picture (which is as old as the profile). There used to be more pictures in my account, but I deleted them all, because I realised that they were even worse. Plus, I have no idea how to say something about myself on a still picture beyond what I look like (though I do normally dress better).

I also think there's a lot of clever and somewhat scathing commentary going on, and I think a bit more directness might be great. Your self-summary is pretty esoteric, which is cool, but ... it's so esoteric it's hard to get much out of it. Your "what I'm doing with my life" makes it sound like the people who pay your bills are stupid, and there's a lot of other general negativity, both about yourself and others. Also some of the jokes are funny, but wouldn't make me want to be a potential target of them. It seems like if I were hanging out with you, there would be a lot of snark about everything. I find that really exhausting. If that's an accurate picture, leaving that impression in may be better than taking it out, but weeding out people who won't like that is then a feature, not a bug.

I did the summary the way I did it, because just barely stating that 'yay, I've got a bachelor in [...], now I want to go a master in that field, and maybe do research', is unimpressive and also this is still deeply work in progress, and I have nothing to show for this.

I thought it was pretty clear that in the 'what the hell am I doing with my life' bit, I'm making fun of my profession, not of the people who buy my work. Okay, it might sound like I'm milking the losers, but that the whole point of the exaggeration. And also this is where I followed DNL's advice, and made what I do look edgier than it really is.

Any specific clues on 'general negativity'? I mean, the impression is fairly correct – I'm not a ray of sunshine, and I'm not trying to be, because I'd fail. However, disguising some things might be helpful!

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