Love Bytes
25
JUNE 2019
FYI
David’s profile on a well-known dating site reads: ‘I’m a loving, kind and sensitive, patient, happy go lucky faithful kind of guy looking for that special woman to spend the rest of my life with. Someone who can be my best friend, my lover and my rock. If you like romantic dinners, walks on the beach and picnics in the sunset ….’
He can’t be serious? What dusty Mills and Boon novel did he pick up? Unfortunately for David and his ilk, this type of rhetoric is over-played and is just utterly boring and dull. But as not all women are created equal (fortunately for David) but quite honestly the match he makes online will be about as exciting as two nails in a coffin.

Had he said, with brevity, ‘I’m so good looking, I scare George Clooney’ he would have created a curiosity that would certainly make that statementat least partly true.What he hasn’t realised is that a dating profile actually mimics real life marketing strategies we use to promote our ‘products’.

Life is tough enough as it is without having to worry about frown lines, sagging jaws, or muffin tops.
Where I do need to draw the line, however, is when other things, more noticeable and showy just make older people look silly (and older)! Even at my age, it doesn’t matter if my legs were gorgeous, long and slim (they aren’t!), wearing a tiny micro strip of fabric for a skirt (aka a fanny pelmet) – nooooo! Ladies – a woman in her fifties or sixties just doesn’t look right in a leopard print lycra cat suit, a tutu or Lady Gaga hooves. And middleaged men, especially if you have gone ‘to seed’ as it were – please listen to me, you look silly on a Harley Davidson with tight leathers (paunch hanging over) and a tin potty on your head! Dye your hair, have a facelift, buy a Porsche but please not the Harley.
So, from experience, here are a few tips:

• Focus on your target market and give them something very different from your competitors. Bearing in mind that Global Web Index reports that 91-million people worldwide use dating apps, competition is fierce,so being extraordinary is crucial.

• Ensure you provide visuals(Tinder is all about liking the ‘look first’).Ensurethey are authentic, recent, and of good quality.:Also be aware of the background because aesthetics are important (and there have been just so many epic fails) in projecting an image of how you live your life.!Ask a close friend to take a couple of flattering pictures and choose together those you both like.

• Avoid jaded cliché’s and don’t write the things you think someone wants to hear. Reading about romantic dinners and a love of travel in 10 or more profiles is like trying to isolate one cow in a herd of cattle.

• Ask for help. Writing about yourself can make you feel as vulnerable as standing naked in the middle of a full stadium of spectators. If the thought of writing a profile has your palms sweating and/or your heart palpitating, get someone who knows you well to help you, and preferably someone of the opposite sex if that is your target audience.

• Engage with your audience and react immediately: nobody likes to be kept standing at the proverbial altar. Even if your interest wanes as communication develops, rather end the relationship with diplomacy as soon as possible, instead of ignoring messages. That said a bunny-boiler needs no response.

• Less is more for women; and more is requiredfrom men. Women have a tendency to over-share, and men don’t share enough. However verbosity in both cases is off-putting, too much information and you’ll have nothing to talk about when you connect with matches. Create intrigue by providing basic information cleverly.

• Provide a hook. It’s what is suggested and not said that intrigues others, and more importantly may just be the way to start a conversation. Hints provide opportunities to open a conversation and create curiosity

And just by the way, as per the Jenny Joseph poem, ‘when I am old. I shall wear purple”!

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