I have plenty of friends who have met their significant others online and, with zero exceptions, these relationships are composed of two people who are definitely perfect for each other and are exactly the kind of thing I want for myself. That’s why I decided to try online dating.
Also, nearly every word of that is a lie. I gave the online thing a go because I have a very casual approach to dating, and by casual I mean lazy. Online is always the laziest way to do something right. I expected online dating to be a lot like buying Christmas presents on Amazon: easy, efficient, and guaranteed delivery in 48 hours.
5. Keep Your Damn Shirt on (Literally and Figuratively)
![](https://thefrisky.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/online-dating-730x456.jpg)
Source: parade
First, one question for guys who post pictures of themselves without a shirt on: why? Seriously, if a single one of you could explain the thought process that takes place prior to you uploading a picture of yourself sans shirt, I’m all ears.
That’s it. I don’t bother to read the profile to find out whether or not you volunteer your spare time helping rescue animals or if you’re the perfect blend of smart and silly, listing A Brief History of Everything as the last book you read and ranking Spaceballs among your favorite movies of all time.
Posting that picture sends the message that you have nothing else to offer besides nice abs. Or that all you’re going to do is obsess about your abs or be the kind of guy that lifts his shirt at the gym to check out his own abs in the mirror, which incidentally is possibly one of the douchiest things humanity ever realized it could do.
Don’t get me wrong, abs are never a bad thing, but no matter how strong your core may be, it’s not the foundation of a relationship. Unless that “relationship” is to take place between the hours of 11 p.m. and 4 a.m. and you won’t be talking. In which case, game on!
Figuratively speaking, some of you need to keep your shirt on, as in pump the brakes, which I accept is also just a figure of speech, but if you don’t understand by now, the source of your chronic loneliness probably goes way deeper than anything I can help you with here.
Anyway, what I’m saying is that your first message to a girl shouldn’t ever be a dissertation about your life that covers everything up to the moment right before you messaged.
It also should never include your phone number. Sending a girl your phone number in the very first message is the online dating equivalent of offering candy out of a windowless van. I’m just assuming anyone who gives out their number so haphazardly is using a burner phone and lives in a motel on a back highway and that his profile picture will be all over the news any day now.
4. Stop Speaking in Hyperlinks
![](https://thefrisky.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/online-dating-730x670.jpeg)
Source: Medium
Your online dating profile isn’t a multimedia art installation. Seriously, use your words. And if you can’t use your words, using half a dozen YouTube links doesn’t suffice. This is not 2006, and you are not on MySpace. If I wanted to watch a bunch of shitty YouTube videos I would just turn on Tosh.0.
A profile full of hyperlinks is like the pop-up book of online dating profiles. Sure, at first the novelty of it may seem fun, but they don’t last very long and you never go back for a repeat performance. I’m not entirely sure that’s the message you want to convey, no matter what your end game might be.
I know not everyone is a writer, and I know how tedious writing an online dating profile can be, regardless of your writing ability. But at least make the effort. What you say and how you say it gives the potential reader a glimpse at your personality and, hopefully, an idea of how to approach a conversation with you. Don’t try writing something that makes you look like a good writer, just write like you’re having a normal conversation with a friend.
If you’re having that hard of a time, just keep it short and simple and spend the time you save fussing over what to say contemplating why, even in your head, none of your friends want to talk to you.
3. Don’t Copy and Paste Your Messages
![](https://thefrisky.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Online-dating-730x487.jpg)
Source: madailylife
This is not only super obvious but it makes you look super desperate. It also looks like you’re just throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. Also, exactly how many women are you messaging that you can’t take two minutes out of your life to bang out some new material?
When I first signed up for a popular dating site, I got a bunch of messages from guys telling me how much they loved reading my profile or how interesting it was. Which sounds normal, right? Yeah, except that I hadn’t written a single word yet. Suffice it to say, I didn’t reply to any of them.
I know reading all those profiles can get tedious, with all the words and no hyperlinks, but at the very least care enough to fake it. You know, the way us girls do when we eventually have sex with you.
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