Gentlemen, a few profile pointers for you...

I recently went through a new bout of extra eHarmony profile activity!  As I’ve stated previously, this thing has its ups and downs.  But last week I got at least 8 new matches a day for 2 days in a row!  The only kicker was that there were only 2 viable prospects in the bunch.  The rest unfortunately got archived immediately.  But this was a tragedy that could have been avoided!  Gentlemen, gentlemen!  Many of you are making some significant errors in your profile creation.  So I thought I’d take this opportunity to enlighten you, the reader, with some of these blunders.  Well that, and I haven’t been on any more dates yet, so I can’t give you real life updates on my progress.  I’m workin’ on it, okay!  Now I fully admit that I have NO idea what the heck I’M doing with my profile.  If I figure it out, trust me, I will pass it on.  But until then, I’m pretty much winging it to see what happens.  But I think I can speak to what I find appealing in the profiles of my matches!  So gentlemen, this one’s for you…

Gross Offense #1 – “Chillin”-   Okay guys, here’s the deal – if you honestly put that one of the things you are most passionate about is “Chillin”, you’re getting archived immediately.  Really???  There are people out there who say that they are most passionate about providing a good life for their family, donating their time to those less fortunate, being the most successful person they can be throughout their life… and you’re the most passionate you can possibly be about “Chillin”?  Let me explain how this translates.  Any woman worth having reads this and thinks to herself, “Wow.  This dude has got to be either ridiculously lazy, completely unmotivated, or just really dumb.”  And as crazy as this may sound to you right now…  we don’t want any of that!  We want a man who is motivated, ambitious and successful!  I’m okay with chillin at appropriate times.  But it’s just not a good sign when that’s all you can think of to be ‘most passionate’ about.

Gross Offense #2 – The picture you took of yourself in the mirror with your cell phone - C’mon man.  You HAVE to be able to do better than that.  You don’t have a buddy you can call to come by and snap a couple of pics?  You must have a female friend who’d be willing to assist in your online search to find true love!  I forbid my 17 year old sister from even posting one of those on her Facebook page.  Especially since 9 times out of 10, you’re in your bathroom.  I hate to break it to you, but the towel rack with your half-wet navy blue towel doesn’t make for the best backdrop.  The other problem is that you’re looking at your phone with this goofy smile, instead of looking at the mirror.  So we can’t see your face!  It’s kind of like that rebuttal to the State of the Union speech that Michelle Bachmann gave where she was looking at anything but the camera.  It’s just awkward and weird.  So bottom line, get the cell phone out of the bathroom and use it to phone a friend to come over with a Canon Sure Shot,  It will be well worth it, trust me.

Gross Offense #3 – You “Nudge” Me-  Alright, so this one is a little different, as it doesn’t have anything to do with the profile, but I feel that it’s important to cover.  So there was a guy who had sent me his ‘5 Questions’, to which I responded, and in turn, sent him my ‘5 Questions’.  He answered those and then sent me his ‘Must Haves/Can’t Stands’.  When I read them, I realized “You know what?  That’s just not me.  If these are the things he MUST HAVE, and I don’t feel like I have those, then there’s no point in continuing this conversation.”  That’s one of the coolest things about the whole process.  If at any time either party feels that there are some fundamental differences that would keep a relationship from working, you can just stop the conversation and stop responding.  Well this guy apparently did not take kindly to my lack of response to his ‘Must Haves/Can’t Stands’.  So after 6 days of no response, he “nudges” me.  My first reaction was “WTF is a Nudge?!”  Upon further investigation, I find that it is someone’s attempt at getting you to respond to them if they haven’t heard from you.  Um… I don’t want to respond to you!  Don’t bug me about it!  That’s not putting you in a better position at all.  That’s like the eHarmony version of stalking!  One word for you “nudgers” – Creepy.

Gross Offense #4 – You can’t even capitalize your own name-  Let me get this straight, your own name isn’t a proper noun?  I know I’ve already stated how a poorly worded profile with misspellings and grammatical errors is definitely on the chopping block.  But I at least read those and looked at the pictures.  If you can’t capitalize your own NAME, we’ve obviously got a serious problem here.  I sincerely doubt that you are legendary poet ee cummings, therefore your name really ought to be typed out correctly according to the rules of proper English.  My real favorites are the ones who fail to capitalize both their name AND the city they live in.  Dear ‘andy, 34 longwood’, I wish you the best.

Gross Offense #5 – ‘Drinks: Never’-  Okay, so maybe I can’t speak for all women on this one.  But yeah…  No-Go.  Please reference previous blogs for my take on adult beverages.  If you’re pressed for time, let me brief you – They are yummy.  ‘Nuff said.

Gross Offense #6 – Your favorite movie is ‘The Notebook’-  Ask a sampling of 10 women how they feel about Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling’s cry-fest and I have no doubt that at least 8 of them will gush about how great it was and how they sobbed throughout.  And that’s acceptable…  because we’re CHICKS!  But we don’t want our men to cry along with us while we watch ‘The Notebook’!  Sure, women might complain about wanting their man to be more sensitive, wishing that he’d sit down and watch a romantic tragedy with them.  But deep down, we really want you to be masculine and complain incessantly when we ask you to do things like that.  Maybe you thought we’d swoon and think “Awwww!  That’s so sweet.  He likes ‘The Notebook’.  I bet he’s sensitive and understanding and caters to a woman’s needs!”  Here’s the kicker though – we’re not thinking that.  Here’s what we are thinking – “Wow!  This guy is a huge douche.  I’d worry about my welfare if we were walking down the street and got approached by a mugger.  I may have to defend us both in a situation like that.”  We don’t want to have to do that, guys.  We want a knight in shining armor who would take a knife in the ribs for us so we could escape safely with our latest Coach bag and matching wallet.

Now I don’t want to be totally negative here!  There are some great things that you CAN do in order to keep us ladies from instantly discounting you and sending you to the archive pile.  If you can pull off wit and humor in your profile, score!  That might even get a gal like me to send you the infamous ‘Icebreaker’.  One of the good ones I’m talking to right now said in the section titled Is there any additional information you would like your matches to know about you, “I have a full head of hair, but I shave it for the style effect….Yeah…that’s why I do it.”  Now that’s funny!  Also, if we can tell from your pics that you have a sense of style and care about your appearance, this is also a good sign.  I answered someone’s ‘5 Questions’ solely because he was rocking a bowtie and made it look sexy.  What can I say?  It’s hard to pass up a well dressed man!

I understand that I can’t speak for all women, and I’m not necessarily trying to do so.  But I’d like to think of myself as somewhat of a catch…  maybe a little… kinda, sorta… and I definitely associate myself with some FANTASTIC women who I KNOW are catches.  I think we’d all agree the above are some definite turn-offs.  And I’m hoping for everyone’s success in the wide world of online romance!  So if I can assist in any way, it is my pleasure to do so.  Best of luck, boys!  Stay tuned all, I should have some interesting “live date” updates for everyone soon!