“Let me taste the dish and you can spare yourself the rhetoric on how well you cook.”—Jean Brillat-Savarin
A common dating profile mistake is to make bold claims of being successful, adventurous, or some other positive trait in your bio rather than relying on photos or stories to create the desired image.
When creating your profile, always remember that images have greater emotional impact and trustworthiness than words. And stories have far more impact than statistics.
It’s better to show the photo you took of penguins in the Galapagos than to say, “I like to travel,” or “I care about the environment.”
And rather than saying something lame like, “My friends say I’m funny,” why not show a funny photo of you and let her decide?
In Pierre Martineau’s Motivation in Advertising, he explains why images are more powerful than words:
Advertising people assume that all Americans are involved with words on the same level that they are. But in point of truth…few human beings are…skilled with words. Brought up on an intellectual diet of Grade B movies, comic books, sports pages…he has a deep distrust for the person skilled with words…for the barker, the pitchman, the huckster, anyone too glib with words.
Read More Related: Does Your Dating Profile Have A USP?
The result is “overreliance on word magic” rather than the use of images that connect to the aspirations of consumers on a subconscious level.
Images connect to a feeling on a subconscious level, while words are best used to buttress the images being projected. Although it’s true women are attracted to a man who writes well because it’s a sign of intelligence, the written word is not as trusted or as powerful as images.
The Marlboro man is an example of an image that became synonymous with rugged independence and masculinity. It changed advertising by selling a lifestyle or feeling, instead of a slogan or dry facts.
Besides greater trust, images subtly convey messages that would be in poor taste to state outright. This is particularly true about signs of wealth.
If you’re financially well off, it’s probably wiser to hint at your wealth through wearing high status clothes, than by including a bunch of yacht and mansion photos that make you come across as the Tinder Swindler from Netflix.
Because virtue signaling is so common in profiles, claims such as “I’m concerned about animals” are discounted unless backed up by photos or definitive statements like, “I’ve been a volunteer at the animal shelter for the last five years.”
I like how Laurie Davis in Love @ First Click writes about the significance of stories in profiles:
Rather than telling people you’re adventurous, show them. Expanding on at least one or two topics in your profile through storytelling will allow your match to get a better sense of the world. Mention the time you went cliff diving in Hawaii, did stand-up comedy in front of a live audience for the first time, or backpacked through Europe after college. Including stories…will make clicking with you easier.
This profile on Emlovz.com is an example of how a story can convey compassion. It’s not my style but I bet some women will like it:
I can kill spiders if you need me to but prefer to relocate them outside to maintain peaceful spider-human coexistence in hopes they would remember my goodwill should they ever out-evolve humans to become apex predators.
Guitar, jiu jitsu, travel…med device engineer
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