OK Cupid

[deverwhatever]

So I decided to join OK Cupid because I'm interested in dating and it has a reputation among friends of at least being worth a look. Without invading anyone's privacy, I was curious what parts of a dating profile people tend to fill out? I'm wary of posting a picture, for example, but it might be worthless to have a profile without a picture. How

Comments

[littlecatfeet]

When I was using OKCupid, I filled out most of my profile. You want people to know enough about you that they can evaluate potential compatibility. Obviously you don't need to write a novel, but thoughtful paragraphs are good. Actually, what I'd do is browse other people's profiles and note what catches your eye.

I also think that you do have to put up a picture. I know that I personally skippped right by any profiles without pictures.

[area_woman]

I was pretty open with mine. My guess is that, especially for women, pictures are kind of a must.

My reasoning for being open was this: it helps to weed out the ones I wouldn't be interested in anyway. In my case, saying right out in my profile that I'm sober was a way of weeding out the heavy drinkers, those who have a blanket dislike for sober people, et cetera. I was also open about my figure for the same reason. If a dude is only interested in size sixes, better not to waste either of our time.

My experience with OKC was pretty positive. There were a few dud dates, and a few conversations with guys who turned out to be complete assholes, but I met M. after only a few months of being on the site. And he's wonderful. <3

[karkadann]

I rely pretty heavily on the match percentage they give - that's based on answering questions, and you don't have to give away lots of information about yourself to casual surfers, since questions can be kept private. (I think they used to be private by default...now they're public by default).

I think the music/books/food thing is pretty superficial - I fill it out, but mostly when I read other people's profiles, I'm looking for flags that we won't get along. Like if they like Ayn Rand, or think Jimmy Buffett is the only good musician out there, or they've only read The DaVinci Code.

Short is better than long. Big blocky paragraphs are the best way to lose someone's attention.

OkCupid also does a lot of cool statistics-crunching about what works best for people and how people behave on their site. It's interesting and informative!

E.g., on photos: http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-4-big-myths-of-profile-pictures/

[deverwhatever]

Huh. Hey, wanna help me do a photo shoot? Turns out I don't get many pictures of me, and none that I really want to post on my profile...

[x_hypatia_x]

I fill it all out, and I tend to rule out people who: a.) don't answer many questions; b.) don't fill out their profiles; or c.) don't have a picture. The first two are on the grounds that if they won't bother to do that, they're clearly not invested much in the dating idea, and also, at that point, they're expecting me to take a complete chance on them, and why would I bother?

Not having a picture isn't as much of an absolute rule-out as the others, but I do want one. Not because I have to make sure that people meet my appearance standards--the only time I remember ruling someone out for a pic was because he was standing next to his car, which was an SUV, and it had a Jesus license plate and a Jesus fish and an anti-gay-marriage bumper sticker, and that was all a little too much on the side of "we have nothing in common and you hate what I am."

What are you wary of in posting a picture?

[deverwhatever]

I'm probably over-thinking the whole thing. It's not often that you have such control over how you present yourself, so my perfectionist tendencies are taking over. I also have (sadly pretty typical) self esteem issues, so its tough picking out a picture that I think will get the kind of responses I want.

[deverwhatever]

Huh, that's kinda neat. I've gotten my first few messages, which is very odd - trying to figure out how to respond, and wanting to give a fair chance while also trust my gut.