Ian WhiteA Head-line for Business?
May 19th 2007 02:30
Nobody likes being thought of as an idiot, especially by people you've never even met, but when people say that first impressions count for everything, they're not kidding. In the business of internet dating, a headline or description spelled incorrectly can mean the difference between meeting someone ideal or not receiving any decent contact at all.
Friends of mine lament the fact that they always seem to attract the same sorts of people, including those on the internet that respond to their profiles and I think I know why this is, well for part of it anyway.
I will admit firstly that I am a bit of a spelling Nazi, but I am pretty sure that any profile that has horrible spelling in its headline is not going to get the attention is seeks, and if it does it is bound to be attention from people who cant recognise bad spelling and are probably only looking at the picture anyway – so are they the people you are really trying to attract?
To give you an example of the type of thing I am talking about, I took a recent trawl through RSVP to see what kind of bad headlines I could find. This is an example from a very quick look, and I actually find it a little disturbing. These are all genuine, I have not edited them in any way.
Headlines from Women seeking Men
email me u wont be dissponited (too late, I'm already disappointed)
someone need 1 person....................... ............................. ........................ (well it wont be me)
walking in the moonlight ...........looking for someone to shear time with (got a woolly clock?)
Hi........................... ........................ (wow..fascinating use of dots, let me at her! NOT)
Not good at catchy phrases (honesty is always a good start I suppose)
From Men Seeking Women
I hate it when people have witty headlines (because you couldn't think of anything?)
I have evrything you need if your not satisfied return me and pik again (gee, its hard to refuse such charm)
Reasonably nice guy looking to meet fun partner (reasonably nice? How attractive!)
...just trembling to meet you... (maybe you should see a Doctor?)
AND my Personal Favourite
I don't have a criminal record
These are a very small sample of some of the headlines that are out there, and I was actually a bit shocked that the men's spelling wasn't really that bad compared to the women's. What makes this even dumber is that they are writing this stuff on a computer – every computer in the world has some form of spelling checker, so for goodness sake, Use It!
Other details of profiles that suck include bad photos. We are surrounded by technology, indeed you need to have at least a rudimentary understanding of it to get your profile on the net to begin, but the photos online are just terrible. Now I'm not asking for glamour shots from anyone or special photography or anything like that, but some of the photos are so bad that its hard to get a decent idea of what someone is going to look like because some photos are just way too pixelated. Even a cheap mobile phone camera can take a shot at 1.2 megapixels, which will provide a decent enough photo for this kind of thing, so bad shots online are almost unforgivable, especially when the instructions for uploading are included right there on the screen.
Friends of mine lament the fact that they always seem to attract the same sorts of people, including those on the internet that respond to their profiles and I think I know why this is, well for part of it anyway.
I will admit firstly that I am a bit of a spelling Nazi, but I am pretty sure that any profile that has horrible spelling in its headline is not going to get the attention is seeks, and if it does it is bound to be attention from people who cant recognise bad spelling and are probably only looking at the picture anyway – so are they the people you are really trying to attract?
Headlines from Women seeking Men
email me u wont be dissponited (too late, I'm already disappointed)
someone need 1 person....................... ............................. ........................ (well it wont be me)
walking in the moonlight ...........looking for someone to shear time with (got a woolly clock?)
Hi........................... ........................ (wow..fascinating use of dots, let me at her! NOT)
Not good at catchy phrases (honesty is always a good start I suppose)
I hate it when people have witty headlines (because you couldn't think of anything?)
I have evrything you need if your not satisfied return me and pik again (gee, its hard to refuse such charm)
Reasonably nice guy looking to meet fun partner (reasonably nice? How attractive!)
...just trembling to meet you... (maybe you should see a Doctor?)
AND my Personal Favourite
I don't have a criminal record
These are a very small sample of some of the headlines that are out there, and I was actually a bit shocked that the men's spelling wasn't really that bad compared to the women's. What makes this even dumber is that they are writing this stuff on a computer – every computer in the world has some form of spelling checker, so for goodness sake, Use It!
Other details of profiles that suck include bad photos. We are surrounded by technology, indeed you need to have at least a rudimentary understanding of it to get your profile on the net to begin, but the photos online are just terrible. Now I'm not asking for glamour shots from anyone or special photography or anything like that, but some of the photos are so bad that its hard to get a decent idea of what someone is going to look like because some photos are just way too pixelated. Even a cheap mobile phone camera can take a shot at 1.2 megapixels, which will provide a decent enough photo for this kind of thing, so bad shots online are almost unforgivable, especially when the instructions for uploading are included right there on the screen.
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Comment by JaneD
Yellow Brick Road
My boss was online for a while and her head line was something anodyne like "life is either a daring adventure or nothing". Possibly "clinically obese and not that bright" was a bit too honest.
And the photo thing is funny. I'm currently living in London and signed my life away earlier in the year for a few weeks - meet a very funny, quite bright psycho killer - who used a baby pic as one of his pics. It was very very cute. He did work in TV/advertising though - so was predisposed to the hard sell I guess.