July 9, 2021

Online dating can be nerve-wracking at any age; after all, it takes a lot of guts to put yourself out there. If you’re writing a dating profile for the first time as a senior, you might wonder how to make it stand out from the crowd and help you find the type of person you’re looking to date.

Source: Getty

Who Will Read Your Senior Dating Profile?

A dating profile is a specific genre with a very targeted audience. What kind of person are you hoping will read it and want to know more about you? Before you start writing, think about who that person is and what messages you’d like to convey to them.

Do you want to find someone who is outdoorsy? Mention that you enjoy skiing or hiking every weekend with your friends. Do you hope to find a religious person? Mention your daily Scripture study. Do you hope your potential mate will enjoy your sense of humor? Tell a few jokes. By playing to your audience, you’ll be more likely to attract the kind of person you want to meet.

Choose a Great Profile Photo

Source: Match.com

Most people glance at the photo before deciding whether to read the rest of the profile, so it is one of the most important elements of your profile. Your photo will go a long way in communicating your personality and whether you might be a good match for the reader. How do you choose the right photo to include on your profile? Here are a few tips:

• Pick a photo you love: Pick a photo that shows off your personality, perhaps one showing you laughing or smiling or engaging in a favorite activity like gardening or golfing. Your sincerity will come through in the photo.

• Candids, not professional shots: These days most people choose a flattering candid image, not a formal professional shot. Choose one with good lighting, with no sunglasses or hats to obscure your appearance.

• Avoid selfies: Although young people often post selfies as their profile picture, selfies are not usually the most flattering option. If you don’t have any photos you want to use, ask a friend or family member to take a photo of you in natural lighting.

• Choose a photo with no one else in it: You might have an adorable grandbaby or a gorgeous daughter, but leave them out of the shot. It’s OK if your pet is in the shot, but be sure you are the only person in the picture. This helps ensure you get all the attention and doesn’t violate anyone else’s privacy.

• Choose an honest photo: It can be tempting to post a photo from ten years ago or an angle that doesn’t show your laugh lines or the few extra pounds you’ve gained. But an honest, current photo is a better option for two reasons: It ensures your potential match will be attracted to you as you are, and not as you would like to be, and it helps to avoid frustration or confusion when they finally meet you in person.

Tell Your Story, But Not All of It

Your profile should be totally honest (no lying about your age!), but you don’t have to tell everything. Remember, your profile is an invitation for someone to contact you to learn more.

• Keep it Positive: Your profile is a great place to talk about your favorite foods, fond memories, or plans for the future. Avoid mentioning health issues, family troubles, or any other less-than-pleasant topics.

• Focus on You: It can be hard for older people to talk about themselves. You may have spent your life defining yourself by your relationship to a previous spouse, children, or grandchildren; but now, the focus should be on you.

  Keep the information you share focused on yourself. You can mention that you are widowed or divorced, for instance, without going into any details. Similarly, you can mention that you have children or grandchildren, but your potential mate doesn’t yet need to know that your grandson is an aspiring guitarist.

• Keep an Open Mind, but Mention Non-Negotiables: In your later years, you may find that having a kind companion is more important than checking off all the boxes for compatibility you might have cared about before. It is not unusual for people to find a lasting companion of a different race, religious preference, or someone who is ten or more years older (or younger). You might find their different perspective enriching.

While it’s great to keep your options open, if you have any non-negotiables you’re looking for in a potential date, feel free to mention them. For example, maybe you’ll only consider dates with someone who shares your political or religious views. You don’t have to give any justification for what you’re looking for. This helps both you and your potential dates avoid any misunderstandings or wasted time.

• Be Safe: Sharing information about yourself online always comes with some risks. You can minimize those risks and play it safe by avoiding senior dating scams. Be sure to never include personal information like specifics about where you live, your last name, or your telephone number in the profile. Make sure your photo also doesn’t have any personal information in it (such as a photo in front of your home with the house number showing, or a photo of you at recognizable community location you frequent). Also, avoid mentioning or showing images of anything that might convey you have considerable wealth since most dating scams are financial.

Make Your Senior Dating Profile Intriguing

Remember, a profile is just a glimpse into who you are. It’s not your whole story. Make the reader want to get to know you better by:

• Asking thought-provoking questions (“If you could know the real answer to one question, what would you ask?”).
• Sharing your passions, like volunteer work at the local animal shelter, growing the perfect tomato, or watercolor painting en plein air.
• Avoiding cliches–we all like long walks on the beach, after all.
• Telling a funny story about something you and your friend did recently (“My best friend and I spend our Saturday mornings waking at dawn to hit the best rummage sales. Imagine her surprise when last week I miscalculated and showed up at her door at 5 a.m. on Friday.”).
• Offering a vignette from your life that tells readers something interesting or endearing about you they should know (“On Sunday mornings, you’ll find me buying donuts for the Sunday School class… and I always grab a maple one for myself.”).

Add Final Touches to Your Senior Dating Profile

Once you’ve finished writing up your profile, ask a trusted family member or friend to look through it. They can check for grammar and spelling errors and readability and also offer some feedback about what you’ve written. Now that you’ve built the perfect dating profile, it’s time to hit “submit” and put yourself out there into the dating world. Your profile won’t attract every potential match. But with a little luck, it will attract the right one.

If you’ve spent any time here on our dating advice site, you’ll know that both Cosmo and I highly recommend creating a dating profile, and using the online dating apps or sites to find true love.

I hope you haven’t absolutely decided that online dating is not for you.

Since so many 60+ singles use these sites, you’ll seriously boost your chances to meet your true love faster.

Read about which online dating sites are right for you in Top 10 Best Online Dating Sites for Over 60: How To Choose and Use Them.

Read on, if you want to learn how to create an online profile that will draw the right people to you.

How To Be Successful With Online Dating Sites

The trick to being successful with online dating is to create a profile that stands out . . . in a good way.

To attract your ideal partner, tell her or him who you are, specifically, in your online dating profile . . . and generate chemistry for who you are.

There’s not much you can do to jazz up and personalize the multiple choice questions about hobbies, activities, lifestyle, etc.

But the questions on dating sites that require short narrative answers, plus the longer narrative sections where you’re prompted to provide even more information about yourself, allow for lots of content.

Neglecting these sections, in particular, is a big mistake.

Write content that differentiates what makes you unique from others like you.

A profile that reads pretty much the same as every other man or woman on the sites won’t prompt people to want to reach out to you, as much as a profile that makes you stand out from the sea of other potential partners.

But don’t dive into the writing yet (and don’t go on dates yet) . . .

Before Completing Your Online Dating Profile, Do These 3 Things

1. Know yourself, your values and what’s important to you.

The better you know yourself, the better you’ll be at picking the right people to date.

The more specifically you can speak to people about yourself, and write about yourself in your online dating profiles, the more likely you’ll connect with a kindred spirit.

More in my post, Smart Dating Essentials – 7 Steps To Know Yourself Better

2. Know who your ideal partner is.

If you don’t have a clear idea of what kind of person will be right for you – before going on first dates – how will you know them when you see them?

More in my post, Smart Dating Over 60: Who Is My Ideal Partner?

3. Lurk, look and learn.

To get a feel for what makes a good online dating profile, and who’s out there, review other people’s profiles.

You can join many of the online dating sites for free, without putting much on your profile, if you’re not ready to. You may have to answer a few questions, and you’ll have to sign on with a user name and password.

PLEASE, don’t use your real name for your user name, or the actual town/city you live in!

Armed with your name and location, and whatever else can be found by Googling “your name”, nefarious people can piece together enough about you to potentially steal your identity.

[Try Googling “your name” yourself. You may be surprised by how much sensitive information about you is already “out there”.]

No-goodniks aside, anyone can find out where you live if you put your real name and town/city on your dating profile. It’s best to keep that information under your hat, until you’re ready to reveal it to the people you date.

• For your user name, think of a clever word or short phrase that describes you.
• For your location, use a town/city right near the one where you actually live.

Now that you’ve done the initial prep work, you’re ready to complete your online dating profile.

How To Build Out Your Online Dating Profile

The various dating sites function differently and prompt you to provide different kinds of information. Some provide more narrative sections, where you will provide information. Others rely only on yes/no and multiple choice questions. Some offer a mix.

Typically, the first step in creating your profile involves responding to queries about your appearance, lifestyle, hobbies, interests, etc.

Answer them all truthfully . . . and don’t pretend to be someone you’re not.

Think this through.

If you put on your profile that you’re interested in various activities or sports that you actually have no interest in (thinking you’ll attract more people), what do you suppose will happen on a date with someone who is truly interested in those things, and wants to share them with a partner?

You’ve probably blown your chances with that person . . . and you’ve wasted your time and theirs.

You may attract more people in the short run, but they’ll quickly find out that you lied. Then, you’ve set yourself up as someone not to be trusted, along with the fact that you won’t have those activities to share.

Cosmo wrote about a first date he had with a woman who outright lied on her profile about being into cross-fit . . . in more than one place on her profile. Then, on their date, she lied again and said this wasn’t on her profile.

Needless to say, that red flag (among several others) drove him to nip things in the bud with her.

Dating profile lies that I experienced.

My biggest complaint about lying or misstating on online dating profiles (or when dating in general) concerned alcohol consumption.

I don’t drink and I was looking for a man who didn’t either.

I came to understand, after several dicey dates, that I couldn’t rely on what was in a profile to help me distinguish drinkers from non-drinkers.

Although the dating sites give the option to check-mark “non-drinker” on profiles, members don’t have to choose any option. And many members don’t check anything for this query or address the issue anywhere in their profiles.

But even when some did check-mark “non-drinker”, it turned out they were what they called “social drinkers” . . . kind of a vague designation.

Conversely, I think there are plenty of non-drinkers trying to find other non-drinkers on the dating sites, but they’re afraid to say so in their profiles. There’s still a stigma about being in recovery, and they probably don’t want to turn people off so early in the game.

I suppose people fear what they may be getting themselves into, if they date someone in recovery. To play it safe, many of those in recovery don’t put their drinking status in their profiles. They wait to come clean about this until they start communicating with others or meet in person.

It’s a dilemma.

After a time, I realized I couldn’t limit myself only to men who had check-marked “non-drinker” on the sites. It was something I brought up early in our communications, or at least by the second date, if things went that far.

Taking and Choosing Profile Photos That Accurately Depict You

Although you hope that people won’t judge you solely on how you look, your dating profile photos are extremely important.

They are the first things people will see on your profile, and probably the only things they’ll notice when the dating sites circulate your profile thumbnail, when matching you with others.

People connect better with content about someone if it includes at least one photo. So, attractive photos will make whatever you write in your profile hit home with more people.

Taking photos has become very easy these days. Even well-composed selfies will work. Check out this article on Lifewire on how to take the best selfies.

Take some headshots and some full body shots, from various distances, in various poses and locations. Wear clothing that is attractive and fits you well.

Be sure that your close-ups, or headshots, convey warmth and approachability. Take lots of photos and choose the best ones. It would be a good idea to have others help you decide.

You’ll need someone to take your full body shots. Maybe take a few of you doing activities you love, and make note of that in the photo caption.

I hope it goes without saying . . . but I will say it. Don’t post any lewd or overly revealing photos. Keep a little mystery in the game.

You don’t need tons of photos. Five or six should do it.

Pay special attention to choosing your main profile photo, if the site gives you that option. That’s the photo that will follow you everywhere on the site, in your profile thumbnail. This one should be a close-up, not a full-body shot.

Very important – don’t post outdated and/or misleading profile photos.

Your photos don’t have to be taken yesterday, but they should have been taken within just a few years, and closely represent what you look like now.

I had a few big surprises on first dates when the men looked nothing, or very little, like their profile photos. One guy had gained 50 pounds since he took his one profile photo.

I saw profiles of 60+ year old men with the only photo being their high school yearbook pic.

I saw a surprisingly large number of men’s profiles with only photos of their beloved cars and the view from their houses.

Of course, these kinds of photos do little to convey who those men are, and didn’t compel me to want to reach out to them.

One man told me about a dating experience of his, where the woman used her daughter’s photo on her own dating profile. Imagine his surprise when a much older woman showed up for the first date!

I don’t mean to put too much pressure on you about your photos. Don’t go the other way and neglect posting any photos on your profile. That’s a mistake, too. No matter what you look like, people will assume you have something to hide, and may pass you by.

The last thing you want to do is prompt people to jump right over your profile, for the next one.

Entice them to stick around and read your profile. Choose photos that are alluring . . . in the right way.

How To Write Content For Your Online Dating Profile That Will Attract Your True Love

Next, or at some point in creating your profile, you’ll come to the “bio” or narrative sections. That is, the areas where you do more than check-mark multiple choice or yes/no answers.

For these sections, you’ll have to actually come up with interesting and compelling things to say about yourself.

Don’t expect to quickly throw together some thoughts and slap them up on your profile. Unless writing comes easily to you, you’ll need to put some time into writing this stuff.

My best advice? At all costs, avoid over-used phrases like “I love long walks on the beach”.

Cliches don’t really say anything. They don’t make you stand out. After all, who doesn’t like to walk along the beach?

If walking on the beach is something you really want to say, try thinking of another way to say it, that will better capture attention and say more about you.

Don’t be afraid to differentiate yourself.

And it’s okay – in fact, preferable – to include things about yourself that won’t appeal to everyone.

Because that’s the whole point. You don’t want to appear the same as everyone else. You want to distinguish yourself.

Write specifically about the kind of person you are and what you care about most. Write specifically about who you’re looking for.

If you’re not clear about these things, you’ll probably get a lot more people reaching out to you . . . but most of them won’t be suitable.

You’ll be wasting everyone’s time by going on dates with people who are not right for you.

Better to weed them out at the get-go.

You’ll save time, go on more quality dates, and avoid much stress if you narrow the playing field by stating in your profile what kind of person you want and what you’re looking for in a relationship.

Are you seeking someone for a committed, forever romance and relationship? Say so in your profile. Then you won’t be bothered by people who are only looking for quick hookups.

Writing tip: Compose an opening paragraph that will capture attention and make people want to read the rest of your profile.

Here’s how I led my Match.com profile:

I smile a lot. I’m easy going, cheerful and down-to-earth. The little things in life mean a lot to me – the beauty in nature, a good joke, a hassle-free day, an unexpected kindness, making someone’s day with a simple gesture. I’m grateful for what I have, not fretting over what I don’t.

At the time, Match allowed for a “headline” too, which was prominently displayed with the profile thumbnail. This was my headline:

Looking for an accomplice for a fun, romantic and meaningful relationship?

Make your profile an interesting read. Embrace what’s unique about you. Generate chemistry by writing about it.

The Importance of Storytelling in Your Online Dating Profile

Rely on storytelling to write content for your profile that will truly make you stand out.

Storytelling is the best way to differentiate you from the sea of other similar people and draw like-minded people to you. It helps people connect to who you are.

Having a profile that reads pretty much the same as everyone else gives people little reason to want to reach out to you. In that case, they’ll mostly rely on your photo, which isn’t the best way to assess anyone for a long term relationship.

The idea is to be specific, using actual examples. Build a story around a few important things about you.

Pick a few character traits that most represent who you are and some of the things you most love doing . . . then expand upon them using storytelling.

Instead of just saying “I love to laugh”, give an example of what kinds of things make you laugh, or who your favorite comedians are. Or tell a little story about a funny incident in your life.

Instead of just saying “I love to travel”, write a sentence or two about one of your favorite trips and what made it special.

Try using a thesaurus to help you pinpoint better, more interesting words about yourself.

It may help to ask those closest to you to provide feedback about these things. It may be hard to step back and have perspective about yourself. Ask them to describe a few of your best character traits, and give you examples.

Three Important Tips About Writing Your Online Dating Profiles

1. Keep the content upbeat and positive.

Nobody likes a downer.

You want to give a good first impression of yourself. People are more attracted to, and want to be around, those who have a positive outlook on life.

Don’t rant about your ex or exes. Conversation will deteriorate quickly if one or both of you get into running your exes under the bus. It won’t be pleasant.

If you can’t manage to stay positive and avoid running down your ex(es), maybe you’re not good relationship material, or maybe you’re not ready to date. Maybe it’s time to sort through your issues, move on from past bad relationships, and learn how to be happy . . . before you foist yourself on someone else.

2. Be careful using ALL CAPS in the content.

CAPS can be used sparingly for emphasis. Too much content in all caps conveys anger.

I remember seeing quite a few men’s profiles with all of the content in caps. It was like a slap in the face, landing on those profiles. Not to mention that the content itself was filled with rage.

If you can’t manage to control your anger when writing your online profile content, what kind of message do you think that will send to potential dates?

Maybe you need to deal with your anger issues, before you lay them on someone else.

3. Create the content in a document first and proofread very carefully for errors, before posting it to the dating site.

Although most people won’t fault you for typos and errors, why not make a great first impression with a spotless profile?

Bring It All Together and Get Yourself Out There

Next steps . . .

• Reach out to people on the dating sites.
• Respond to those who reach out to you, whether or not you’re interested. Politely decline further communication if they’re not right for you.
• Communicate a little with potentials first via email and phone (I feel texting is too impersonal at this point).
• Go ahead and make a date to meet them, if they fit enough of your ideal partner criteria and if they don’t send up any major red flags.

And check out our two ebooks for plenty of tips and strategies:

7 Sure-Fire Steps to Finding True Love and Romance Starting Today

Are You Making These 10 Disastrous Online Dating Mistakes?

I wish you great success in the dating game!

Senior online dating is a perfect chance for people to make their dreams come true despite their age. Dating in your 40s, 50s is a common practice nowadays. As there is the whole bunch of reasons why senior generation suffers from loneliness. Among these there are divorces after decades of marriage, the death of spouse, and, of course, constant prejudice that the marriage is the most foolish thing in life. You realize that life is passing and you’re still alone. You’re afraid to be lonely in your 70s, 80s. Nobody to talk to, no children, no happiness. Of course, if you’re not Hugh Hefner;) Why don’t you deprive yourself of all that fear? Why don’t you go back to your 20s?

Yes. Sometimes it seems there is nobody out there to date. You know what I mean. The situation is even more dramatic when your age is older than a usual one for dating, flirting, socially accepted. Still, modern online platforms offer you the best opportunities to meet your dream lover, life companion, soulmate. Now we will tell you what the senior dating online is, how it works and will give you very useful pieces of senior dating advice on creating the profile. If you’re interested, keep on reading!

What Is Senior Online Dating?

From the first sight, senior online dating is a usual dating website. However, that is not an absolute truth. Let’s find out what each of the words in a phrase “senior online dating” stands for.

Dating means looking for a partner for romantic relationships. Online means you’re using the net to find a soulmate. Dating online occurs with the help of special senior dating sites. The main task is to register, create a profile, find the most suitable variants (matches) and communicate with them. Senior, in turn, stands for the special type of users, the “major league”. No doubt, people that use senior dating services are more experienced, more aware of their desires, and, unfortunately, more desperate. No wonder, some of them are too persistent, too hasty. The wrong tactics, by the way. Here you can find senior women dating for serious relationships.

Alternatively, if you enjoy the freedom, you can find a no-strings date. What is more, sometimes you can even come across a good faithful friend.

Pros Of Senior Online Dating

Senior online dating…Advantages only. Let’s find out even more.

Precise Search

You can use the special search system. All you need is to choose an approximate age, marital status and even specific appearance features. The wide choice narrows increasing your chances in finding the best.

The Greatest Possibility

Here you have more chances to find a wife or a woman with serious intentions. First of all, it is definitely better than fake social networks. Secondly, it’s much easier to find a modest and calm woman in virtual life than a real one. We all know thathuman attention is usually drawn naturally to the brightest and strongest personalities. Turns out that such women tend to be the worst wives. What is more, coziness is usually created by silent and reliable ladies who care not only about their career, but you in particular.

Stay at home

Your personal life develops without your leaving bed. Oh, that’s the best advantage. What is more, there is no need pretending to be someone else dressing up and using the body language tips from the net.

More economical

If you think that’s just the money spent in various restaurants, endless clubs you save on, you’re wrong. You pinch the most essential pennies in your life. Every minute of your lifetime. Say “no” to hearts and flowers (except the digital ones). Spend precious hours on developing new skills and going up the ladder.

Real people

Where else you can see her without make up than in a video chat after long working hours at night. Of course, at first, she will be afraid sharing her monstrous pimples and wrinkles, but that’s inevitable. Isn’t it better to see her like this before meeting face-to-face? You will never have that woke-up-with-a-monster-instead-of-a-hot-chick-in-the-morning case. Video broadcasting is a pretty new feature that every respectful senior dating service uses.

How To Sign Up

Registration is the first and the easiest step that starts your romantic relationships. Having entered the senior dating website and read its description, find a “Sign Up” or a “Join Us” button. Your next task is to fill in all the blanks. Especially the ones with your age and personal info. The more you write about yourselves, the more your chances will be to find a perfect woman there. Now, as the technologies develop, you can sign up with your Facebook or Google account, miss the names step. Still, nobody will fill up the full personal info instead of you.

The most vital thing is the photo of your profile. Upload it at once, as women usually ignore blank profiles. Having signed up, check out the most essential thing you came there for. The ladies. Actually, most of the websites offer looking through profiles before registration. Use it then! Before plunging into the women’s world and pressing “Send a Message” button, go ahead and work on your profile properly.

Profile Tips

Pick a good photo

Profile photo must be of high-quality and right size. Be careful with people on it. It’s better for you to be alone on the photo, without any women! Leave female users no room for a guess you’re an easy-rider. Alcohol may frighten a decent woman away. Remember! Still the proof of online dating is in the profile info. Pay most of attention to your description. Your own words say a lot to women.

Feel free to tell what you love

On the one hand, you share your inner world with strangers. On the other, common interests and honest reasons will make you more open in women’s eyes, a person who can and does love. What is more, if you like several things, have several hobbies, talk about each of the passions. It is so boring speaking only about a job or the family you had years ago.

Be honest

If you have kids, put it down; if you have grandkids, let everyone know; if you have a very strange hobby, write it there as well. Any hidden info is always revealed sooner or later. Being honest is what woman admire more than some skeleton in a closet. Each of us has one. Still, there is no need being too verbose about your exes.

Make lists

If you are bad at writing, try to express your thoughts in enumeration. List your hobbies, daily routine, interesting facts. Put in in writing the way it pops up in your head. Sometimes it is too difficult to make full sentences at once. First, you can make a table for yourself with your pros and cons. Find out what to share with and what is better to be revealed much later.

Try to predict

Think about the expectations of your future reader when s/he enters your profile. Try to satisfy senior people dating, be versatile and remain yourself at the same time. Make sure your page including profile photo reflects the real you! Only then it will work for 100%.

Senior Dating Profile Examples

It is better to see once on your own, than be told about for a thousand times. Here you have good senior dating profile examples that will help you reach your goal in senior online dating. There is no need to copy paste the sentences. Just analyze the style, the given info and create your own profile.

John Smith, 53

I’m not young, still I love going out, driving my car, working out with Beatles in my ears. You don’t have to like the things I’m into but it’d be cool if you were up for a morning jogging and a high-quality music. My hobbies include tinkering with music and weightlifting for now. Apart from physical exercises, I work as a lecturer at the nearest university. Now I split my time between teaching and working in a law firm. Great at time-management, ready for serious relationships. Come and say hi.

Bill Montgomery, 45

Single dad. Perfect cook. Funny and serious at the same time. I enjoy both working and free time. Books and sport make me feel alive. Love weekend getaways to farms or cozy restaurants with healthy food. Some of the best times are related to park picnics and family laughing. I believe that’s who I’m looking for. Someone who will be laughing next to me and my son.

Jack O’Neil, 50

I’m an indoor guy, a family man who is a total bookworm and romantic. I try to spend most of the time with the closest people and my daughter. Science is my passion including cracking jokes. After work you will find me at a coffee shop with a book or downtown in a local with a bunch of friends and a beer. Once a month I like to leave the city and go to village. If you’d like to spend some time and build serious relationships with me, here I am.

Struggling with what to write in your dating profile? You’re not alone.

Most guys find it difficult or frustrating to write about themselves in a way that attracts women, which is why so many women end up ignoring messages from guys who have profiles like this:

Here’s a dating profile tip right out of the gate: Look like you put some effort into it.

Exclusive Bonus: Want to steal one of our top-performing bios? Download our top 10 proven profiles right now so you can get more matches and date higher quality women. (It’s free!)

If you can’t even be bothered to impress her on a dating site, why would she think you’ll be impressive in person?

You don’t want to be that guy, so you’re looking for good online dating profiles to copy.

When she reads a witty dating profile like this, the odds are much higher she’ll reply to your icebreaker:

Nailing your dating profile is a worthy pursuit.

Studies show guys tend to pursue women who are out of their league – as in 26% more attractive than they are themselves. And the more attractive the woman, the fiercer the competition.

You definitely can’t step into the octagon with a B-team profile if you want to score dates with the most popular women.

No pressure, right?

Don’t worry – you’ve got everything you need to write the perfect online dating profile right here in this article.

When you read until the very end, you’ll get:

1. A fool-proof profile formula that works like magic on any dating site or app
2. Examples of what works and what doesn’t, so you don’t accidentally turn off women
3. Two fill-in-the-blank online dating profiles you can use today to get more attractive women responding immediately, plus 9 more great online dating profile examples you can copy!

You’re about to get the online dating profile help you need, so let’s…

Start With The Basics

As with anything in life, when you build from a solid foundation, you get lasting results. Your profile is no different!

VIDA’s team of dating experts has been writing dating profiles (and handling everything else, too) for guys just like you since 2009, and we use all kinds of metrics to track the success of our profiles.

Our data shows the most successful online dating profiles are 70% about you, 30% about her.

Researchers recently confirmed what we’ve known for a long time – this formula really works. The combination of describing both who you are and who you’re looking for gets the highest response rate.

Let’s take a closer look at the anatomy of a perfect online dating profile.

This example shows the 70:30 rule in action, and it has a solid framework you can follow to get awesome results:

The profile text in the above example is written for a site like Match.com, where longer profiles are the norm.

For online dating sites, a good rule of thumb is keep the length of your profile down to about 300 words or less. She doesn’t have time to read a novel, and you want to leave her wanting more.

You’re just four short paragraphs away from a polished, attention-grabbing profile! 

This easy formula for writing a dating profile really works:

1. Catch her eye
2. Describe your occupation
3. Paint a picture of your everyday life
4. Describe what you’re looking for

Let’s see what each of those paragraphs looks like in practice…

1st Paragraph: Catch Her Eye

The “intro” of your dating profile has two crucial goals:

1. Attract her attention.
2. Make her want to keep reading.

If you fail to do either of those two things, she’s instantly moving on to the next guy.

But if she likes what she’s seeing, she’ll keep reading – and more importantly, she’ll be way more likely to respond to your message.

Let’s take a closer look at Paragraph 1 from the perfect online dating profile example above:

Open with an exciting travel story or a humorous anecdote that hints at your personality.

In this example, the first line of this profile immediately gives her something pleasurable to visualize, so within the first couple words she’s already imagining her tropical vacation with you, filled with warm blue water and cute sea turtles.

And the entire first paragraph is packed full of attraction triggers.

By the time she’s done reading it, she’s learned that you are adventurous, in good enough physical condition to windsurf, love to travel, and financially able to swing a fabulous getaway. All without having to write “I love to travel” or “I’m adventurous, physically fit, and financially stable.”

Which brings us to the next Golden Rule of Profile Writing…

Show, don’t tell.

You want to highlight your most attractive traits, but in a way that keeps her attention and sets you apart from the competition.

She doesn’t want to read a boring list of adjectives, like what this guy wrote:

Total snooze fest.

It’s easy to say you’re adventurous, loyal, and fun loving. You need to give her a reason to believe you're adventurous, loyal, and fun loving.

Tell her a story that illustrates those qualities, and she’s more likely to be convinced you actually possess them.

Remember, trust builds attraction, which increases the odds of her agreeing to meet you in person.

2nd Paragraph: Describe Your Occupation

Let’s face it – she wants to know what you do for a living, especially if you’re looking for a more serious relationship.

If you’re a pilot, entrepreneur, or firefighter – congrats, according to Tinder you’ve got one of the top 3 most right-swiped (read: sexiest) jobs.

But for most of us, it takes a little creativity to make the hours we spend between 9 and 5 sound intriguing.

Just saying “I work in [fill in the blank]” is boring and vague.

And you definitely don’t want to mention anything negative about your job, like too much stress, long hours or the fact that you hate it:

Instead, choose an aspect of your work that you’re truly happy about. Then play it up:

As in the example above, adding the part about seeing vacant lots turn into shiny new homes gives her something she can emotionally connect with.

If you just write “I’m a general contractor” and leave it at that, you’re missing an opportunity to forge that connection.

Remember, the more positive feelings you can inspire, the higher the likelihood of her saying “yes” to a date.

3rd Paragraph: Paint A Picture Of Your Daily Life

Give her a glimpse of what being with you would be like.

You’re active, fun, social. In short, you’ve got a fulfilling happy life and you happen to be looking for someone to join you in a few adventures.

Mention your hobbies, things you like to do with friends, etc, always keeping in mind that she’s going to be imagining what it’s like to spend time with you.

Your profile should always be positive. This is no place to unpack your baggage from previous relationships or drop hints about how lonely you are:

4th Paragraph: Tell Her What You’re Looking For

You’ve introduced yourself in the first three paragraphs. Now it’s time to describe your ideal match.

Be honest about what you’re looking for, and feel free to set the bar high. Having high expectations exudes confidence, and confidence is an attractive trait.

On the other hand, only talking about what you’re looking for in your bio, or being so vague and all-inclusive that you’re basically saying “I’ll date anyone” has the opposite effect:

Make sure to include a “call to action” at the end of this paragraph.

That’s a fancy marketing term for telling your audience (in this case, the attractive women you’re looking to date) what you want them to do now.

In the example above, it’s “Message me and let’s talk”.

You could also challenge her to meet your standards with a question like “Think you’ve got what it takes? Send me a message and I’ll take it from there.”

Here’s another good online dating profile example to copy, just personalize it with your own details!:

Need A Profile Headline?

No problem. Some dating sites that use longer profiles often display a short profile headline in her search results and match queue, right next to one (or more) of your profile pictures.

For instance, on Plenty Of Fish your headline occupies center stage.

Providing one is mandatory, and if you don't treat it as an opportunity to intrigue her, she may not think the rest of your profile is worth a skim.

Unless you want her to drift on to some other guy's profile, your headline needs to be compelling.

Use it as a chance to showcase your sense of humor, or hint at one of the reasons you'd make great Boyfriend Material.

These 3 dating headline examples make her want to keep reading:

Want more dating profile headlines you can use right now?

Check out these dating headlines for men examples, along with some do's and don'ts so you can write a custom one that really works!

Short (And Super Short) Profile Examples

Everything you just read can be applied to your Tinder or Bumble profile as well. Only now you’re dealing with 300-500 characters instead of words.

In some cases, you’ll need a super short profile. For instance The League you have only 140 characters.

When space is at a premium, every single word needs to pack a punch.

But the concept is the same.

A good short online dating profile grabs her attention and highlights a few of your most attractive traits (i.e. your occupation and hobbies). Then, if there’s space, end with a call to action.

Want more inspiration? Go here for even more short dating profile examples you can copy to use on any app!

Can’t Fail, Fill-In-The-Blank Profile

As promised, here are two instant profiles you can use right now, one for a site like Match.com and one perfect for a dating app like Tinder.

Just fill in the missing info and boom! It’s ready to adapt and upload to just about any dating site.

But one quick caveat…

While you’d be hard-pressed to find better profile templates than these online, keep in mind they are still fill-in-the-blank profile templates.

This means two things:

• First, if you use one of them, your profile could look strikingly similar to others in your local area. That could obviously work against you.
• Second, a cookie-cutter profile is, by definition, going to be a bit generic.

The best profile in the world is so unique that it would be impossible for any other guys to use it.

With that said, if you’re not planning to have us write a magnetically-attractive profile for you that makes you stand out like a sore thumb from all the other local guys, these templates are most likely a big step up from what you have now.

Completed, it will look something like this:

This dating profile template for men works on just about any dating app:

Here’s what it might look like out in the wild:

So there you have it – examples of what to do, what not to do, and two plug-n-play profiles you can use right now.

You’ve got all the pieces you need to write an online dating profile that gets results – more dates with the attractive women you want to meet.

But what if you could just skip right to the “date” part?

No profile writing, no back and forth messaging. Just showing up to meet higher quality women than ever before?

It’s actually that easy! You just need VIDA in your corner.

Click here to find out how you can have dates with the women you want to meet set up for you!

• Single women over the age of 50 are finding themselves discouraged with dating apps that tend to cater to younger generations and embrace hook-up culture. 
• Tinder can be too aggressive for someone fresh out of a 20-year marriage, while Bumble can give an older woman control over her preferences and allow her not be bombarded by messages, women say.
• Some find apps catered to their age group, like eHarmony and Match, "too old" and others like Happn too "trendy." 
• Despite frustration, many are leaning into the apps, using them as means to meet people and explore their new single lives.

A few weeks ago, my mom came to me with a question: She was becoming increasingly frustrated with dating apps. Were other single women her age feeling that way, too? 

What she was searching for was innocent enough: someone who she can have fun with, travel with, and ultimately be in a long-term relationship with. Marriage? No, thank you. Kids? Been there, done that. A one night stand? TMI. 

She's over 55, has been married, had kids, owns a home, and has been providing for herself for years. She was no longer looking for someone to take care of her — she was doing a fine job already — but someone to love and be loved by. 

She moved to Abu Dhabi in 2015 and was teaching at a university there, when a female colleague two decades younger introduced her to Tinder. It was exciting and unlike any other dating experience she had before. 

"What was exciting was I was meeting people I would never meet," she told me over the phone recently. "It is different when you are in a foreign country, you have people from all over the world, and unless you are going out to clubs and bars, it is difficult to meet people."

So, she swiped right. And she swiped right a lot. One man she met she described as a multimillionaire who picked her up in a Jaguar limo and took her to the Dubai opera. Another asked her to be his fourth wife after only a couple of dates. There were lots of late nights out dancing, followed by cozy nights in chatting online, getting to know someone. 

At this point, my mom estimates she's been on nearly 50 dates — some with men 20 years younger. And though she didn't join Tinder with specific expectations, something wasn't clicking. After a year of using the app, she deleted it. 

"No one I met on the app, none of them, wanted a committed, long-term relationship," she said. "A lot of them are looking for threesomes or just want to have a conversation, but what about me? What am I getting out of that other than having a date once in a while?"

As an older woman, my mom was confronted with a simple fact: she was now living in a society where the most popular way to date catered to younger generations and fully embraced hook-up culture. 

So, what's an older lady to do?

This is also a truth Carolina Gonzalez, a writer in London, came face-to-face with after her 28-year marriage ended.

At 57, she downloaded Bumble — Tinder seemed too aggressive, she told me. She's also tried Happn and OkCupid, but quickly trashed them because she didn't find a big enough pool of users in her age range, or found the app to be too trendy. Sites like eHarmony and Match, she said, seemed "a little too old" and hard to "get a full sense of who is available.”

She enjoyed the control Bumble gave her, and the ability to not be bombarded by messages but to make the first move instead. It seemed noncommittal, she said; clean, in fact. The variety, though, "can be scary."

"When you just get out of a long marriage or a long relationship, it is weird to go out with anybody," Gonzalez told me. "Though there is still a hope you will meet someone and fall in love, but I am probably never going to meet someone and have what I had before."

But that, she said, was also liberating. She was free to have 15-minute coffee dates, be vulnerable, and feel sexy. At her age, Gonzalez said, she feels much more confident in who she is — a trait, she said, that younger men find appealing. 

My mom said this, too. She frequently matched with men 10 to 15 years younger than her because, she said, she was able to "hold a conversation."

For Gonzalez, dating apps only proved to her that her life wasn't missing anything, except maybe the cherry on top. Bumble lets her go out to the movies and dinner with people and form relationships, even friendships, with men she would have never met before. She's in a place where she is not doing anything she doesn't want to do, and experimenting with dating apps as a way to have fun as a 50-something divorcée. Her life is not shutting down with age, she said, but opening up. 

She did, however, see that the options available to her younger girlfriends were much more plentiful. Peaking over their shoulders, she saw her younger friends swiping with much more fervor and not running up against the spinning wheel — an indication the app is searching for more people with your age range and location. 

"This is a big business and they are missing out," said Gonzalez, referring to popular dating app companies who don't cater to older people. 

Business Insider/Bumble

Tinder declined to comment when asked to provide its app's age demographics and whether or not it thought its platform catered to older users. Match, eharmony, Happn, and OkCupid did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment. 

Jess Carbino, a sociologist for Bumble, told Business Insider in a statement that out of its female users over 40, 60% believe the app will "most likely to lead to the type of relationship they desire." 

But how many swipes must a single lady swipe to get there? My mom compared it to panning for gold. (I swear she is not that old.) "You really have to dig in the dirt for that speck of gold, you have to go through hundreds of different profiles," she said. 

Though, she questioned, this may not be entirely the fault of dating apps, but how people use them.

"Dating apps work for men, and older men, but don’t work for older women," my mom said. "Most women who are older are not looking for hookups, where most men are looking for whatever experiences they can get. How do you find those few men who are out there who are looking for a relationship?"

That is a question Crystal, 57, has been asking for the 15 years she's been single. (Crystal declined to have her last name published.) She's a single mom living in Pittsburgh, and she's tried it all: eharmony, Match, OkCupid, Plenty of Fish. Just before the holidays, she canceled Bumble, finding it all to be too stressful. 

She's hopped from app to app like most people do — hoping to find a new pool of available people. But what she found was just recycled profiles. 

"Whenever I go out, I see all these license plates from states all over and think, 'There has to be some available people here!'" said Crystal. "I am self-sufficient, I just prefer not to be alone. I guess the idea of the long-term relationship scares people away."

Crystal wants to try Silver Singles after Valentine's Day and plans to change her profile to say "just looking to date."

Her best advice to other ladies her age on the apps: don't list yourself as looking for an activities partner. 

"That is when all the weirdos come out of the woodwork," she said. 

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The takeaway

I have to admit: as a 25-year-old, the kind of dating the 50-plus ladies I spoke with described is the only dating I have ever known. However, I grew up in the digital era, where you can be flaky in real life, flirty over text, have low expectations, and shallow notions. 

This is a new frontier for older women like my mom. She's living in a world where society tells older men that they're silver foxes, and older women to take up knitting. It's not the best message to take into the next chapter of her life — one where she is newly single and searching for something not so vapid, all the while playing the dating game with rules made up by a younger generation and tools that condone it.

In light of that, she's gotten a lot more specific. She realized she didn't have to feel frustrated so often if she just leaned into it. 

These days, she refuses to date Cancers — or any water sign, for that matter. And that is why she recently re-downloaded Bumble: she gets to see right away if a potential match has an unappetizing astrological sign. 

I asked her why she decided to do it all over again.

"If I didn’t have the apps, I would have no options," she said, laughing. "The benefit is it gives you options. You get frustrated and get off it and then get lonely and get back on. It’s a cycle. It's like anything else, you run the gauntlet. That's life."

Are you over 50 and using dating apps? Want to share your story? Contact this reporter at mgebel@businessinsider.com, (646) 768-1658, or by Twitter DM @MeiraGebel