Finding Your Voice: Why Writing Authentically Matters

Hi, I’m Amanda. Welcome to my blog, where I share online dating advice, tips, tricks, and strategies, all based on my professional training and personal experience.

Writing a dating profile is a weird exercise when you think about it. Imagine being given the following homework assignment when you were in school: “Please write about yourself in five different formats. You must abide by the word limits provided for each format, as well as respond to the very random questions and prompts provided. Your assignment will then be reviewed by single members of the opposite sex. You will read these reviews, which may have the potential to cause strong, negative emotions about yourself and your self-worth.”

It’s messed up, right? Because of this strangeness, we feel stumped about where to even start. What in the world do I write? How do I write about myself? How do I answer these required, maddening prompts? How do I get past these awful feelings that I have about the process? Yet this is the dating world we currently live in. So if we want to meet people, we have to figure it out.

Grab my free Online Dating Red Flags Checklist, so that you know what to look for in matches, conversations, and dates.

The stress and frustration can be enough to want to walk away and say “screw this”. OkCupid brought me to this point during my last stint of online dating. Between the lengthy profile requirements, the annoying prompts, and the fact that they “refreshed” all of my meticulously sorted matches after about a month (just in case I had missed someone), I was ready to throw my laptop across the wall. It’s easy to give up here, and to feel as if it’s just not worth the stress and hassle.

On the other hand, it can be all too easy to go in the opposite direction and spend way too much time being perfectionistic about it. In this case, the focus usually becomes on how others are going to interpret what you write, or what others might be put off by. Will they think I’m boring if I share that I like my weekends to be chill? What if they don’t get my sense of humor when it’s in writing? Will I turn someone off if I post that I don’t want children? You can spend hours upon hours overanalzying, editing, deleting, and re-writing, only to find yourself weeks later still not content with what you’ve written. Yet we can’t control others’ interpretations of what we write, nor their perceptions of us, and the focus on this only moves us away from who we are.

Writing a dating profile can also bring up ALL of our insecurities. Even if we’ve worked through our stuff, this can come rearing back up when you’re faced with writing about yourself. It makes you question what’s okay to put in your dating profile, and what shouldn’t be shared. Maybe you finally accepted that the label of divorce is attached to your history, but now you’re faced with putting it out into the world for others to potentially judge. It brings all of the demons back up to the surface.

So how do you overcome all of this: the head-scratching, the desire to run away, the overanalysis, and the overwhelm?

The solution is authentic writing. This is the approach to easier writing, to a less stressful dating profile experience. It means shifting your focus from how others might perceive what you’re writing, to writing what feels genuine and authentic to you.

Inauthentic writing can lead to a number of different problems. If what you’re writing isn’t authentic, or is tailored to what you think men want to hear, you’re more likely to attract matches that aren’t a good fit for you. You’re pulling in matches who like a version of you that doesn’t actually exist, which only leads to pain and heartache. It can be hard to think about turning other people off, and yet it is a GOOD thing to repel the people who aren’t going to be a good fit for you. This is ultimately going to save you hurt and pain in the long run.

Inauthentic writing can also create a mess of complicated feelings and emotions about yourself. Let’s say that you share in your profile that you love traveling, even though you would much prefer a staycation to a week abroad. You match with someone who expresses excitement that you love to travel, and they start asking you questions about the places you’ve been and where you would still like to go. One, you’re now in a bind of either having to admit that you lied, or continue the lying that you began. Two, you’re now getting the message that a love of travel is desirable, with the flip side being that a preference for not traveling is undesirable. We as women are already hard enough on ourselves as it is. When we’re attracting matches who aren’t a fit, we receive even more messages that who we are isn’t good enough.

Writing inauthentically also doesn’t feel good. For me, it feels like a dulled version of myself. Like I’m shrinking myself, making myself smaller, or portraying a cardboard cutout of myself. It might feel like a piece of clothing that doesn’t fit quite right, or a wool sweater that’s just too itchy. It feeds the thoughts and feelings that online dating inherently feels awful.

In contrast, writing authentically leads to fewer, but higher quality matches. This is where dating gets to be FUN. This is where you get to celebrate when your date shares that they’re also divorced, and you experience zero judgment or criticism. Or you say that you really don’t like cooking, and your partner responds by saying that’s fine because they love to cook and would love to cook for you. It’s like seeing puzzle pieces begin fitting together, rather than feeling like you’re trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

Authentic writing also keeps you grounded in YOU. You’re more likely to have matches that compliment you and reinforce you based on who you are, and that further solidifies the message that you are worthy of love and connection just as you are. That there are people out there who are not just going to like you for who you are, but who are going to accept and love you for who you are. The more you hear that message, the easier it is to stay true to yourself in every aspect, even in the ways that might feel difficult.

Finally, authentic writing just feels better. When you read back over your dating profile, I want you to feel expansive. I want you to have the thought “Yes, this is totally me.” Authentic writing feels alive and exciting. When I finally found a write-up for my dating profile that I felt was authentic, there was a feeling of WANTING to put it out there, because I knew it was completely reflective of me. I knew that if someone didn’t swipe right on me based on that profile, then they weren’t a good fit for me anyway.

All of that might sound great, but you might be wondering how to actually do this.

Here are my top recommendations for writing an authentic dating profile:

First, ask yourself whether you like writing. If you don’t, then aim for a shorter dating profile. You can write a short profile that still packs a lot of punch. I actually do like to write, but I found that I was more easily able to write about myself when I had a word limit on dating apps. So keep it short and sweet, but pack it with a lot of punch. If you do like writing, then have fun with this. There is no deadline to online dating, so write a draft, come back to it a few days later, and see how you feel about it. If it’s not resonating or feeling great, just use it as a cue that maybe it needs some tweaking or changing.

Whether you’re choosing a long or short dating profile, the key is to focus on your values and crucial pieces of who you are as a person. What aspects of you are so important to your identity that it would feel like killing pieces of yourself to give them up? What comes up for you if you think about never having kids in your life? How about religion? Pets? Curiosity? Hiking / Dancing / Running? We’re all different in regards to what makes us who we are. If you don’t have answers to these questions, that’s OKAY. But take some time to think about this before writing your dating profile. This is what is going to communicate to others who you are and whether someone is a good fit for you.

Then there are the prompts. The maddening, infuriating prompts. First, if you have a choice as to which ones to use, then don’t pick ones that make you want to throw your laptop / phone across the wall. If I had been forced to answer the prompt, “Dating me is like…..”, then I would probably still be single, because for whatever reason, that prompt creates a little ball of rage inside of me. So pick prompts that are mildly annoying instead of rage-inducing. Then pick prompts that tie into the questions above, prompts that help to communicate the important aspects of your identity. For example, you might avoid “What’s your favorite TV show?”, because that’s unlikely to communicate much about you. Our favorite TV shows speak to our preferences and likes, not so much to our identities. Other prompts may or may not be useful depending on YOU. For example, “What are you most likely to be doing on a Friday night?” may be great if you spend every Friday night playing board games with a close group of friends. It may not be helpful if your Friday nights are spent running errands. (It’s not bad if you run errands on a Friday night, it just doesn’t say much about you.) Lastly, if you’re forced into prompts, consider switching to a different dating app. There’s a gazillion now. No need to force yourself to be more miserable than you have to be.

Lastly, think about your personality when writing. Are you funny? Serious? Shy or reserved? Sarcastic? Bring that into your writing. If you struggle to do this, try voice typing. It’s sometimes easier to be genuine and authentic through speaking instead of writing, so that might be a good alternative if you’re struggling with this. This is also a place where it can become very easy to get caught up in what others think. Sarcasm is a good example of this: people either love it or hate it, and it’s often portrayed as a bad thing. But if sarcasm (playful, not cruel) is a part of your personality, then let this show in your profile. You’ll repel the people who hate sarcasm (which you want), and you’ll be more likely to match with people who appreciate a little sarcastic banter.

Believe it or not, writing authentically can actually be a good opportunity to get to know more about YOURSELF. So take the time that you need to make this process one in which you can learn and grow as a person. This isn’t about selling yourself to other people, or making other people like you. It’s about being in touch with yourself, exploring your identity, writing authentically, and then getting to experience all of the positive things that come with matching with people who are a good fit for the amazing woman that you already are.

*Don’t forget to grab my free Red Flags Checklist! You’ll learn everything you need to know to scan for red flags in your swiping, conversations, and dates.