From Selling to Storytelling: Rethinking Your Online Dating Profile Strategy

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.

One of the most frequent complaints I hear from women about writing their online dating profile is that they hate selling themselves. Similar to writing cover letters for jobs, it feels awful to try to convince someone of why you’re worth taking a risk on. With dating though, it’s a thousand times worse because of how much more personal it feels. It feels gross to have to convince someone else that they should go out with you, which can spiral into bigger thoughts about whether you’re deserving of love in the first place.

This mindset is a brutal one. No one likes feeling like they have to sell themselves in any situation ever. Most of us are already incredibly hard on ourselves. We have a hard enough time convincing ourselves that we’re deserving and worthy, let alone having to convince others. Carrying this mindset through the dating process is a surefire way to feel horrible about the process, horrible about your matches, and horrible about yourself.

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

The good news is that you don’t have to carry this mindset. There is a different way of looking at this process, which is to move away from a mindset of selling yourself towards one of narrating your identity, kind of like writing an author bio rather than a cover letter. In an author bio, you talk about yourself, but in a way that’s more factual and neutral, making this a much less emotionally-laden process. Yes, this is easier said than done, but with practice, you can adjust your thinking in a way that makes writing your dating profile much more tolerable.

Here’s the Difference:

When you approach online dating as selling yourself, you’re constantly evaluating yourself. You might be aware that you’re doing this, which is hard enough, but if you’ve become used to your own thoughts, you might not be aware of it, meaning that these thoughts spiral without any kind of check. When you do this, everything you think about putting into your dating profile gets weighed as either good or bad, leading to immense self-criticism:

• You like to read? Good.

• You’re a homebody? Bad.

• You’ve been divorced? Terrible.

It’s like having a judge sitting in front of you providing sentence after sentence.

This is bad enough, but it’s made even worse by the fact that these labels are usually based on arbitrary ideals. Sometimes these come from societal messages. Sometimes they come from family messaging and childhood. Other times they come from friends and colleagues. Regardless of the source though, these labels are rarely tied to our own values and goals. They’re based on what we think other people are going to think of us, which isn’t always grounded in fact or reality.

For example, do you think that being divorced falls into the terrible category? Many people do. However, I was divorced myself when I started online dating again, and I actually found it very validating to go out with other people who had been divorced as well, because I knew that they would get it. The people I went out with also expressed that they much preferred to date people who had also been divorced, for the exact same reason. Something that seemed terrible on the outside was actually a connecting point with others.

When you’re focused on selling yourself, your focus also moves away from being authentic to you. When you’re busy throwing labels on things, it becomes all too easy to want to leave out or brush over the things that you perceive to fall into the bad category.

Have you ever found yourself saying something like, “Well, I’ll go out on a few dates with the person first. If I still like them, then I’ll tell them I’m divorced”? This might sound like a safe tactic, but it essentially means that you’re making yourself smaller for someone else, rather than owning who you are from the very start. It’s not going to feel good, and it also makes it more likely that you’re going to draw in people who aren’t a great fit for you.

When you can view your dating profile as an opportunity to share your story, you cut out the evaluation. You’re not judging or labeling the different aspects of yourself. You’re just stating them factually. There is no good, bad, or terrible. Only factual. Yes, this is easier said than done, but if you can cultivate this mindset, it cuts out the negative mental chatter and streamlines the writing process. There’s a sense of mental quiet and peace without the judgment and labeling.

This also makes it much easier to stay focused on who you are, rather than feeling pulled or swayed by what other people are going to think. You decide what goes into your dating profile based on the key aspects of your personality, your values, and your goals for your life, not what you think other people like or want. This can feel scary, but it’s also a much more grounded place to be operating from.

You’re also much more likely to attract people who are a good fit for you. By presenting yourself factually and accurately in your dating profile, you’ll weed out more of the people who aren’t a good fit and draw in the people who are. Let’s say you list from the very start that you’re divorced. Now you know that the people who swipe right on you are not only okay with this, but may even appreciate this fact about you.

To hold this mindset, imagine that you literally are writing an author bio for yourself. What would you list as the key aspects of your personality? How about your values? Your goals? What are pieces of yourself that are unlikely to change over time?

As you’re writing, remember the word DRAFT. You can always go back and change what you wrote, but you just want a starting point that’s based on factual information about yourself, rather than judgments and labels that might have informed your writing in the past. Keep it in a word document where you can go back, make edits, and change things as often as you want.

You can also have a close friend or family member who knows you well read it over for you. Do they think that what you wrote accurately reflects who you are? If not, what are their thoughts on what you might include?

Finally, be aware of the voice in your head that wants to start judging and criticizing. It’s hard to stop it completely, but we can notice it, practice self-compassion when it occurs, and redirect our thoughts to what is most helpful to us.

A dating profile is technically a neutral thing. It’s not good or bad; it’s just a thing. Our thoughts and mindset are what give it either positive or negative meaning. So be mindful of whether your mindset is one that is keeping you from taking steps forward, or if it’s one that’s allowing you to proceed with greater confidence and groundedness in yourself.

*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.