Is Your Mindset Getting In The Way Of Writing Your Dating Profile?
Hi, I’m Amanda. Welcome to my blog, where I share online dating advice, tips, tricks, and strategies, all based from my professional training and personal experience.
You’ve made the decision to hop on to dating apps. Now is the time, you think. You’re ready to meet someone, you’re ready to be in a relationship, even if you’re not quite ready for this whole online dating thing. You choose a dating app, create an account, and now you’re staring down having to write a profile. You immediately feel hopeless, think that this entire process is dumb, and start fantasizing about running into your dream person in your workout class next week.
Writing a dating profile typically isn’t something that women inherently love. I don’t think I’ve ever heard any woman say something to the extent of, “I just absolutely love writing dating profiles!” So I don’t expect it to be on your top ten list of favorite hobbies or things to do. But our mindset around a dating profile can make a huge difference as to whether this feels tolerable, or dread-worthy and paralyzing. Several mindset traps can lead to the latter rather than the former.
Grab my free Online Dating Red Flags Checklist so that you know exactly what to look for in matches, conversations, and dates.
Self-criticism is one of these mindset traps. Have you ever started writing a dating profile just to think “I don’t even like this aspect of me. Why would anyone else like it?” Or, “No one is going to swipe right on me if I include this about myself”? If so, you’ve become mired in self-criticism. Instead of being a neutral or tolerable task, self-criticism turns writing a dating profile into a minefield, in which each sentence becomes an opportunity to blow up your self-esteem. This is a painful mindset to be in, one which can tank your mood and any hope that you might have for finding someone, let alone through online dating.
Overthinking can also make writing a dating profile feel miserable. Have you ever tried to write a sentence about yourself, but then spent so much time in your head trying to figure out how to talk about yourself, or what exactly you wanted to write, that no words even ended up on the page? Many of us probably had this experience in school at some point when given the assignment of writing a paper that we didn’t really want to write. You maybe put it off for weeks, feeling mentally stuck and not knowing where to start. With a school paper though, there’s a concrete deadline that eventually pushes people to get something on paper. With an online dating profile, this process can go on indefinitely.
Or how about perfectionism? Have you ever written your dating profile, but then gone back and re-written it? And re-written it again? Or changed your prompts, thinking that if you just get your profile exactly right, then you’ll get the matches that you want? Perfectionism can be excruciating, making us feel as if what we’ve done is never enough. This is amplified a thousand fold when it’s tied into our desire for love, connection, and belonging.
There are many more mindset traps than these few, and we’re all prone to them, so if you resonate with one (or maybe all) of these, it’s normal. However, if we don’t take the time to acknowledge these and work through them, they can sabotage our attempts at moving forward in online dating.
When mindset issues run amok, a number of things happen. First, they can keep us mired in a space of self-criticism, making us believe that we’re not good enough and that we’ll never find a partner. And yet the reality is that relationships are about fit. When relationships fail, it’s typically not because someone wasn’t good enough. It’s because it takes a lot to make a relationship work, and a lot has to line up. We’re not going to be a fit for everyone, and that’s normal and okay. However, mindset issues tell us that it IS us. That we’re the problem. That we’re not worthy or deserving of love and connection. And that’s an absolutely horrible mental space to be swimming around in.
Mindset issues also prevent us from taking steps forward towards the things that we want in life. They can make a task feel so overwhelming and daunting, that we never even get started. Dating profiles aren’t necessarily fun, but they can start feeling like climbing Mount Everest, something that carries a significant threat to us and that feels worth avoiding altogether. This might not be a huge deal if we’re putting off writing a dating profile for a few weeks or even a month, but when this turns into months upon years, we’re then putting off something that’s actually really important to us.
Mindset issues also focus our attention on what we think other people want or like, or how they’re going to perceive us. This pulls our focus away from who we are and from being our authentic selves. If you’re focused on writing the perfect sentence so that someone likes your profile, you might lose sight of the fact that the sentence you wrote no longer sounds like you. Or that maybe you just included a trait that you would ideally like to have but that isn’t actually representative of you. Your profile might technically be a great example of good writing, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s an accurate reflection of who you are.
In contrast, when you take the time to acknowledge your mindset issues and work through them, you’re more likely to stay grounded in a place of self-worth. You can sit in the mental space of knowing that relationships are about fit. That if someone swipes left on you based on your profile, then you did a good job of weeding people out who wouldn’t have been a good fit for you anyway. Does it still hurt when people don’t swipe right on us, or don’t respond to our messages? Absolutely. But this hurt can be a fleeting thing that passes quickly, rather than something that spirals into a larger message about our worth as a human being.
Working through mindset issues also helps you to engage in imperfect action. Unless you decide to post something in your dating profile that’s objectively bad (Like, maybe don’t post a photo of you on the toilet. And yes, there are people who do this. My partner ran across one of these in his own online dating journey.), then there’s a whole range of ways in which to go about writing your dating profile that you can play around with. And sometimes it’s only until you do this, that you start figuring out how you want to talk about yourself, and what ways of writing and communicating help you to draw in matches that are a good fit for you. Taking the small steps starts giving you data points as to what’s working and what’s not, so that you can make changes moving forward. It’s a much more flexible approach than feeling as if you have to have the perfect dating profile right from the start.
Clearing our mindset issues also keeps the focus on writing an authentic profile that accurately represents you, rather than one that’s written based on what you believe other people are going to think. By doing this, it’s much more likely that the people who aren’t a fit will swipe left, and that the people who are a fit will swipe right. It’s quality over quantity. This can sound scary if you’re in a scarcity mindset, feeling worried about a shortage of potential partners out there, but it really is a good thing. You might have fewer conversations, fewer dates, fewer connections, but the ones that you do have are more likely to bolster your self-worth and allow you to have more positive and fun experiences overall.
You might be thinking that this all sounds fine and dandy, but if you’re mired in unhelpful mindsets, you might also be wondering how to actually go about changing these.
Half the battle with mindset issues is catching them in the first place. If they go unnoticed, they’re kind of like a runaway train that can’t be stopped once it gets going. So even if you don’t know what else to do with them, just noticing and naming them means that you’re stepping on the breaks and slowing down the train so that it can’t run off and spiral in the same way. If you have trouble doing this, you can set an alarm on your phone as a reminder to check in with yourself every now and then and see where your thoughts are at. You can also use your feelings as a cue. If you’re feeling horrible about yourself, that might be a good time to check in with yourself and see where your thoughts are at.
A great check for mindset issues is to ask yourself whether you would say to a close friend or family member what you’re saying to yourself. Would you say to a loved one, “No one’s going to want to be with you if you’re divorced. You’ve got too much baggage now.” Did you cringe thinking about saying that to someone else? It sounds so mean when we think about something like that being directed at a loved one, but language like that often goes unchecked when it’s our own internal dialogue. Yet it takes the same toll on us that it would if spoken to someone else. We just don’t notice it because we’re so good at adapting to our own thoughts and feelings. So ask yourself: Would you say to a loved one what you’re saying to yourself? If not, what would you say to a friend in a similar situation? Can you say that same thing to yourself? If that feels too challenging, I would encourage you to take a good look at why you feel like others in your life deserve better treatment than you do.
I’m typically not a big fan of mantras in general. I know they’re helpful for some people, and if they are for you, then by all means, keep on rocking the mantras. I think a good one here though is, “Relationships are about fit.” We’re taught in so many ways by society, family, and friends (often unintentionally) that online dating is about judgment and criticism. And yet if you’re finding yourself being judgmental and critical of either yourself or someone else, think about what that judgment is actually cuing you into about your own values and what’s important to you in a relationship. Are you judging your own profile because you don’t think anyone is going to be okay with the fact that you're an independent woman? Well, you just identified that you’re going to want and need a partner who is looking for a badass independent woman. (Yes, they do exist.) Are you judging someone because they listed video games as their primary hobby? Then maybe that says that you’re looking for a partner who will get out of the house with you on a regular basis. Maybe you value ambition. Or maybe you really like to spend your time in outdoor activities. Either way, neither you, nor the match you came across, is right or wrong. It’s just a mismatch in fit in terms of interests and values. And, all of those are things that you can then include in YOUR dating profile if they feel that important to you.
(With that being said, there are exceptions and some clear red flags in online dating, so if you need help identifying those, my free red flags checklist can help.)
Mindset issues are common. We can’t prevent them entirely, but we can try to catch them, acknowledge them, and name them when they arise. By doing this, writing a dating profile can go from something that you absolutely dread to something that feels much more tolerable and manageable.
*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.
