The other night I was swiping through Bumble and came across a profile that made me laugh. “The more you don’t have a history, the less interesting you are.” But this is my view. No one is too hot to make it look appealing without any effort at all. Raya’s celebrities also have profiles (even if it’s just one sentence).
If there’s one thing that definitely makes me want to immediately swipe left, it’s when someone clearly hasn’t put any effort into their dating app profile. But it always appears when I swipe through the app. A Hinge profile full of prompts, each ending with a single punctuation mark, “.”. Or lonely emoji. I see profiles on Bumble, Tinder, and Feld left blank. Sometimes there is just one photo (talk about heavy lifting!).
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I think it will take some time to respond to the prompts and craft a witty introduction. But that’s the only real way to show your personality to future opponents. Photography can only take you so far.
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I don’t care how good you look. How cool you look in the photo. Height, skill at work, etc. No profile, no swipe right. Your profile is your chance to show who you are as a real person.
But it’s not just about showing off your great personality and unparalleled wit. It’s about showing that you’re willing to invest. “The profile itself is one of the earliest relationship skills a person exhibits,” says Janie Young, a certified therapist and clinical director of Wellness Detox in Los Angeles.
What your dating app profile doesn’t say about you
In my opinion, it really shows how much effort you’ve put into your profile. I look at those incomplete prompts and empty profiles and ask myself, what does that tell me about the kind of partner you are if you can’t be bothered to answer a simple question or write even a single sentence in your bio? If I dated this person, would they buy me a birthday card? Will they put effort into our relationship? Will they make kind and thoughtful gestures unprompted? Will they meet my needs?
Even though your profile is incomplete, there’s a good chance you’ll actually be a great partner. If that’s the case, you’re doing yourself a disservice by not taking 5-10 minutes to write a little about yourself. First impressions are important. So instead of letting them make assumptions based on what’s not in your profile, show them who you really are.
“If you leave your profile blank, you’re missing out on an opportunity to connect,” says Paul Branson, Tinder’s global relationship expert.
“It doesn’t give you a sense of who you are and makes it difficult for people to start a conversation,” he added. The same rules apply when relying on a single emoji in your profile. As Branson says, it “forces them to guess and makes it feel like work.”
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“Simple, honest words about yourself and what you’re looking for are even more effective. A little effort at this stage can go a long way in building a better connection,” he added.
The app told Mashable in an email that 61% of daters who use Hinge say they want to see someone’s profile to determine what a partnership might look like with a potential partner. In other words, users want to know more about your lifestyle, interests, and hobbies.
Avoid negative comments in your self-introduction
I’ve seen people write negative (and sometimes ignorant) things about their bios, as well as empty biographies. Comments like “no drama please”, “I’m looking for a sane person”, “no pronouns please” are red flags in my opinion.
I’ve also seen profiles lamenting dating culture or making fun of the clichés in people’s profiles and messages.
“Please don’t send me messages asking about your weekend,” or “Does anyone here message you?” Branson says he understands why people do things like this, but “going in a negative direction is rarely going to get you the results you want.” He adds, “Profiles should attract people, not drive them away.”
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“Think of your introduction as a handshake before a conversation; you want it to be warm, inviting, and confident,” he says. “We want people to feel safe sending messages without worrying that they’ll say the wrong thing. So focus on setting expectations through clarity and positivity, rather than restrictions and bad vibes.”
Why photos alone are not enough
What do therapists say about the habit of leaving profiles blank?
“Leaving your profile blank means you’re asking others to take a leap that you’re not willing to take,” says Brian Lutz, a certified therapist and chief clinical officer at Bloom Behavioral Health.
“The amount of effort you put into your initial introduction provides the other person with information about your emotional availability and reflects your seriousness about the process and respect for their time,” he adds.
Young agrees with this. “When individuals create blank profiles, they typically expect the photo alone to provide enough information about themselves to others viewing their profile,” she says.
“A blank profile also requires the other person (the ‘other’) to do unnecessary emotional labor,” she added. “When individuals cannot discern others’ personalities, intentions, lifestyle choices, etc., they are much more likely to assign those characteristics based on their own perceptions, which can result in incompatibility and ultimately mismatch.”
Please tell me something you want to talk about
Don’t forget, we’re also living in an age of dating app fatigue. We are dealing with persistent inconsistencies, ghosting, and unanswered initiation messages. Daters (myself included) are frustrated by the lack of real conversations in their inboxes. So why make it so hard for someone to start chatting with you? Not revealing anything in your bio basically makes it impossible to come up with a decent icebreaker. Trust me, I tried. For those who are irritated by the constant “Hi, how are you?” Ask yourself if there are conversation starters in the app and if there are conversation starters in your profile. Also, please don’t make me send you “nice mustache” messages.
So if you’re reading this and you’re thinking, “Whoa, I’m guilty as charged,” I ask you. Sprinkle some personality into your profile, dust off the details, and add a pinch of wit. Your match will thank you. And your profile will have a certain appeal that will make your potential date want to swipe right.
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