As part of my endless quest to identify the perfect approach to online dating – for both men and women – I keep a number of profiles active on a range of sites.

Posting as a woman is easy, guys are desperate, but getting women to write to a guy is a challenge. I get 10-20 responses a day from women wherever I post, and hundreds for a woman. After a lot of research and practice men are looking at 10 times fewer replies, if they’re lucky. Amazingly, after putting so much effort into getting women to write, the responses women send to men are generally awful.

Allow me to share a few tips that’ll help female online daters stand out:

1. Say Something

Women are so used to being pursued they often feel uncomfortable making the ‘first’ move (even if responding to an ad is a second move, it’s just that the first wasn’t aimed specifically at you). There’s nothing less appealing, and harder to answer intelligently, than an email which only contains ‘Hi’ or ‘Loved your ad’. As a rule, try to mirror the type and quantity of information in the ad you’re responding to. If questions have been asked – answer them. It’s a conversation.

2. Be Positive

Women are often inundated with responses to their ads which range from thoughtless to creepy. It’s not hard to understand how dating makes people jaded. That said, if the first thing you say to a guy includes references to the assholes you’ve dated/spoken to/married previously, you’ll sound bitter. “Finally, an intelligent profile from a decent guy,” is much less a compliment than “Your profile’s really smart and you sound like a nice guy.” Assume we’re the man of your dreams, not the guy you dumped for sleeping with you mom.

3. Don’t Lie, Don’t Explain

Guys aren’t nearly as dumb as sitcom writers make us appear to be and online dating is no longer the preserve of Trekkies and criminals. Prefacing a response with a flowery genesis story – “I was just borrowing my friends computer, and she’d opened this dating site when I saw your profile…” – is redundant BS. You wouldn’t respond to someone approaching you in a bar with a lengthy explanation of what brought you there, it’s just as out of place online. Embarrassment isn’t attractive.

Match.com for iPhone

In 2007 Match.com added a feature allowing their members to get message updates by SMS. Now they’ve added a mobile application, for the iPhone, which allows users to edit their profile, see people close to them, and upload new photos on the move.

It’s a very good idea. People are used to shooting snaps with their phones and the kind of “This is what I’m doing right now” shots they take are exactly what dating static, easy to ignore, dating profiles need.

There’s no denying the killer feature here is location awareness. That someone is close to you, or doing what you are, is a truer indicator of potential compatibility than any number of tests, and it’s easier to see someone’s profile online and ping them a message than to try and see if they’re wearing a ring, or seem to be dating the person they’re sitting with. The real question is how good Match will be at building this functionality back into the core of its main website.

Of course, Match isn’t giving this away free (which it should), leaving them vulnerable to someone who will, perhaps with a few novel twists of their own. There are location aware mobile dating applications on the market but nothing that’s really capitalized on what an iPhone can do to make introductions easier.

That’ll be where Vooji comes in…

Dr. Alex Benzer has written a list of dating tips for smart people with dating problems, over at the Huffington Post. To save you reading it, they boil down pretty simply.

1. Relationships with other people are the most important thing in life.
2. People like people who make them feel good.
3. Sex is important and it’s hard to be sexy and distracted, or bored, simultaneously.
4. Be open to change and possibility.
5. Act confidently, even (especially) if you’re not.

All pretty solid stuff.

The more interesting thing is the idea that smart people – and that’s almost always a self diagnoses – who lack social graces are smart. Wouldn’t a more obvious answer be that people with these communication problems aren’t very bright when it comes to people? Isn’t the other assumption just a by-product of the geek-scientist cliche? What about brilliant people with charm like Einstein (quite a ladies man), or Neil Degrasse Tyson?

Anyone who’s looked at thousands of personal ads can’t help but notice the way men and women write is different. Each gender has its favorite cliches and there’s a similarity in attitude which is ever-present but hard to pin down.

In an effort to get a sense of those gender differences I analyzed hundreds of personals left by men and women, and then ran them through Wordle to determine the frequency of word use. The results are below. If you want to test your divination skills, try and work out which word-cloud comes from the men-seeking-women, and which the women-seeking-men, without looking at the answers below.

The first cloud comes from the women’s personals, the second from mens.

The most striking difference is the use of the words ‘like’ and ‘love’. Men are less keen on the most important l-word than women, who use it more frequently than any other. There are other differences too, ’serious’ doesn’t make the women’s cloud and ‘gym’ doesn’t make the men’s. Women mention ‘conversation’ often, men are all about ‘now’.

I’ve been looking at these all day and am still finding it interesting. If it prompts you to consider making a change to your profile – fantastic.

I’m guessing that Markus Frind’s famous frugality extends to creating his own advertising. This animated banner has copy that could have been borrowed from a National Socialist Party recruiting poster.

Plenty of Fish banner - frame 1

Plenty of Fish banner - frame 2

Who decides who’s good enough for Plenty of Fish? Do they have a eugenic’s office?

Some things, like copywriting, are worth paying for…

(via Online Dating Insider)