When Updating is Scarier Than Starting
- Saturday, August 18 2012 @ 08:10 am
- Contributed by: Jet
- Views: 1,059
Perhaps you’ve decided to jump into the online dating pool. You’ve chosen your site, you’ve written a profile you don’t hate, and you’ve even gotten a few messages. You’re pretty satisfied... until you repeatedly read that you should update your profile from time to time. What! More work? Why mess with perfection? Isn’t adding something new - something that hasn’t been scoured and re-edited - asking for trouble? And if someone has already seen your profile, haven’t they already made up their mind? Why would they come back and look again?
While at first glance, it might be best to let sleeping profiles lie, that’s not actually usually the case. There are many reasons why it can be beneficial to switch up your profile. The first and most obvious of these is to update outdated information. If you have a few dates that turn into a little more - say relationships of two to three months - an entire year or more could add up very quickly. Suddenly your profile is talking about how you can’t wait to see last year’s summer blockbuster. And since it’s been awhile since you’ve sat down and really read the thing, you don’t even remember the “Winning!” reference you threw in that isn’t quite so topical anymore.
The impulse here might be to write a profile from the start that is a “classic” - one with no dated references or anything that could pin it to a specific time. While that’s not a bad idea for the majority of the profile, it’s actually good to throw in something that is very obviously “now,” even if it’s just the last movie you saw or book you read. It makes the profile feel alive, like you could have been on just a few minutes ago, instead of making a web site for posterity. The downside, of course, is that is needs to be maintained - so to make it easy on yourself, try to keep your current references all in one section that you can easily scan and change.
Some might think that once their profile is read, the reader will never be back if they’re not interested immediately. Not necessarily! Many sites will list when you last updated (again, another reason to keep up-to-date) and bump you to the top of the search list. Particularly if you live in a large city, the reader won’t remember every profile they’ve seen, and visit some more than once - especially if you’ve switched up your default picture. Thus, there’s no reason not to update or upgrade on occasion. And speaking of pictures, remember that those can get dated too, especially if the picture was already a year or two old to begin with!
It’s great to carefully edit and come up with a profile that really feels like you, but don’t feel paralyzed once you have it. Just as you are constantly learning, changing, and redefining yourself, so too can your profile. You shouldn’t let anything box you in and keep you from expressing who you are today - least of all your own words!
While at first glance, it might be best to let sleeping profiles lie, that’s not actually usually the case. There are many reasons why it can be beneficial to switch up your profile. The first and most obvious of these is to update outdated information. If you have a few dates that turn into a little more - say relationships of two to three months - an entire year or more could add up very quickly. Suddenly your profile is talking about how you can’t wait to see last year’s summer blockbuster. And since it’s been awhile since you’ve sat down and really read the thing, you don’t even remember the “Winning!” reference you threw in that isn’t quite so topical anymore.
The impulse here might be to write a profile from the start that is a “classic” - one with no dated references or anything that could pin it to a specific time. While that’s not a bad idea for the majority of the profile, it’s actually good to throw in something that is very obviously “now,” even if it’s just the last movie you saw or book you read. It makes the profile feel alive, like you could have been on just a few minutes ago, instead of making a web site for posterity. The downside, of course, is that is needs to be maintained - so to make it easy on yourself, try to keep your current references all in one section that you can easily scan and change.
Some might think that once their profile is read, the reader will never be back if they’re not interested immediately. Not necessarily! Many sites will list when you last updated (again, another reason to keep up-to-date) and bump you to the top of the search list. Particularly if you live in a large city, the reader won’t remember every profile they’ve seen, and visit some more than once - especially if you’ve switched up your default picture. Thus, there’s no reason not to update or upgrade on occasion. And speaking of pictures, remember that those can get dated too, especially if the picture was already a year or two old to begin with!
It’s great to carefully edit and come up with a profile that really feels like you, but don’t feel paralyzed once you have it. Just as you are constantly learning, changing, and redefining yourself, so too can your profile. You shouldn’t let anything box you in and keep you from expressing who you are today - least of all your own words!
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