Profiles

According to a local Michigan author, 97.5% of the almost 300 online daters she interviewed did fudge the facts about at least one aspect of their dating profile. Woman tended to lie more about their age and weight while men lied more about age and their marital status. The author found about 60 percent of men who stated they were either single, separated or divorced where actually married. Most of the interviewed online daters used popular dating sites such as American Singles, eHarmony, Match.com, Senior FriendFinder and Yahoo Personals.

While I expect a few not quite truthful answers in a dating profile (I always assumed more people than not probably round down their weight), I was surprised at the percentage of men she found who lied about their marital status. This is a much larger issue than saying your 6 feet tall, when you are only 5 foot 11 inches. I wonder if the same percentage holds true for men at bars?

This topic would make a good poll. I should create one to see what visitors of Dating Sites Reviews fib about in their dating profiles.

I had to create a new Yahoo! Personals profile the other day and found out a few interesting things. In step 3 of creating a profile there are 3 privacy options in regards to making your profile searchable. The options are:

1. Make your profile searchable only on Yahoo! Personals
2. Have your profile visible on both Yahoo! Personals and partner websites.
3. Do not make my profile searchable. Only people you contact will see your profile.

Point 3 is not a bad idea but I don't see many people using it unless they are singles who are over loaded with too many messages and winks from other members. I guess, it also allows singles who may be a little unsure about internet dating and want some privacy since it lets them only initiate the conversation and profile viewing.

I was surprised at point 2. I didn't realize Yahoo! Personals had partner websites. I don't remember ever running across a dating service that has been powered by Yahoo! Personals. Here is the example they give on how your profile will look on a third party dating website. From the example it looks like they hope to partner with other sites that offer other different types of listing (jobs, apartments, etc...) or maybe news and entertainment services.

The other interesting fact about point 2 (if you read the fine print) is your profile may appear in search engine queries. I don't think Yahoo.com is doing this now (at least not when I search) but who knows what the future may hold. Of course they could be referring to other search engines and not their own. I wouldn't necessarily have a problem with my dating profile appearing on partner sites but I am not too sure about having them come up in search results. Maybe they should of included a forth point to allow for a search engine option.

The latest technology article at Times Online focuses on what makes a good user or screen name at an online dating site. Dr Monica Whitty at Nottingham Trent University looked into what makes a name rank higher among both men and woman daters and therefore make them more likely to initiate contact.

Dr. Whitty study found male singles would less likely try to contact a woman with nick names like "welleducated" or "wellread". The reverse was found to be true for woman. Woman where more likely to contact men who's screen name suggested intelligence. In my view, I don't think this would necessarily be a bad thing if a woman had a more cultured oriented user name. It may put off some males from contacting them but the woman who would use these types of name most likely wouldn't be attracted to these men anyways.

The findings listed in the Times article was presented at the British Psychological Society's annual conference yesterday.

Something I have never really thought of came to my attention a couple of days ago. The Wall Street Journal has a piece about singles stealing parts of or in some cases the entire profile of singles from dating services. In most cases this comes down to either the dating profiles heading or the profiles essay answers which usually includes such topics as describing who you are looking for in your own words. The article post examples of where even the opposite sexes have stolen entire profiles and which they had only just changed the gender information.

Headlines of profiles I have less issue with and in fact profiles with the same headline most likely happened more by accident. There are only so many ways to sum up yourself in one sentence. It also can be hard once you see a good headline to get it out of your head when you are trying to think one up for yourself. Plus, headlines like "Must Love Dogs!" are important. If the person wants to be with someone who loves dogs then reusing the same headline doesn't create any real problems (unless of course, the profiles come up next to each other in the search results). If the headline is from someone's profile who lives a fair distance away or from another dating site and, you can't think up one yourself that is similar then, I would go ahead and use it.

Profile essay are by far the hardest part to write of any dating profile. Especially, if writing is not your strong point. It's a lot easier for some people to just cut and paste this part with someone else but in the end they are not doing themselves any good. I find these essays are a good tool to help you reflect on who you are actually looking for. Even if you are a poor writer this is a useful exercise. Once written you can then review it with friends and family who could then help you rewrite it. If this is not an option, there are also a number of inexpensive profile writers available online that could help you (type "dating profile help" into Google Search). Some of the larger dating services like Match.com also offer a profile review service for an additional cost.

This article will attempt to describe what a fake profile is, why they are created and who creates them.