According to a friend of mine, Jay Speyerer, online dating is backwards – it messes up the natural order of getting to know someone. Jay is a professional speaker and writer (learn more at Legacy Road Communications), and this is his theory:

Before, in an offline world (maybe the first few times you were out there looking), you would see someone across a crowded room, bar, book shop, or the express bus to Oakland. You would first access them based on their looks, which would be current and undoctored, then, if they kept your interest, you would try to strike up a conversation. This might lead to telephone calls and more face-to-face meetings.

If you hit it off, you might not have to access their writing skills until you got the “Dear John” letter at the end of the relationship. At that point, it no longer mattered. And given the range of writing skills out there (he is a professional writer, and perhaps more discerning than average) this may have been a good thing.

With online dating, how you express yourself on paper becomes very important, but it’s not a skill everyone has. Great conversationalists sometimes are poor writers – I have personally met people whose profiles and emails were only “okay” but who fascinated me in person. So much of conversation is non-verbal – the tone, the expression, the inflection, the teasing smile.

Knowing that, it might make sense to have a friend read your profile, preferably a friend who is the same sex and has the same level of education as the person you are trying to attract.

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