What's Inside Your Husk? : How to Make Your Online Profile More Interesting
One of the hurdles of online dating is developing an interesting profile, and I think we can all agree that the majority of profiles out there are less than stellar. When someone glances over your “about me” section, what do they see? Your profile should be a reflection of who you are, what you are looking for, and what you have to offer. The worst thing you can do is leave it blank; you want to give a potential match something to start a conversation with.
The way to make your profile more interesting is to make your life more interesting. You have probably done things in your life that are worth mentioning. For example, I have been trained in wilderness survival; I hitchhiked from Toronto, Ontario to St. John's, Newfoundland and back; I traveled around the world on my own; I went to Burning Man -- you get the idea. These are just point-form notes on my profile that are kindling -- or “tinder,” if you will -- for real conversations.
The other side of this is not just mentioning past experiences but always being open to new ones, and developing a habit of doing exciting things: things you can talk about with other people, whether you’re asking them to participate, provide insight, or help you prepare. Spend some time thinking about your budget and your interests, and then plan something. If it is something expensive and you have to schedule it for a year or two from now, that just means you have longer to prepare and join a community of others who are doing the same thing.
In the Jim Carrey movie Yes Man, basically Jim is stuck in a rut and in order to get out of it he adopts the mantra of the 'Yes’ man, someone who says yes to everything that is offered to him. This message has always spoken to me; after ending a nearly decade-long relationship, one of the things that helped get me out of my funk and into a new state of mind was living by the phrase “Everything is worth doing.” On my trip around the world, I met a priest in Dublin who translated the phrase for me, and I believe the Gaelic is even better: “All things that are done have value.” Be a “yes man”: help your buddy move; go to that show at a dive bar on a Tuesday night; actually show up to the condo bikini beach party.
Experiences are what make us who we are, they define us; the things we do with our lives are what we are made of, and people don’t want to hang out with generic husks containing nothing but some dried out ‘netflix and chill’. Be exciting, be complex, be interesting.
