Writing a profile that sounds like you
Almost every profile is written in the same voice: cheerful, generic, and completely unlike the person who wrote it.
Read twenty profiles in a row and they blur into one. Love travelling. Fluent in sarcasm. Looking for a partner in crime. Will not be doing the dishes, ha ha. None of it is false, exactly. It's just that it could have been written by anyone, which means it tells the reader nothing they can use.
A profile has one job: give someone a reason to say something specific to you. Every line that doesn't do that is taking up space.
Trade adjectives for evidence
"Adventurous" is a claim. "I once got on a night bus to Kraków because the tickets were nine pounds" is evidence. The second one is better not because it's more impressive, but because it's unarguable and it hands over a hook.
Go through your draft and mark every adjective about yourself. Funny, driven, easy-going, passionate. Each one is a place where you told instead of showed. Replace it with the smallest true story you have.
Before: "I'm a big foodie who loves trying new places."
After: "I have strong feelings about which supermarket does the best hummus and I will share them unprompted."
The three-sentence structure
- What you actually do with your time. Not your job title — your Tuesday evening.
- One oddly specific thing. The detail a friend would use to describe you.
- What you're hoping for. Plainly, without a list of requirements.
That's enough. Long profiles don't get read; they get skimmed for red flags. Short and strange beats long and safe every time.
Cut the negatives
No list of who shouldn't message you. No "swipe left if..." No weary jokes about how terrible the app is. It reads as tired before you have even met, and the people you actually want will assume you'll be hard work.
If there's something genuinely non-negotiable — you want children, you don't drink, you're only looking for something serious — say it once, plainly, as a fact about you rather than a demand about them.
Say what you want, out loud
The single most under-used line in dating is the honest one about what you're looking for. "Looking for something that turns into a proper relationship" costs you the people who weren't going to work anyway. That's the point. A profile that repels the wrong people is doing half your work for you.
The short version
- Replace every adjective about yourself with a small true story.
- Three sentences: your real week, one specific oddity, what you want.
- No lists of demands, no jokes about hating the app.
- If a friend couldn't recognise you in it, rewrite it.