Writing A Good Over 60s Dating Profile

People stare at the empty box for days. They decide they are no good at writing, or that there is nothing interesting to say about them, and the profile stays half finished for a month.

It helps to know what the box is actually for. It is not a summary of your life and it is not an advertisement. It is a handful of things somebody can start a conversation from. That is a much smaller job, and you can do it in twenty minutes.

Be specific, not impressive

Nearly every profile says the same six things. Honest, family orientated, likes travelling, enjoys a laugh, looking for someone genuine. All true, all fine, and completely useless, because everybody writes them and they give nobody anything to reply to.

Compare the two. "I like cooking" tells a reader nothing. "I make a decent milanesa and I am still trying to get my mother's pastel de papas right" tells them you cook, that you have a sense of humour about it, and gives them something to ask. The second one is not better writing. It is just narrower.

Go through anything vague you have written and ask what it would look like on a Tuesday. Travelling becomes the three weeks in Salta. Music becomes the fact that you still put on the same Sandro records. Keeping active becomes the walk you do every morning before it gets hot.

Say where you are, roughly

This is a long country and a lot of people forget to mention it. Your province and your city is enough, and it saves everybody time. Somebody in Rosario reading a profile with no location has no idea whether you are twenty minutes away or two thousand kilometres.

No street, no barrio if you live somewhere small, and nothing that would let a stranger find your door.

Write the way you talk

Read it out loud. If it does not sound like you, rewrite it until it does. Formal language is the usual refuge when people are nervous, and it makes a warm person sound like a notice on a wall.

Short sentences are fine. A joke is fine, as long as it is one you would actually make. Do not worry about your writing being plain. Plain and honest reads better than polished and vague, every time.

Say what you are looking for, but lightly

Worth a line or two. Whether you want company for the odd afternoon or you would like to build something serious. Whether you are happy to travel or you want somebody close by. It is kinder to say so than to find out four weeks in that you wanted different things.

Keep it to what you want, though, not what you refuse. A profile that opens with a list of who need not apply tells the reader far more about the writer than about the requirements, and none of it good.

Do not apologise

An extraordinary number of profiles from people our age begin with a small apology. Not very good at this. Not sure what to write. Never thought I would be on one of these.

Everybody reading it is in the same position, so it is not the confession it feels like. Delete it and start with something you like instead. Nobody has ever been put off by somebody who sounded glad to be there.

About the years behind you

Most people here are not starting out. There was a marriage, and it ended, and for many of us it ended with a death rather than a decision. That is the ordinary shape of things at this age, and there is nothing to hide about it.

It does not belong in the profile though. A line is plenty if you want one at all. The full story is for a conversation later on, with somebody who has earned it, not for the first thing a stranger reads. The same goes for the grandchildren. Mentioning them is natural and shows something about you. Three paragraphs about them tells a reader that you would rather talk about anything than yourself.

Keep it short

Two or three modest paragraphs. Enough to be interesting, not so much that there is nothing left to ask.

A useful test: does your profile give somebody at least three obvious questions? If it does, it is working. If a reader has to invent something to say to you, most will not bother.

Then check it and leave it alone

Read it once more for the spelling, because a profile riddled with mistakes reads as carelessness even when it is only haste. Ask somebody who knows you well whether it sounds like you, and take the answer seriously if it is no.

Then put it up. You can change it whenever you like, and most people improve theirs after a few weeks anyway once they see what people actually ask them about. It does not have to be right. It has to be there.

Look who else just joined

Loading members...