You’re cinematic razor sharp,
A welcome arrow through the heart,
Under your skin feels like home,
Electric shocks on aching bones,

Give me a chance to hold on,
Give me a chance to hold on,
Give me a chance to hold on,
Just give me something to hold on, to…
- “You’re All I Have”, by Snow Patrol

I told you all about my experiences with eHarmony and Yahoo in the last installment, and now it’s time to share some pearls of wisdom and experiences from some of Gear Diary’s brave readers regarding their own online dating processes. These are folks who have boldly gone through the same basic experience, and good or bad - they have lived to tell about it…

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If you like Piña Coladas
And getting caught in the rain
If you’re not into yoga
If you have half a brain
If you’d like making love at midnight
In the dunes on the Cape
Then I’m the love that you’ve looked for
Write to me and escape.

- “Escape”, by Rupert Holmes

One of the single largest make-or-break components when creating a successful online personal ad is the Profile. This bit of writing is supposed to give the reader, your potential match, enough information about you to create an illusion of knowing you, without telling him or her enough to scare them away. The pictures you post are supposed to complement the profile, while giving an accurate idea of how you look now - not some fuzzy lighted “Glamor Shot”, and definitely not a picture from 20 years ago. It seems like this would be an easy enough task to complete, but you might be surprised at how quickly everything can go wrong based on misuse and misunderstanding of these two little features.

If I had a dime for every profile I have read so far where the guy writing said the last book he’d read was Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code (which, hello - came out in 2003!); where the guy WROTE EVERYTHING IN ALL CAPS BECAUSE HE THOUGHT IT WAS EASIER TO READ (please, stop shouting at me, I am not deaf!); where the guy said he was most thankful for: air, water, food, and land (I mean…seriously?); where the guy published photos that were so small I had to squint, or photos where he was hidden behind a desk, or where he was drinking (urgh), or where he was wearing no shirt; or profiles where the guy said that he would “tell [me]  later“, when quite frankly? If you can’t tell me now there will be no later!; then I would have enough to purchase a really nice meal for all of us on a night out with my girls.

So, as you have probably figured out, this installment is going to cover writing a profile that will make you stand out in a good way, put the essence of “you” out there, and hopefully not cause enough damage that prince or princess charming will hit the “close” button before any contact has occurred.

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All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

- “Eleanor Rigby”, by Paul McCartney

I don’t think that anyone necessarily plans to be alone and lonely; sometimes it just happens. Perhaps it’s because they got caught up in a career race, or they live somewhere with a limited dating pool. Maybe they’ve been dating the wrong person, they’re divorced, or perhaps it’s because they have simply postponed couplehood until nearly everyone they know is paired up, and the ones who aren’t simply don’t look appealing. However it happens, there comes a day when as satisfying as being a singleton may have been, they suddenly realize that they…are lonely.

Now let’s personalize the experience.

So here is how it often happens: you are sitting at home watching the television, alone of course, and a commercial comes on. Smiling, happy, loving couples flounce across the screen, and an announcer starts talking about how you don’t have to be alone anymore. That there is someone out there that is just like you, someone that will “get” you, someone that will understand why somebody as wonderful as you is still single, because that person is still single too - and they are just as wonderful.

The logical part of your brain will kick in at first. “Give me a break, the only people who would ever join an online dating service are losers; people who are socially inept or who are looking for a hook-up.”

But still, those couples taunt you…and you wonder.

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I’ve received several requests recently about doing article on the ins and outs of online dating, and after a bit of thought, I decided to do it. So in order to give as broad a spectrum of how right or how wrong things can go when you are putting yourself “out there”, I’ve decided that I’ll need help…which is where you all come in.

I am collecting firsthand stories from friends and readers about their online dating service experiences, and I would love to hear yours if you have one. If you have a friend who has tried an online dating service, please pass my request on to them.

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