About a month ago, I decided to focus-group different dating profiles. I work in advertising and this is what we do when we want to test the efficacy of a campaign, so I figured, why not try to do the same in my dating life? Following a litany of exceptionally bad dating experiences, from the flaky, to the fu*kboys, I was fed up and couldn’t help but wonder if part of it had to do with something about my profile.
I’m on five different sites (research purposes, of course), so it seemed easy to make a change to a single one of them, keep the others as they’ve been all along, and see what —if anything—happened as a result. I evaluated the sites in question and decided that of all the options, Bumble was the best place to experiment. Since the guys on Bumble are presumably into women who are a bit more direct (the premise of the site is that the woman needs to make the first move), they seemed as good a bunch to explore as any.
The big change I made to my profile was adding in two lines of copy: I’m an alpha looking for her alpha plus but no dicks or dick pics, please. I also wrote a final line requesting that tall (ish) men only need apply.
Just seeing it there in writing, it doesn’t seem like that extreme of a move. But, the words I chose were very intentional, selected to deliver a specific message. I wanted to make sure I projected a few key components in my simple change. Let’s break it down.
1. I’m an alpha looking for her alpha plus. I’m an assertive woman looking for an assertive man who enjoys the company of assertive women. I like men who are driven, ambitious and know their worth. But men like this often prefer the company of…softer women. So after months of dating men with whom it is clear that I am far too aggressive and not sycophantic enough, I wanted to see what would happen if I laid out what I wanted and who I would attract as a result.
2. But no dicks or dick pics, please. Some people might read my profile and assume there was some mildly kinky underlying component to it. The lighter version of the standard BDSM, GGG, insert acronym of choice here. It’s not. By a long stretch. But knowing that there might be some mild confusion, I added in the caveat of no dicks or dick pics, just to keep it real PG. Hopefully.
3. Tall men only. I know this is kind of obnoxious. But I’m 5’7 and I like my men tall. I like wearing heels. And I like needing to stand on my tiptoes to kiss a guy. So when I kept rolling up to these dates with these very handsome but very short men, I felt like I needed to be straight up about my aversion to the vertically challenged. Shorter men, you’re great. I’ve dated many of you. But at the end of the day, I like what I like. Sorry.
So how’s it working?
Well, I can’t help but wonder if people actually read the words on a site like bumble. For the most part on swipe sites, I imagine that the make or break decision to swipe right or left is 90% contingent on physical attraction. MAYBE, if someone is on the fence about a swipe, they’ll read the words. But I assumed only about 50% of my audience would be reading my new and improved copy. What I’ve noticed is that so far, I’m matching with about the same amount of people as I was before I made these changes so It’s not like I immediately became either significantly hotter because I was blunt or, a social pariah. Check.
I have however been on a number of dates since I made these tweaks and I have to say, the quality of my interactions so far has been far more positive. On said dates, my profile does inevitably arise as a topic of conversation and it’s been a great opportunity for me to be upfront about what I’m looking for. I’m also finding that guys who are drawn to a profile like mine are probably more along the lines of the type of guys I want to be dating anyway. So it’s a win-win.
Whether these changes are truly the basis of my recent spate of better dating luck, it’s the universe saying ‘you’ve been through enough’ or just my attitude about it all has changed, I’ll likely never know. But so far, I’m feeling good about the new Bumble ‘Me’.
Stay tuned…