From the Book by Bill Guillory and Phil Davis
When I was in high school, I considered countless activities to be more compelling than attending class. Helping Faye Cotton pluck her unibrow was endlessly fascinating. Imitating my French teacher’s pout until my best friend urinated was highly entertaining.
Another distraction was sitting in the cafeteria crushing oreos cookies, adding them to milk, then drinking it all down through a strawberry Twizzler (ingeneously transformed into a straw).
In my defense, I was a teenager. I’ve intellectually evolved since then.
My point is that, when I nearly failed high school, it came as no surprise. After all, making little to no effort usually results in little to no accomplishment. The same principle applies to online dating profiles.
As someone who scans dating profiles on a regular basis, I see many that have clearly been completed grudgingly. People even write “I don’t like writing about myself” and then they prove their point by barely saying anything other than – “want to know, just ask”.
There are many reasons why people don’t fill out their dating profiles. Some people are too lazy. Still others feel they can get by on their looks.
My concern has to do with the people who half-heartedly fill out their profiles because they lack the confidence to give it their best shot. Unconsciously, the thinking is “if I don’t really try, then I won’t really fail”. Sadly, what this means they don’t really believe they can succeed.
This “if I don’t really try, then it’s not really failing” is a fairly common defense mechanism when you place people of various levels of competency – and various levels confidence in their competencies – into a competitive environment.
Unfortunately, failing – even when you set yourself up for it – hurts your self-esteem. So, basically, you find yourself in a bit of a vicious circle.
Fact is, if you don’t try, there’s a good chance you’ll fail. If you do try, there’s less chance that you’ll fail.
In truth, there’s little harm in trying.
I can’t give you advice on increasing your self-esteem. However, if you read the blogs and check out the online dating samples of my work, I can – and do – give great advice on how to market yourself with confidence.
In addition, you can complete my personality questionnaire and add some of your more interesting answers to your profile to make it more engaging.
The best tip that I can give you though is – hire me to. With 20 years experience in writing ads and marketing, I have the training and expertise to bring out the best in you in the highly competitive environment of online dating. Better yet, I do it by using your words and anecdotes so that the profile sounds like you wrote it (only better!).
