Online dating
Writing your profile
Most profiles fail on the same three sentences. Fixing them takes twenty minutes and does more than any amount of swiping.
You have between one and two hundred words and someone's attention for about eight seconds. The job is not to describe yourself completely — it is to give one person a reason to write to you.
The one rule that matters
Specific beats impressive. Every time, without exception.
“I enjoy travel, good food and nights in or out” describes forty million people. “I spent last spring driving round Northumberland arguing about podcasts” describes you, and it hands someone an obvious opening line.
That is the whole technique. The rest of this page is applications of it.
A structure that works
- An opening line with some personality. Not a greeting. Something slightly odd about your week.
- Two sentences on how you actually spend your time. Concrete, not categories.
- One thing you are bad at or find funny about yourself. This does more work than any strength.
- What you are hoping to find, in one plain sentence.
- A closing line that invites a specific question. Not “message me”.
Examples that are not generic
Adapt rather than copy — a borrowed bio reads like a borrowed bio. These are the shape, not the content.
For a woman in her fifties
Currently losing an argument with a rose bush that has strong opinions about where it wants to grow. I teach three days a week, walk a great deal, and I am the person who books the holiday eleven months early and then changes it twice.
Two grown-up children, one very badly behaved spaniel.
I would like to meet someone to do ordinary things with — walks, cooking something ambitious on a Sunday, the occasional weekend somewhere. Ask me about the spaniel. I have material.
For a man in his forties
I am the sort of person who reads the entire manual and then assembles the shelf wrong anyway.
I work in logistics, which is less dull than it sounds and exactly as dull as it sounds depending on the week. Weekends are usually cycling, cooking, or being outvoted on what to watch by two teenagers.
Looking for someone to share the unremarkable parts of the week with, not just the highlights. Ask me about the shelf.
Notice what neither of them does: no adjectives about their own character, no list of requirements, no apology for being there.
The three things that lose people
- A list of what you do not want. No timewasters, no game-players, no drama. It reads as difficult before anyone has said hello, and everyone at this age has been hurt by someone.
- Anything about an ex. In any form, at any length, including jokes.
- Apologising for being there. “I can't believe I'm doing this” appears on an enormous number of profiles and puts the reader in the position of reassuring you before you have met.
The headline
Where a platform asks for one, treat it as the opening line rather than a slogan. Something concrete works: Enthusiastic but unreliable gardener. Something aspirational does not: Living life to the full, which appears on a remarkable number of profiles and means nothing.
Length
A hundred to two hundred words. Shorter reads as low effort; longer does not get read. Two short paragraphs and a closing line is about right.
The step almost nobody takes
Ask a friend to read it before you publish. Preferably one who would tell you the truth.
They will spot in thirty seconds what you cannot see at all: that you sound apologetic, that the joke does not land, or that you have written three sentences about work and none about anything else.
If you are over fifty specifically, there are a few things that differ — mainly around photographs and how much history to include. Covered in writing a profile after fifty.
Common questions
What should I write in a dating profile?
One specific detail beats five general ones. Two sentences on how you actually spend your time, one thing you are bad at, what you are hoping to find, and a closing line that invites a particular question.
How long should a dating profile bio be?
A hundred to two hundred words. Shorter reads as low effort, longer does not get read.
What should I not put in my profile?
A list of what you do not want, anything about an ex, and any version of apologising for being there. All three appear constantly and all three cost you messages.
Related guides
Last updated: July 2026