Dating through personal ads is a growing avenue for dating methods, but it can still be a reliable way to meet someone cool and interesting. However, because people don’t take the time to think about what they’re filling out, the societal skill at filling them out has decreased. Here are a few tips for you if you think personal ads are right for you. Hopefully these hints can help you write that ad that will catch every guy or girl’s attention when they’re glancing through the sea of unimpressive dimwits.

Writing your own dating profile can be tough (whether this is for an online dating site, Gumtree, Craigslist, sex personals, or in a newspaper). You know yourself too well, so any good or bad things that you say about yourself will immediately be biased. Knowing that everyone knows this, you need to write something that’ll really get the world’s attention.

Step 1– First off, you should write your dating profile as if it were your professional resume in the field of love, and the person reading it is a prospective employer:

Step 2– Ask people close to you about how they view your personality, and tell them to be brutally honest. They know you very well without having the bias of actually being you, so they can give a good, honest answer that is close to the truth. Now that you have this information, you can get down to the business of incorporating the good things into a personal ad. Knowing your weaknesses as perceived by other people is important, too, so that you know your negative traits when entering a relationship.

Step 3– Don’t incorporate the bad things into your ad, just know that they’re things you need to work on. Also, don’t put in things that you found out aren’t actually your good traits.

Step 4– If necessary, just compare your ad to a marketing ad. When you see one, it’s selling you on a product or service. Do the same! Make yourself look appealing.

Step 5– Who are you? Let the world know who you honestly are. This isn’t about coming off as the best looking guy, because people are looking for similar interests and compatibility more than anything. That’s why you need to be honest about who you are. If you aren’t, it will be found out eventually, and you’ll just be wasting everyone’s time. Do you love rock ‘n roll and cold beer? I’m sure there is someone else out there who loves that, too. Football and hiking? Odds are you have a match.

Step 6– What is it that you’re looking for? This comes back to the “who are you?” part. Be honest, and you’ll get honesty in return. If you’re into water skiing and skydiving, that’s great. But if you aren’t, don’t say that you are just to get someone who does.

Step 7– Where are you willing to go? If you can afford to travel and are willing to do the trip, that’s fantastic. But you’re going to have a lot of options, and it’ll be hard to narrow it down. If you don’t want to travel too far from your home, let people know your desired commute.

Step 8– When can you meet up? Eventually, you’ll find someone who wants to go on a date in person. So get ready for the dating process to start, and let them know what your schedule is like. You don’t want to get someone’s hopes up for having met their match, just for them to never meet them. When you fill out your ad, you have to be prepared to meet people. Otherwise, what are you doing on a dating site?

Step 9– People may want to know why you’re using ad dating services. So, why is it? Most of the time, the answer is because it opens up your field of options. Some people may be curious if it’s because you can’t meet people in the real world. While it should be none of their concern, you may still get asked the question and should probably answer it truthfully. If it’s because you’re too busy to go out, let them know, because that could be important. In this case, as it is in most, lying never helps the situation.

So now that you know some basics, go ahead and write your ad. It’s an important first step, but it’s not the end of the world if you don’t get as many bites as you would like. Have someone read over it first, and remember to be honest about who you are, what you want, and any other specifics that might pop up. It might feel strange at first, but plenty of people use dating services and wind up with their ideal someone.