Dating profiles for the writing inept

If you’ve scanned any online profiles, you’ve probably been shocked at how poorly written 98% of them are. It seems few people can 1) write a coherent, typo-less sentence, and 2) describe themselves accurately and compellingly.

Enter a new service: ProfileWiz. Their press release describes it as:

“… a new service that produces a 500-word personalized dating profile in less than five minutes. The site poses 22 questions and presents possible answers in the forms of photos. Simply select the photo that answers such queries as “What sparks a conversation with you?” or “If you had an extra hour today, what would you do?”

“When completed, the quiz produces a written profile that illuminates the user’s personality, dating preferences and desires. The profile is fully customizable, as ProfileWiz offers interchangeable sentences to describe key attributes which can be selected or modified by the user to reflect their unique tastes, mood, humor and attitude. Like having your own, personal Cyrano de Bergerac to pen your profile, the site is capable of writing more than 64.1 trillion possible combinations to ensure the profile is both unique and engaging.”

I tried it. The output actually is pretty good. You can customize any part, writing in your own words or clicking through their suggestions for the heading or specific paragraphs. Here’s what the site generated for my first paragraph:

“Neat, Intelligent, Clean, Easy-going girl here… (See what I did there?) I’m also a pretty fun to hang out with and, perhaps you can tell, I don’t take life too seriously. There’s a part of me that’s really calm and peaceful. I really like getting close to nature and exploring in the great outdoors! As for my take on life, I’m a natural organiser and thrive on being busy. I get a real kick out of having lots to do.”

Since I would never call myself a “girl,” I could change that. Nor would I use initial capitals after a comma, or put an explanation point after “outdoors,” but I am a writer and editor.

And it sounds like I’m a granola gal, hiking up muddy hills every weekend. Nope, not me. My heels get stuck in the mud! So I could take out the emphasis on that, and in fact, can retake the assessment to see what it would generate if I chose fewer outdoor photos.

You can export your profile to easily plunk into any dating site.

A nit to pick, which I’ve reported to the developers, is a few of their questions don’t match what is generated. For example, it asks to select an image of a great date, so I selected bumper cars which I think are fun. But the profile translated that to “my idea of a good first date is something a bit light-hearted and wacky.” Actually, my first date ideal is someplace where we can talk and interact, which we couldn’t do on bumper cars. That would be good for a second date, not a first date.

And of course it generalizes since the profile is based on your responses to 22 questions. So when I chose a foreign beach locale as my dream life, the profile said, “My dream life? Simple really — sun, sea, sand. Not a care in the world. Care to join me on my desert island?” Well, my dream life is being a citizen of the world, not only living on a beach.

It’s written in British English, so if you’re in the US, you’ll have to take out extra “u”s and other British spellings. Another nit-pick — for some reason some sentences don’t have a space after the period. Odd.

But generally, I think the text generated is much, much, much better than what most folks post on sites. So if you feel you’re writing impaired, try it, then change the parts that don’t reflect you accurately. You profile will stand out among the dreck!

ProfileWiz is offering the first 1,000 people to visit http://www.profilewiz.com/18001 a free, completely personalized profile.

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Comments

5 responses to “Dating profiles for the writing inept”

  1. SB Avatar
    SB

    Holy cow, that is AWESOME! I don’t consider myself a bad writer (nor would I ever use a word like “sundowners” in my dating profile) but profilewiz really managed to capture some things about me.

    Almost too bad I’m not single!

    I wonder how they figured out that I’m “ambitious” and a “perfectionist” from my picture choices…

    Thanks for sharing, DG!

  2. Katie Avatar
    Katie

    Take quiz. Smile. Read results. Laugh and shake head.

    Extremely accurate in describing personality, even if one needs to alter words and phrases to make it your own. Fun to see oneself described through another’s filter.

  3. Markus @ CarlosXumaProducts.com/ Avatar

    Haha this is just great, what a great program, i wonder why no one have come up whit this before. I am very interested in the dating scene my self, so something like this is very fun, and actually very useful. Thank you so much for the quality review.

    All the best Markus

  4. Richard Avatar
    Richard

    It was very useful. Much more interesting than the stuff I write. However, it kept saying that I like to cook and eat. I guess I need to pick different things.

  5. Harry Baldwin Avatar
    Harry Baldwin

    Most people either can’t write or find writing their profile to be unpleasant. In either case, they produce something that can only be described as junk. Now what does that say to someone who is a potential date? Nothing positive for sure!