Filtering do’s and don’ts - know what you want, when you want to filter, and when to leave your options open
The prettier your picture, the more replies you’ll get.
Whether you like it or not, that is a fact of reality with online dating.
If your goal is to win a popularity contest, that’s great. If you want to have a one night stand, that’s also fine. If your goal is to find a someone worthy of your affection, however, too much junk mail can be a problem and a distraction.
As I know how to take a good picture, I get quite a few replies, and so filtering is a must.
Defining your dream woman or a dream man
It really helps if you have an exact idea of who your ideal mate might be. In reality, most people cannot pin-point their preferences to such a degree. The more you know about whom you seek, the easier it is to filter out whose who won’t match you.
For the sake of an example, here’s my ideal mate preferences list (feel free to write me if you qualify :)):
- Intelligence - extremely high, commonly considered a genius by other people. I am a genius, so why should I settle for less?
- Height - irrelevant, but 5′9+ is ideal. As I am 5′11, it is easier to be with someone who is taller than average.
- Weight - fits in size 0-2. If I wanted to, I can fit into that.
- Face shape - oval. Just a result of my observations of who attracts me the most visually. If I don’t like her face, chances are we won’t last.
- Eye color - irrelevant, but I have a special preference for green.
- Smoking - No tobacco smoking, other substances are OK. In reality, most people who match my other requirements, especially on intelligence, generally realize what a waste smoking is.
- Drinking - Social drinking OK, no drinking OK, alcoholism is not OK. I don’t drink or drink maybe one drink in a night as it’s simply pointless for me personally.
- Dancing - Should know how to dance or be willing to learn. To me this is quite important because when I go out, I am one of those crazy people in the showoff circle, on stage, or even in a cage.
- Outgoing - She should love entertaining the crowd. Goes with the above. I crave attention. She should be ready to climb up on stage in front of hundreds of people.
- Business skills - Now we are starting to get really specific. My experience indicates that girls with interest in business understand me better than anyone else.
Maximum response
If you don’t know what you want and simply want to sample the crowd, keep your profile simple. This profile will be from an attractive female’s perspective.
Headline - “Centerfold hottie looking for fun”<- guaranteed lots of looks
Opening statement - “I have a portfolio on ModelMayhem as ID#XXXXX” <- establishes credibility. While some sites might frown at this, you are not providing contact information and they won’t filter for it.
Body of the profile - “Now that you’ve confirmed that I am in fact a centerfold hottie, let’s look at what it will take to meet me.
My interests include dancing, skating, modeling, listening to music, watching sports, and others.
I am looking for someone who is smart, sexy, confident, outgoing, and has realistic chances of approaching someone like me on the street without expecting a rejection.”
Closing statement - “That was easy! Now, the hard part. Do you have the confidence to write to me? I’ll be waiting, and good luck…”
Hard filters or soft filters?
Some sites will have a way for you to define some filters.
I recommend leaving all your options open if you want the widest selection. A profile like that, if it’s backed up with appropriate pictures, will result in a ton of mail.
What if you want to be more selective, however?
There are two types of filters:
Hard filter - you can define preferences using the site’s interface for distance, gender, smoking, drinking, ethnicity, and so forth… Those who get caught by a hard filter can’t reach you in any way.
Soft filter - you can write anything you want in your profile itself. Nothing precludes people from contacting you, but if done right it will make them realize that it would be pointless to do so.
I recommend using as few hard filtering options as possible. I usually just define smoking. While it may be tempting to set distance options, it’s not the best idea. It’s easy enough to relocate within this country to make it irrelevant.
With the soft filters, we can get very creative. For example, I use my TV channels as a form of filtering. After all, I don’t want someone who hates racing, for example. Therefore, I’d mention something like “The Speed channel is on my TV screen quite often.” While I am making a positive or neutral statement, it also has a filtering effect by making the reader who doesn’t share my passion for racing click away from my profile.
It’s important to use as few negatives as possible. Your objective is to make yourself less appealing to the reader whom you don’t want by describing your interests more completely. We don’t want to say “Don’t contact me if you are ………….”. A personal profile is a marketing document. There is no room in any marketing document for negative statements. You should re-spin them into positives about yourself. There is always a way to say something about yourself that will filter out people whom you don’t want.
For instance, if you want someone who loves the outdoors, you’d probably mention “I’ve hiked up Mt. Diablo 7 times over the last few months.” That is no easy feat, and should scare off couch potatoes who won’t be comfortable with having to go on such a hike.
If you want someone who appreciates the arts, you’d probably mention “I really enjoyed Legally Blonde: The Musical at Orpheum in San Francisco and try to see most of the locally playing Broadway shows”. The effect of this statement would be that a person who does not share this interest would be less likely to contact you.
Let’s take our hypothetical hottie and figure out how to get rid of all the dumb and ugly guys for her without making it obvious.
“I would really love it that when you respond you would please include a link to your photo portfolio”. Smart guys can figure it out pretty quickly that a portfolio can be anything from a facebook album, to a myspace profile, to a flickr page, or even to something like a MM or OMP portfolio. Others, well, she doesn’t want to talk to them. 
In conclusion, when used effectively, filtering statements will greatly improve the quality of your responses. For best results, don’t use negative statement and use site-based filtering as little as possible.
Personal experience
I used a number of filters in my profile. As I am only looking for girls who are quite wild, I have to make it known. For example, I mention the fact that I have an active profile on an adult dating website. I can’t think of any better filter to scare off most of my readers. If that’s not enough, I can mention Playboy channel as one of my favorites. Does that make me a sex fiend? No. I simply want to avoid any awkwardness and lifestyle incompatibilities.
This approach works great. Every girl who responded to my ad with such statements was quite wild. Did I get lots of responses? No. But the responses I did get were all very interesting. One girl actually called my unlisted phone number, as I suggested in my profile. We met the same night and had a lot of fun for the next few weeks.
