How to make myself appealing on a dating site?

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So, after many years of not trying, I’m trying it again.

Things that I have going for me:
6-figure job
Master’s degree
own a house
own a car
6’2”
Hike a lot (basically every weekend, usually on both days, and during the week if the weather is nice)

Neutral:
Not overweight, but close (not where I’d like to be, but I’m reasonably fit; all the free food at work doesn’t help)
Most of my strength is in my legs, which doesn’t really show in pictures. I just can’t seem to build upper-body strength very easily. My dad (who did century bike rides every year for many years) and was way more fit than me, also had the same problem, so I think that it’s genetic.

Negative:
My only other real hobbies are things like games and anime, things which I have read are turn-offs for women.
While I’m hardly ugly, I don’t look that great
I’m not religious but live in an ultra-religious area (around 90%)
I’m 37 (which is an old man for the area. Median age is 23, so it’s a bunch of mormon college kids who wouldn’t date a non-mormon 37 year old, and I wouldn’t want to date them, either)
Very few singles (only about 15% of 30-35yo people are still single here, according to city-data)
Lack of pictures: While I do hike, since I end up going alone all the time due to a lack of friends, I don’t exactly have good pictures of me doing it. Selfies suck, and landscapes (without a person in them) doesn’t help at all
Don’t/can’t drink - Of the profiles that I’ve looked at so far, people around here who are both not LDS and also don’t drink are extremely rare, and they expect you to drink, too. My brother was an alcoholic and it ruins my sleep and gives me bad week-long headaches/blurred thinking, so I need to stay away from it.
My job/degree is in tech, which I’ve l’ve also heard is a detractor

Subjective:
I’ve also read that talking about work or anything about your financial status (ahem, house/car/job) is a negitive, as well.
I’m also not really sure how to inject my profoile with personality.

Other:
I’m going to move soon, but the age/religion/singles thing is *slightly* better in the city that’s an hour north. This makes online dating workable, but meeting anyone in person is unlikely (small % of people my age, 90% of a religion that doesn’t date outside of their religion, and 85% of those aren’t single)

Ok, I’m probably just worrying too much about where I am, but I need to find a way to make myself sound special, even though I don’t know what makes me special in any way.
Looking at the profiles of the women on the site, it looks like they mostly rely on pictures, with only really generic profile information. Given the uh... “friends who could take pictures of you” thing, I don’t have a lot of pictures. I have some not-bad-looking ones from a portrait studio, and some, uh, not-so-great-looking ones my parents took of me during visits that I’m not sure I want to post, and that’s about it.

This is on match.com, which may not be the best site.

All I can say honestly, is just be yourself. Stop going off of statistics and wherever you read that video games are a turn off for women. There are plenty of women, including myself, who are major nerds for video games.

Try to attract people who love you for you and not some "perfect" man that people seem to believe it's the only way to get a woman. I'm pretty sure you'll find someone who you can relate with and have a meaningful and loving relationship with. Attracting a girl who is only interested in that "ideal perfect" man is just going to make you more insecure about yourself and ruin the relationship in the long run.

And yes, many women and people in general like to see the face of the person they are looking to get into a relationship with so they don't feel like they are going to be "catfished". Stop worrying about what you look like. Just use whatever picture you think looks good enough, don't ponder on looking "amazing".

I do have the pictures from the portrait studio on my profile, so it’s not like they can’t see what I look like. It’s just that being a portrait studio, there’s no real personality in them (even if I do look OK in them). I don’t look as good in the family pictures, and only have a couple that are even from this year. I’m worried if I posted something from 3 years, 5, or even further back that doesn’t look great to begin with.

As for stats, I dunno. I guess that I just want to quantify everything with numbers (math/computer science guy. It feels like I ever deal with it numbers)

As for the “be yourself” thing... that’s what I’m trying to figure out. “Myself” is just a guy who goes to work, likes to take a walk after if isn’t too dark/cold, and doesn’t have a lot of energy otherwise and games are a decent outlet for that.


I guess one positive sign is even though I haven’t gotten any responses yet, I’m getting more profile views than profiles that I’ve looked it. I guess.

Though a big question is:
It seems like well over half of 30s single women on the site already have kids (not surprising, since the local culture encourages getting married at 20 and having as many as possible), and I’d feel extremely weird trying to raise kids that aren’t my own. Like, how would I get around that?
At least with the religion/drinking thing, I’m OK with them doing whatever they want, so long as they don’t need me to be into it.

Look for those who don't have kids and are not interested in having any. Not everyone is going around popping out babies the first chance they get. I for one do not want to have kids. Don't try to put yourself in a situation that isn't going to work out for you.

Do a hike when and where there are a lot of other hikers and and people to take your picture on the trail.

Men typically approach women and not the other way around. Logically you shouldn't be wasting your time trying to get a really attractive profile. Instead I'd suggest figuring out how to use the searches to locate compatible matches. Match.com does feature a text search, so you can actually search for words like "geek" and "nerd" if that is what you want.

Can you let my younger self know this? I wasted so much time trying to be like "everyone else". It's rather ironic I changed my profile to fit what I thought women wanted and my interest dropped from little to zero. Be the best version of yourself but BE YOURSELF!!

As I have shared on here before, I was actually not a "match" with my wife. We were too far apart in age (according to my parameters), she shared none of my interests and there was nothing special that stood out about her (well, except the physical ). We have only been together a few years but it is hard to believe spend my 20s not even knowing her. I almost blew it because I changed my profile in a way that might have not attracted her had she not seen me on another non-dating site.

I can't speak for anyone else but as a heterosexual I am attracted to women because they are NOT men and don't generally share men's interests. I also do not share my wife's religion in any way and this has never been an issue at all. Even her church leaders told us that while they don't generally support inter-faith marriages this one is a 'no brainer'. Remember to throw the statistics out the window: it doesn't matter if there are 100 or 1 million women out there, you are only looking for one.

Unfortunately, not in the Bible Belt. Most of the women here want to be "traditional" due to social programming and refuse to fight against gender expectations. This is partly why I haven't been able to get a date, both in real life and on dating sites.



I saw that a lot when I tried dating sites back in my early 20's so it's an universal thing. That's partly why I swore it off as well. I don't have the money or resources to take of children and I don't want a jealous ex-boyfriend to cause tension.

....I honesty have no comment to either response... So I'm pretty much done here. Best of luck to anyone who is having trouble with this dilemma.

I am going to PM you....

There's an important category of information you're leaving out. You talk about what financial stability and leisure activities you can provide, but you don't mention the emotional services you can provide, and that's the most important thing. Even if you think you're not very good at emotional services, I bet if you consider it you can identify some strengths. A few attractive ones that aspies tend to be good at are honesty, loyalty, and acceptance. A more advanced one that some aspies are good at is personal change - after so much practice learning how to adapt to general society, you develop the skills to adapt to a partner's needs in a relationship.

There are a lot of techies out there with decent incomes who like hiking and computer games, so saying you're in that large group doesn't narrow things down much for a woman considering you as a prospective partner. What's harder for a woman to find is someone who provides the specific set of emotional services she needs, and whose deficiencies as a relationship partner are compatible with what she's able to put up with. This is why it doesn't work to just say what you think a generic woman would want to hear on your profile. You need to explore the specific emotional services YOU can provide a partner and focus on those.

In the longer term, you can also identify other emotional services you're not so great at but can improve in. A great example is how to demonstrate love to a partner. This is something a lot of aspies are bad at out of the box but can learn how to do. It's just like learning new skills to improve your resume. You can read up on things like the five love languages and practice scheduling displays of affection, maybe even putting them on your calendar as reminders. Then once you have developed these skills you can highlight them on your profile too.

^ “Emotional services” .... honestly what are you even talking about?
Are guys supposed to say something like “I would hug you and love you a lot” in a dating profile?

Give a concrete example.

Screw statistics.

Additionally, you will receive all required emotional services for no extra cost! Get your Sabreclaw today!

There are pros and cons to your situation. The obvious one being that 90% of the area is religious so that means that your pool is severely diminished. The pro is that it's the same for the women that you're looking for. I would be confident that there are a bunch of atheist women in the area that filter their search by "no religion" or whatever term match uses.

There are tactful ways to imply that you have a good job and offer stability and security. Something simple like "I'm quite driven in my career and now that I've finished my studies, I'm in a position to focus on things that I enjoy". Women can read between the lines...