The impor­tance of your “About” page

Here you are, ready to write one more “About me” pro­file piece for yet another sin­gles web­site. How would you like to get it right this time, maybe do it rad­i­cally dif­fer­ently and actu­ally get some results?

It’s been said that a rela­tion­ship isn’t about mak­ing you happy, it’s about help­ing you become a more con­scious being by giv­ing you a mir­ror for reflec­tion. So how can you write a descrip­tion of your­self that will ulti­mately attract the per­fect mir­ror for you?

The big dif­fer­ence between your About page on SingleWriter.com and on other web­sites is that your About page here doesn’t have to do all the work. Your writ­ing will also expose your thoughts and feel­ings and express who you are, so your About page can be more of an inti­mate con­ver­sa­tion between you and your read­ers sim­ply flesh­ing out some of the details.

But do treat it like a work of art. Dress it up for that first date, put your best face on it, be proud of who you are but do be hon­est. Show gen­uine plea­sure in being with your read­ers, and extend them the cour­tesy of show­ing real inter­est in who they are too.

You’re a poet? Put some verse into your About page. You write short sto­ries? Tell about places you’ve been as if you’ve actu­ally been there and came home with emotionally-charged mem­o­ries; imag­ine if you’d taken along your dream part­ner; paint a pic­ture of your first meet­ing; describe peo­ple, places, things, activ­i­ties, pets, what­ever as if they are there in the room with you, interacting…

Which would you rather read:

Hi, my name is Jack, I love my mother, my dog, sail­ing, snor­kel­ing, cross coun­try ski­ing, and tak­ing long walks on the beach. Let’s meet over a glass of wine and talk about what­ever comes to mind. I’m a tax accoun­tant and like to travel from May to Octo­ber. I’m easy-going and love to laugh.

Yawn…or…

Have you ever had a glass of Menage a Trois while strolling on the bril­liant white sands of a beach on Ko Phi Phi Lee island? We would get there by sail­boat and return to Thai­land at sun­set. I was able to do this last Sep­tem­ber and it was fan­tas­tic! The snor­kel­ing was incred­i­ble as well!

I had to leave my best friend Tess (my bor­der col­lie) home with my mum, and I missed them both dearly, but I made it up to them by tak­ing them along on my cross coun­try ski­ing adven­ture once the snow fell last win­ter. Mum fell down a lot but she’s such a good sport, I think I inher­ited her sense of humor!

I take my jour­nal along and write obses­sively every­where I go, my jour­neys are my muse for the poetry, essays, short sto­ries that come to life in front of the fire over the win­ter months. Care for some mulled wine or spiced hot cider?

My life may seem glam­orous and adven­tur­ous but, like Super­man, I dis­guise myself by day in more con­ven­tional attire as a tax accoun­tant (but I don’t change in phone booths) and work my tail off dur­ing tax sea­son, then it’s time for fun again. It would be such a plea­sure to share all this with a comely lass such as yourself.

See the dif­fer­ence? For those of you that like to have things spelled out clearly, what the sec­ond exam­ple shows (besides imag­i­na­tion and cre­ativ­ity) is how to:

Por­tray your­self in 3-D – a real per­son with real inter­ests;
Be pre­cise, use spe­cific exam­ples;
Present your­self in a pos­i­tive way with hon­esty and humil­ity;
Be unique;
Include your reader in your story – aren’t we all look­ing for that “dream part­ner”? Why not give that dream a jump start?
Be present – revisit and update your About page often.

Be coura­geous — “You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.” –Christo­pher Columbus

Tags: about, blogs, personal

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