Writing a dating profile can feel daunting. There’s no disputing that, even if you only have to write 750 characters about yourself (that’s about average for most of the dating apps these days … very short, I know). It’s still hard to figure out which exact 750 characters to share.

Too often, a client comes to me asking, “How do I write a profile to attract the person I’m looking for?” The quick answer: You don’t.

People often write their profiles to attract a particular type of person, highlighting certain traits, leaving others out and hoping it all adds up to the perfect match. But that strategy can easily backfire. Why? Because you have no idea what the person you’re looking for (or the one you think you’re looking for anyway) is actually looking for!

Let’s take this example: A woman who’s cultured and accomplished wants to attract someone equally sophisticated. (This is a normal occurrence in my line of work.) In her profile, she lists her favorite operas, ballets and museums, hoping that the man reading it will relate and say, “I finally found someone to come to the opera with me!” But the cultured man reading her profile might swipe left, perhaps assuming she wouldn’t be open to a spontaneous weekend road trip … even though she loves those, too! And he may not, in fact, be looking for a clone of himself but rather someone who can teach him new things. By only showing one polished side of herself that she has curated to “attract” a certain type of person, she might be filtering out people she’d genuinely connect with.

Or picture a man who fills his profile with hiking and camping photos because he wants to seem outdoorsy, when in reality, he actually prefers a nice resort and has only slept outside once in his life. When your profile overemphasizes just one slice of who you are, with the sole goal of attracting a certain type of person, you risk instead attracting people who don’t align with your full self, ones you may actually really like.

If your “type” has always been the Ivy League, clean-cut, city-living crowd, who’s to say the ski instructor with multiple piercings from Alaska isn’t your best match?

I have my clients play a game I call “Name Your Five,” where you have to name five words—nouns—you would use to describe yourself, and the combination of those five words clearly describes you and only you. For example, mine might be (no judgment, please!) puns, crossword puzzles, ping pong, bourbon and Broadway musicals. If I named those five things, most people in my life would be able to identify that the combination describes me. What are the five that identify you? Once you know those, writing a profile should become very easy. Can you elaborate on any of those? I might now answer the “My simple pleasures” prompt on Hinge by simply listing:

Sunday matinee musicals, bourbon (neat, please ;)), spontaneous ping pong matches, the Thursday NYT crossword puzzle (love a rebus), and competitive punning

The person this profile will attract is not an arbitrary “type” but rather someone who resonates with the quirky list.

The golden rule of online dating: Be truthful, especially about yourself. Just like you shouldn’t use outdated or overly filtered photos, you also shouldn’t curate your personality to fit what you think someone else wants.

The better approach, of course, is to be yourself. Your profile, photos included, should reflect the real you. Often it’s just those quirks that make your profile memorable and relatable to the exact right people.

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