S3E12 Dating Profile Dish

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The Dateable podcast is an insider's look into modern dating that the Huffington post calls one of the top ten podcast about love and sex. On each episode, we'll talk to real daters about. From sex parties to sex droughts, date fails a diaper fetishes and first moves to first loves. I'm your host Yue Xu, former dating coach turned dating sociologists. You also hear from my co host and producer Julie Krafchick as we explored this crazy dateable world.

And i move so i loves. We are excited. You've join us for an older episode. While our earlier seasons were all about dating in san francisco we quickly realize all the themes. Learnings are universal for all daters so we shifted to covering dating from all around the world as the seasons progress. The fun part is things happen. I san francisco the tech epicenter and counterculture capital of the world. We love for you to keep tuning in to our older episodes. But there's no set order to listen in so feel free to jump to more. Recent seasons are relevant at for you. Enjoy the show. The database podcast is hosted by me. I'm you a a former dating coach. In new york turned activator in san francisco on each episode. you'll hear commentary by my co host. Michael vargas fellow dating coach with a clinical psychology background. My producer craft check and other surprise co before this recording. We teamed up with a new lively dating up to do a little online dating profile experiment. Liveliest dating up with videos instead of photos so we wanted to see how your perspective about someone changes from seeing them in photos versus videos. We pick two subjects. Tiffany and david and we headed out on the streets of san francisco to get people to comment on their profiles and we recorded the whole thing. You can find that video on our website. This episode is a continuation of that experiment where we invited a few of the people we met on the street to talk specifically about online dating profiles and the differences they saw with video. Let's just go around and introduce yourself your name and how long you've been online dating floor. I'm edward and i've been online dating for. When did online dinning start allow over a decade ago. Then probably hi. my name is susan. And i've been online dating probably off and on a couple of years now like two. Two plus years named sebastian. I've been online dating for three weeks. New a hi. My name is tiffany. And i would say about on and off a year and a half to two amid. You guys remember myspace. Hi i'm christine. And i think i've been online dating for on and off for years This is julie. i've been online dating since like match. Let's go to the guys. I i wanna hear. I mean i'm sure you've seen thousands of girls profiles. What are some of the things that you see girls profiles you're like why do people do this. So this is up. And so much. Now where i kind of make it into a game but literally the where's waldo picture of. Which one is it even. If it's just two of you sebastian. i've been seeing recently. A lot of manchu peachy. Pictures laws are selling a ton nice. Well yeah i did it. In the last. Two years maybe. Also there's an. There's an animal picture which i don't hate but i don't love like impending tiger holding a tiger. Is this repetitive. I don't hate it but it's just like really repetitive. Why do so many people had pictures of tigers have one. Where's the tiger putting facility in thailand. But maybe my pep is professional shots. I mean i agree with you. Edward the worst thing is when you're like which person is it and to the t. It's always the one that you don't think cute this come out the wrong way but i do think there's a guys obviously but but i look at the girls. I'm trying to meet and you'll see a lot of girls who are in straight up like bikini shots and everything hanging out being like no hoops please. And that's their first photo. And i have the against it. Look if you want to hook up. Whatever that's totally cool but it sends a weird mixed message. I think but at the same time it's sort of like all of us. Dating apps are all about instant sort of you have to decide an instant to i. Wanna swipe bright right left is someone i wanna meet and so well. That doesn't leave much to the imagination. Like if if people who are like. I'm down whatever that's cool but it's like you're looking for something serious but here's a shot. That's hard to take seriously personally as a woman. I like it when there's a guy when there's a guy shot with him. You know in swimming trunks or something. I'll show low skin. Yeah even though. I am not looking for a hookup personally but i appreciate that right for me. I feel like anyone showing off their willing. To show off their body on social media can either be seen as like cocky or sexual or just comfortable with themselves.

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But i guess guys in this room i wanna see. You wouldn't say no to a girl because she has bikini photos women and men can do whatever they want and they want. You should rock whatever you have to me. It's just the weirdness of saying like i'm looking for something serious and then all their shots that have you can't tell if they're actually looking for something serious. You kind of infer things from a static photo like oh they must be like if they have the much loved to travel right or their wine country. They'll have to drink whatever so like. You're inferring something from it. The hardest thing with an only profiles like what was your intent. So let's go around. I want to hear from the guys one more time. What are some photos that you really liked. I mean a variety is important rates. Outside of the usual travel shots. Or you know your professional person for me. Anything with food is kind of a. Oh that's really cool it. What does she or her with food eating food. That's why you like tiffany is. Don't that was very good picture. I think sometimes there's photos that are polarizing interests like is key which is like a special activity that only certain percentage of the population does which either inner out and that could be. I'm looking for a skier. So what i really like is When you see a great photo with someone who is the communicates their personality. I think is gorgeous and when you see a woman who's like well lit photo here is very clear because you get a real sense of who they are just like direct closeness. I appreciate that. But what do all these photos really mean right. What if they don't really ski or snowboard. You find out later. Photoshop like is right. i mean how. How do you really know how can you verify of. All the online dates you've been on. What percentage of people you've met in in real life match up to their photos. I mean. I think i've been lucky. Like most people look like their photos. There's a few instances where there's like more positive angle that people take and we all know what that angle is that the mice space angle right off the. What percentage of people you've met in real life match what you thought they were gonna be based on the ninety nine percent. Well that's really good. Yeah i think so. So fashion fifty percent. I think that i'm someone that wants to meet the person in real life as soon as possible. Because i think that you can get a lot of that out of the way on the first date so maybe i infer too much or maybe i read into the photos but maybe fifty percent for three weeks. Maybe but i want to nine days last week. It's nine percent who they are but maybe fifty percents of who why thought they look like but it is who they are and i probably only been catfish really wants like over. So let's handed over to the girls. let's start with. What do you not like about certain pictures or whatever guys do on their dating profiles I would say. I'm not a big fan of the gym selfie. Cli i wanna know that you do something besides just go to the gym. I get it. Imported get fitness is good. I probably can get that like you can convey that some other way without showing me that you like to take pictures of yourself in the gems. It is so it does. Actually that is very correct. It just looks to do. You gotta have guts to take a picture at the gym right. Never done that. I feel embarrassed to do that exactly. So that says something that you're like. I look so good right now and i'm so buff. I'm going take picture myself. That one and the bathroom self your naked. I mean maybe you're looking for hookups. That probably works for you. So does not my thing. Yeah it feels. I've seen bathroom sell fees like from neck down like i don't see your face. I kind of confused like what kind of face you're making. Do any of the guys in here have one of those photos. Raise your hand. I don't know what you're doing. As he deleting photos right now anything else. you can think of sunglasses. Oh i i mean especially like i know your party with your boys in kabul party but come on like why are you posting that picture anyways and you wanna see there is exactly pretty sure bloodshot red or some young susan so one thing that i used to see a lot of was skydiving pictures which i don't see a lot of anymore. I think it's gone the way of the tiger picture where people were hearing a lot of negative feedback right. So that's been going away but you saw a lot of those. I saw like pretty much. Half of them would have like skydiving. But you can't even see it.

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Serves another one. That i always think is is great. Is the one where they took a picture of car. Just like jesse only a car. It's always but it's always like a sports car and sometimes they're not even in the car so i'm like i'm pretty sure that's not. Yours is making actually immediately. Think that's not your car or know. Sometimes barring a car you rented a car your parking the car. It's not yours. You're so excited about this car overcompensating. Because you're not wealthy you that show exactly. This might be the only asset you have been you live in your car. You love it that much. One of the ones that i have is. There's a lot of guys that don't smile on their photos. Like it's just straight faced. And i think they're trying to come off as like pensive or serious but there's no personality that comes through so i think they have no personality. Did all the studies and talk about what men women like in photos and what guys like in photos and they discovered that if a man smiling he's less likely to get a match versus if he's not smiling and the opposite true for women. I think men have taken that study a little too late so i actually consult on dating profiles. I've looked at over. Like i was counting the other day. Two hundred profiles for people and these are some things. I've seen where i've told people to get rid of so for the girls any pictures with a guy since you say that i mean obviously anytime there is a baby. You're like okay. are they. Not that i have anything against dating single parents or anything. But it's like staff-monitored guys do it. I think to make it seem like they'd be softer any bridesmaids photos. I feel like guys are really against these guys. Really hate rights mates photos. One is fine. But if there's like eight and they're all different than yeah that's maybe seventy seven on the guy side beer pong such a turnoff a beer champ. What that will be my soul native. You have Because apparently beer pong shows that. The guys'll immature maybe a partier not serious about dating. So if that's something that you really like doing your part of a beer pong weakened team okay. It's really important to put that out there. I think so you do attract the type of woman that would like that. I think the story you have to paint has to be like a well rounded story but asked me a story that is believable. I think a lotta pictures where they look the best not necessarily the situation so i think that's the fatal flaw and hive only met fifty percent of the people. I thought i was gonna meet. I think that kinda ties a couple of things dressing about before. Which is i really. Take pictures of myself anytime myself. When i'm traveling and doing something cool and look pretty good. I think one other thing to add to the holy beer peng thing was interesting about photos is in this isn't i guess it's not just beer. Pong it's outdoorsy photo. Whatever you draw conclusions of you see a bear pond. You're like this guy. Does this every friday. But what if they were like celebrating some big occasion or like what if they just went to yosemite once and this isn't like every we just don't yeah you have no background of a photo why think that's ultimate flow of photos in general is that you're able to draw these conclusions really quickly. I mean apps are now going in a direction where they're trying to show people beyond photos so like the new lively app right. It's all videos videos a great way to show creativity like on lively. I've seen guys videos doing crazy flips and stuff. I could get it back to the beer pong so the girl saw the pro. Follow david and it looked. The picture was him in a solo cup. So you think he's playing beer pong or you think he's partying and then you see the video and he really made like a solo cups sculpture. How did how did that. Change your perspective. Let's talk about that I thought that was really interesting. And and very creative right because you're basically taking the typical narrative and you're flipping it on. Its head right by showing that he instead of just playing beer. Pong was doing something artistic. Which was the exact opposite of what you expected. I will to admit in that situation. When i saw the picture. I was questioning. Kind of like do you not have glasses at home. And it looks super friday. That he was just kind of like cheers with his red solo. Cup and i wasn't sure what he was doing with that. So i guess i just shows you that in a picture you really don't get the full picture about someone. Are you have no idea. The context of the picture really look at all the pictures i do. I look to verify the first one if it's a bad first one that's done was a good first one. I have to verify that this is consistently good and figure out the rest.

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So i really think your first photo. An as of very is this whole time. I don't think it was always the best judge of which one is your best photo. You should get someone else to tell you like this your best photo because i have a lot of attractive girlfriends. Who will post. What i think is like the worst was the first one and be like this. That doesn't work like let's a terrible photo unless you're bad looking person. I'm saying the photo is just not good on. My question is should dating profiles. Just have one or two pictures then. Because i feel like if profiles allow you to have more than three. It looks like there's too many choices into it. Opens up too many questions. Like i think three great three or four is a good number. A lot of apps have been changing their strategy to like be more of the whole picture. Because there's something wrong with the swiping culture. Yeah just like how hinder revamped itself and also lively coming out with video profile showing that apps definitely trying to help us connect better with each other instead of just swiping. You know I want to go back to the girls and talk about. What are some of the photos you have seen from guys profiles that you've really liked okay. First comes to mind is with his mom. I yes but. I think it's like do they look like a nice person like are they looking at us. They have a little bit of a smile like they look like someone that would be like fun to get to know. Yeah the photos. i like. The most are clear face photos. I like to see there is. I like to see their face if they're skiing or of their snowboarding. That's awesome. But i want that to be the last photo. I'm looking for kindness and photos. If i can't see his eyes. I can't decipher if he's kind or not girls of the date so you've been online dating. What percentage matched up to who you thought they would be christine's about i would say most of them like all of them have matched up to their phones to be honest I'm on sebastian's boat Fifty percent I can recall my first date on tender. I mean he had the smirking photos. Like look at you in the eyes and everything. But i did all the talking. He barely talked right. He looked like he would talk but he wasn't talking at all on our dates dates plural after four years. I've learned a terrible judge of character through my profile. But i will say mine is probably about ten percent ten percent. It's that ten percent of people you've met in real life matched up to who you thought they would be yes. It has nothing to do with logs. I clearly pick wrong on personality. I've had some doozy's. That's why i think video has prevent some of this cat fishing like on lively. You just can't change that much of yourself in video it's impossible videos it is hard to catfish because you can't exactly like you can photoshop photos. But how do photoshop video. It's just like your whole. It kind of captures you and your essence. So it's really hard unless it's like not your video but that's yet to be able to shop in video actually saw a stat somewhere that people found that social media profiles told them more about someone and their online dating profile which actually that was interesting. People aren't tailoring it as much. They hard for their online dating profiles. What might actually show a more realistic view of you. And like i don't know about you guys snapchat. I feel like you get like the most real view into people because they're just doing random stuff but like their personality comes through a lot. So i think that there is some like benefits of adapting some of that into potentially. Yeah i would say. I'm an avid snapchat twitter. And i find that. I get along or comments about like you know. I didn't know you were so funny. You know or something like that or you know you have it's hilarious. You know hanging out with uber drivers interviewing them and stuff like you know just random stuff that you do you will never take a picture of an or steel shot of like would never capture that any other way but yeah you're right like things like snapchat and those like small just things that you consider completely random clips are sometimes the things that i'm tell the most also like you can't see a personality in a photo right. There's just not possible you can but it may not the right personality. It's it's an to try hard sometimes to convey it. oh. I don't know if anybody's ever gotten this before but a few days i've been the guy who said oh. I didn't know if you could speak english or not. Because they were able to get that from. My photo is so.

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I've had guys who said i didn't know these spoke english or not until i found you online through social media and i saw videos of you speaking. Yeah on that a few times you see a lot of the swiping. Culture apps calibrating towards adding personality snapchat spotify instagram and a matter of what people link. I think the thing that i would look for is. How can i get all this personality from this person in bed at night just swiping through their program without actually having to go to the bar and potentially getting rejected. I think that one thing that would be really great is a live video chat right so let's match with so many and then you can right away like talk to the person right or do you like facetime or something. But that's just not socially tried that yeah and it puts it puts you on the spot. I think that's the issue. I think that that there's a cultural gap with an online dating itself. That needs to be bridge. I feel like go back to social media sites together. Just internet stocking and don't judge me for this me of us have internet stocks. Someone that you met online. I mean every day. Let's be honest. I see i say i do it for safety also. I mean i've done it because i've internet stocks. Someone selling bad. So i always do girls more guys i think girls more. Yeah for sure. I mean it's not really you have so good but i've actually there's this one guy was like on the fence of going out with and then i found a lot of video of him like teaching. Actually so it's like not even sexy at all but i actually could like hear his voice he has like mannerisms. And i ask oh. He's not what. I thought from these photos like actually gave it a chance where i wouldn't have in an environment where he's not trying to impress. You will yeah. I think that's the key and that's kind of what we talked about snapchat and all these other ones. It's not necessarily like in the we talked about with the issue. When it's like a live video that you feel you put on your makeup and do this. Whole thing yeah. I think it's smart for an app like lively to combine in the moment videos with your dating profile. Let's go back to the topic of videos. Because i wanna i wanna focus on tiffany for now. 'cause we just looked at tiffany's profile. We saw her photos and we her. I want to go around the room assegais. How did your perspective on tiffany change from photos to her videos. It was like a thousand percent difference for me and like that video of you dancing. I was like hot nama holy shit just so you know across the board dies and girls who saw the video of you dancing they were like damn i just. I think you get a lot of like you. Put like the donut. One was kind of like what's going on with the donut. And i don't think most girls put pictures of them eating doughnuts on their their. Let's see someone made the point. Some girls may post pictures with food. But they don't eat the food right and i thought it was great what she was doing it in the video. 'cause you're like oh she loves this stuff. Yeah it's totally glow crook or something about can. You wouldn't get from a picture in any way shape or form. So i was a total revelation of khushi actually was rather than just a couple of pictures here and there. The two pictures referencing are one of tiffany dancing and then a video of her actually dancing and then another picture of her holding a donuts and then the video of her actually eating the donut plus a bunch of french fries fries of action. I mean i really took the intangibles from it to someone. Laugh is amazing. Compared to any amount of pictures you'll ever see and see a straight face donate frightening contest was just like the way you handle. That was hilarious and that can never come out in a picture. I want to remind tiffany. The photo says she picked. And i want her thoughts on why she picked these photos. I think it's always good to know why people post the photos. They do on their profile. What about this posed dance photo. The look good. So i hate to break it to you. I hate to break it to you but all the guys we spoke to did not like this photo. Young girls judge. Yeah so the photo is of tiffany outside whereas this pacifying are okay. And you're in this like beautiful outfit and you're doing kinda dancey. Yoga pose. An every guy said why she posing so hard art. Let's turn over to the girls. You guys saw david's photos. How did your perspective about him change from photos to video. I definitely really appreciate it. Having the video i think they gave a lot more context to him. I think there were a lot of things that you could just like. Make judgments on with his photo. Such as like the red cup was mainly like one of them And i think like him holding the scotch to was also like okay.

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He has a lot of like drinking hanging out. Pictures like what's going on for people listening at home. They haven't seen the video. The scotch video is of him holding scotch reading a book in a library. And everyone's like what is this and you play the video. And he's just he's just fooling around. I mean he's not he's just joking and he's holding a book that says she comes first and the selo selo cop is again of him choosing solo cup but then the videos who making a solo cup tower. I think one thing that is hard to convey in photos is a sense of humor right. That's always very very hard to do. You can do it in your written profile but oftentimes some people who are very funny in person might not be as funny in their profile and vice versa. Right i mean this guy obviously had a good sense of humor and he conveyed it through the videos. So susan take the mic still. We're gonna do a little experiment. This is the last thing we're gonna do. Take out your phone booth. Show us your dating profile. And we're all going to comment as a group which one shoes choose wine. You feel most about this. My profile does not commenting on what she wrote a double. Okay so guys. If you saw this as a first photo i usually. I usually just right but the game that i played rafting. Now you got the sunglasses on. It's kind of hard to see what you're doing is fund which is nice but it's a weird angle and looks like we're playing golem also say because the first one was too ill than you still don't know. Oh that's true. Yeah we don't know who you are okay next so this is it. This is a picture of me with a goats and we're taking a selfie together. That looked really cute one. But i would love to see that as a video. I would love to see what the goal is doing. I think he's hilarious. Looking at you in person looking at this photo you are way more attractive in person. And i think the photo whether whether it's the angles not right or whatnot. The for the contents hilarious. The go is amazing by the actual quality of the photos. And you is. It could be better but y'all looks amazing next Wall so you are in the middle but this one makes it clear it all up two girls. There's three of them in this photo. The friends draw attention away from this year. So far to this is the only had one photo of just you. There is technically good joan susan. Why don't you crop this photo. Why don't you crop the girls out. Still look beautiful right prophet next except you had legs. So you're like a side profile photo. You're showing your legs. You have sunglasses on your legs really good housing. So the third photo of her jumping with two friends there in mid air shopping photos. Guys don't like the jumping. I can't tell you it's hard to secondly that guy's my brother lowest jumper out of all your the lowest jumper cliche but then again i understand why people do it. 'cause silly takeaways and you takeaways. So we learned tonight don't show your profile ever multidimensional with what you do and who you're with I think that there's the whole story. I think that's a huge thing. Like i've i personally. We can judge my profile later. But i've always done. What are the best photos. I think of myself not the contacts lake. Sebastian said that people don't necessarily think about the whole thing but people read into it more than you think. Go home and have your closest friend of the opposite sex. Make your profile yes. I'll be doing that tonight. Asked your closest friends to look at your profile and ask them if it portrays you in the way that they know you because they know you the best and sometimes you're so tied to your own profile that you don't know how to change it or make it better all right guys. This is really fun. I think we should do this again. All support group for all of us online dater last but not least one two three. Oh have you ever thought online. Dating profile photos may not be showcasing. The real you. Bdo tells your story better. We like to think the lively app for teaming up with us for this experiment and your action item for this week is to try to express yourself through video upload those videos onto lively and let us know what you think of that to connect with us visit dateable podcasts dot com.

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