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The Modesty Pitfall

Most of us have been trained to be very modest. When it comes to saying something good about our selves we feel very queasy about blowing our own trumpet. Right, no body is asking you to do any trumpet blowing but facts have to be stated as facts.

If you are a music lover and have a good voice too, I can’t see why you can’t put it down like that itself. Why can’t you declare simply without sounding very proud that you have good voice? A pointer that you could bear in mind would be to add something like, “My friends think that I sing rather well.”

There now, you can’t feel too bad about something as simple as that. It is as good as saying “some people think that I sing well, but it is for you to decide whether I have a good voice or not.” Similar statements that you can work on and even add are given below.

“Lots of people appreciate my cooking.”
“I am no Rembrandt, but I enjoy painting.”
“I like decorating, and many of my friends think that my tastes are not too bad.”
So go ahead, if you really have a talent, you might as well as let others know about it, after all a talented person would any way like to be appreciated by a partner.

While we are talking about modesty, there is one question that I want to address right now. It is something that all of us are familiar with. If you have chatted with a stranger with whom you are trying to build a rapport you must have been confronted with the question before. The question is “what do you look like?’

I have often wondered about the sense of this question. The best answers that I could come up with are “I look like a cross between an orangutan and a Tasmanian devil” or “I have my mothers teeth, my fathers nose, my uncle’s eyes and my roommates’ shoes.”

But of course we cannot give such answers which funny though they might sound, might just rub the person in the wrong way. What the person actually means is, “are you good looking or not?”

A very tricky question indeed! How can you answer such a question with out sounding either super modest or extremely vain? The answer to that is not to tell them the answer directly. You can say something like:
“I am as fresh as peppermint.”
“I look like a bunch of fresh lilies.”
“I have the appeal of a bowl of fresh fruit.”
If the person still does not take the hint, then give them a detailed description of ever inch and let he or she decide for himself or herself.

The Braggart Pitfall

Bragging, as we all know, is a major turnoff. So it is best to steer completely clear of it. This is especially true in the case of physical attributes. You might be one hell of a looker, but let the other person decide, remember that what wine is for Peter can turn of to be venom for Paul.

You can make implied statements like, “I am certainly not a bad looker,” or “opinion is divided, some people think that I am good looking while others think that I am not.” But perhaps the best way of describing yourself would be to add a touch of humor to it.

If you are chubby you could say something like, “I am round in all the right places…I hope.” If you are tall you could say something like, “some say I should play basketball.” If you are on the short side you could say something like, “I might seem to lacking in size but I assure you, it is all there.”

You know what is the best part about such witty remarks about oneself? Humor always works. All of us have been blessed with a sense of humor to some degree at least and if a person is able to make funny comments about himself or herself, that always acts as a turn on. And you can take my word for it; humor sells like a billion dollars.

The Hackneyed Pitfall

We have seen and heard other people describe themselves and these kind of descriptions sort of sink into our heads. The moment some one asks us to describe ourselves, we start off by using such hackneyed phrases.

I think it is much better to completely steer clear of hackneyed phrases. It makes us look like just another face in the crowd. Tell me, unless you have an identical twin, have you ever seen any one who looks exactly like you?

Then why on earth should your description of yourself sound like a banal organ that has been played again and again. Try to sound as original as you can. Make yourself sound interesting.

Try to use as many similes and comparisons as possible. If you are blonde, well don’t just say that you are blonde. You could descriptions like, My hair is the color of freshly harvested hay.”

If you are a brunette you could say something like “My hair color would make a raven blush.” If you have red hair, you could try something like, “My hair is like the setting sun.”

Another point that I would like to add is you do not have to belittle yourself. Every coin has two sides and it all depends on the way you look at it. For example, if you have dark skin, there is absolutely no reason to feel bad about it. It all depends on how you put it across. You could try expressions like, “If you like chocolate then you are going to love the color of my skin.” Or “My body looks like polished wood.”

Remember, beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, and it is left to you to convince the beholder. Most people are willing to believe what you tell them, provided you tell them convincingly enough.

The Boredom Pitfall

Try to make yourself sound as interesting as possible. I mean it. If you are painting a self portrait you might as well use the right colors. Before we leave our homes what do we do? We all spend at least five minutes in front of our mirrors in an attempt to make our selves look as presentable and as impressive as possible.

Well, the same thing applies to our profile. Remove all drab details about yourself that might be of no interest to the reader. If you job is something like editing journals on the etymology of words derived from ancient Aramaic, well, just say that you have an editing job.

Similarly try to bear in mind that anything can be put down in two ways. You can either make it interesting or boring; so work on it until you are sure that it will not bore a reader to death and the best test for this would be to hand it over to a close friend and ask that friend’s opinion. Nobody likes a bore so take all efforts not to sound like one.

The Vagueness Pitfall

At the same time what ever you put down about yourself must not be confusing. It just does not work to put down a statement like, “while I am not really given to sports, nor am I considered to be an outdoor person, I have developed a passing interest in watching football, and have had my stints with Terra firma.”

Phew! If, anything drives people away, statements like this certainly do. For Heaven’s sake avoid phrases like “I am different,” especially when you are talking about your appearance. The other person will in all likelihood conjure up images of a three horned monster or a lion tailed monkey.

Another example is when you use phrases like, “I don’t play by the rules,” or “I am game for something new.” These expressions can be hopelessly misleading and it is the easiest thing in the world to add a sexual innuendo to such an expression and that would be a sure shot method of biting off more than you can chew.

Now that we have discussed the major pitfalls, let us go the real profile. The reason I said real profile is that the profile must indeed reflect the person you are.

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