Chapter 16: Writing a Member Profile

 

    During your first two weeks at a meeting service, you’ll receive more attention than at any other time. This will occur for several reasons. First, you’ve just arrived so you’re clearly available. Older members may have already found a match and they’re simply waiting for their subscriptions to expire. But you could still be someone’s dream come true!

    Second, some of the services offer a feature that will accentuate your initial attention. Their existing members have filed a request form, describing the sort of person they’re looking for. When a newbie arrives who meets that criteria, the computer will send them an email notification: “Hey, check out the new kid on the block!”

    Third, most of the services offer a two-week free trial membership, so if someone sees a new profile they must assume you’ll only be there for two weeks, and then you’ll be gone. They must write to you promptly or risk losing the opportunity forever. And fourth, in a similar vein: a lot of good old fashioned competition is out there. How flattering to a lonely heart, to suddenly be the center of such hopeful attention.

    For these reasons and possibly some others, it makes sense for you to sign on from ‘day one’ with your ducks in a row, to make the most of this opportunity.

    The key to your preparation is your member profile. A ‘profile’ is a scripted autobiography to introduce you to the other members. It’s based on multiple-choice questions, essay questions and optional photographs. Let’s begin with the multiple-choice, since they are essential to everyone’s success:

    This section will open with the questions that describe you physically (What color are your eyes? What color is your hair? How tall are you? etc.). But they will also ask about your preferences, pastimes and abilities. None of this information is very deep, yet it paints a basic picture of you. (A sample questionnaire is included at the back of the book for your convenience.)

    Computer programs can process multiple-choice answers easily, which allows them to help you in your search. You need only click on the ‘Search’ icon, select the traits you are interested in finding in a potential match, and then click on the ‘Go’ button. And – you’re off! At your command it will comb through thousands of profiles to find every member who meets your specified criteria, and report back to you with the results—all in a matter of seconds.

    Meanwhile, all of the other members will be doing the same according to their ideals, and your multiple-choice answers will provide them with the clues for finding you. So, not only can you find a person who really interests you, but you may find a variety of such candidates to choose from!

    Now ask yourself a basic question at this point: Has it ever been this easy at work, at church, at school, or in the neighborhood? Questionnaires can be long, but answering them is an investment of your time!

    As long as we’re on the subject, let’s mention that some of the meeting services have another way of finding matches. You can ask their computer to suggest one! At your command, it will comb through the entire database again, find the member who is your closest match, your next closest match, your third closest, etc. – and then return a comprehensive list to your screen. But how is it able to do that?

    Once again, it’s through your multiple-choice questions. When your answers are compared with another member, a ‘matching ratio’ will be generated. This is based on the percentage of questions you’ve answered identically. But you shouldn’t put too much stock in this because it’s limited in significant ways:

    For example, some people just couldn’t care less whether they both have blue eyes. But the color of your eyes is a multiple-choice question, and it counts just as much as the truly important questions such as your degree of your devotion to the Lord!

    A similar problem appears in mismatched questions. For instance, a person who has been divorced four times would hardly be a good match for someone who has never been married. But to the computer, this carries no more weight than saying one of you has brown hair while the other is blond. The computer thinks every question is equal, and only the similarities count!

    In a related way, close similarities may be discounted and close preferences may be ignored. In short, computer matching has a wealth of potential but at present it’s too simplistic. Still, if enough of the right questions are asked, you could find the raw information you’ll need to emulate the Lord’s search criteria, which we discussed in Chapter 8. It could at least get you into the ballpark, though subjective preferences would need further exploring.

    Remember, as long as everyone answers truthfully, this gives you a glimpse of the romantic master plan, so your honesty cannot be emphasized enough. For example, don’t be tempted to lie about your age or your weight. If you’re in the process of losing weight, put your real weight for now and update your profile when the weight is actually lost. A little foresight will show you why such honesty is important:

    If you’ve been less than truthful and you’ve gained acceptance on that basis, your happiness may be short-lived and painful when the truth is discovered, because that would return your acceptance to an open question. Not only that, but a deeper concern would rise. If you’ve shown the other members that they cannot believe or trust you, where would they stop drawing that line?

    “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”

(Psalms 11:3)     

    Dear reader, I plead with you to understand and heed. If you state a falsehood of any kind in your profile, you may be certain it will find you out, and you’ll probably be rejected once it becomes known. And after gaining some initial acceptance, that could hurt a lot! Not to mention that you could be hurting another person who, for their own part, was honest and deserved the same.

    In my own case, I felt so strongly about the ‘truth factor’ that I discussed it in one of my essays. The question was posed, “What trait would annoy you the most in another person?” to which I replied:

    “I place a supreme level of importance on honesty and truth, so it would annoy me the most if I found that someone had lied to me. We might still be friends but the relationship would not be able to proceed any further. A bitter truth is better than a carefully crafted falsehood. God gives grace to the humble.”

    As it turned out, this ‘truth factor’ played a crucial role from the start. In my own first days at that service, I met three women in particular. One of them was less than truthful on several points, which I soon discovered, and which caused every romantic hope to be dashed. She was very hurt by this, I’m sorry to say, but I had made this condition clear from the beginning. I might have remained interested in the girl who was described to me, but the girl I eventually met wasn’t her.

    The second woman I met had lied about her age by clicking on the age category of 36-40. That was important to me because I had just turned 41, and I did have a preference for a younger woman. After we met in person, I discovered that she was actually 42.

    It annoyed me very much that she had lied to me; and that, more than the fact that she was a year older, returned her acceptance to an open question. After all, when a Christian tells a deliberate falsehood, where do you go from there? Or what other falsehoods might be discovered later? To me, our basis for trust had been compromised.

    The third woman I met was Nancy, who wrote to me about one week later. Her email began with the comment, “The truth? I’m a year older.” And from there she briefly encouraged me over some of the other things I’d written.

    As you know by now, Nancy went on to become my wife. She and the previous woman were actually the same age, but the crucial difference was in Nancy’s honesty. She was truthful about her age and that gave me something to work with in balancing her many ‘pluses’ against this one ‘minus.’ And in any case, after our wedding, we came up with a simple and brilliant solution. We traded birthdays ;-)

    In filling out your profile, it may be that you, too, will have an issue that you are sensitive or embarrassed about. We all have such issues, so you’re in very good company! But my earnest advice to you is that, if the questionnaire poses the question, you should answer with complete honestly from the outset (Ephesians 4:25).

    Yes, it’s true that you may be less popular that way, but it also means that whatever attention you do receive will be genuine, from someone who knows about that sensitive area and has decided to accept you over it. And just as importantly, it gives you a foundation of trust that will make the entire relationship hopeful—not only between the two of you, but in a threefold relationship with the Lord Himself, whose Master plan you are attempting to follow and whose favor you hope to obtain.

    After the multiple-choice questions, some of the better meeting services offer essay questions. Like the classroom essays from your school days, they’ll invite you to express your thoughts on preassigned topics (See the sample questionnaire at the back of this book.)

    Left alone, the multiple-choice questions would have portrayed a cardboard cutout figure, but the essays will add another dimension to your appeal. They’ll show the real person who lives inside those facts and figures. This is where you get to speak up and shine!

    Essay questions are usually simple, but they can also be very clever, so you’ll have to consider them carefully (Proverbs 15:28). For example, you may be asked a ‘fun’ question like, “What would you do if you were to suddenly inherit a great fortune, worth millions of dollars?”

    Your answer may seem whimsical in the moment, but to the studious reader it could yield some very important clues. For instance, if you were suddenly self-sufficient, would you still put the Lord first in your life? Would you be generous and care for others, or would you be covetous and spend it all on yourself? It could show them your sense of priorities or loyalties, how wisely you handle your finances and affairs, your sense of foresight or lack of it, and whether you’re a methodical or an impulsive thinker (Proverbs 30:8,9; Luke 12:16-21; Psalms 112:5-9; Proverbs 6:6-8; 14:33). Gosh, who saw all that coming?

    Basically, you’ll be asked three types of essay questions. Between them, and especially when their deeper meaning is considered, you’ll be pretty well explored and that will give the other members a fair idea of what makes you tick. Here are the three types of questions you’ll find:

1. Questions that explore your past, to show the influence you’ve grown up with. Presumably, this has formed your personality today. And even if that is no longer so (Second Corinthians 5:17), at least this describes the experience you might draw upon.

2. Questions that describe your present activities, circumstances and interests. This shows us the station you’ve attained in life so far. It might be considered a balance between your personality on one hand and your practical limitations on the other.

3. Questions that invite you to describe a possible future: your ambitions and dreams, if anything at all were possible for you. This is the true personality inside you right now, if only you could shed those limitations—as in our example of the suddenly-inherited fortune.

    Relationships are about the future more than the past, so that’s what these questions are really driving at. One way to project the future is to assume that it will reflect the past, or that it will continue a present trend. So in each case, the real question is in what a possible future with you might look like. Therefore, when you write your essays, give them a little more thought and try to keep those deeper implications in mind.

    As a guiding principle, try to write your essays with a tone of humility. If you’ve joined a Christian meeting service, you automatically have one thing going for you: you’re claiming to be a Christian. This speaks of the integrity of Jesus Christ in your life, since you’re claiming to follow Him. What remains to be seen, in the eyes of the other members, is whether you can actually live up to that claim; and nowhere will this be more evident than in your sense of humility.

    Christians are never proud, boastful people, for they trust in the Lord rather than trusting in themselves (Second Corinthians 4:5; Galatians 6:14). Conversely, a proud, boastful person could not be a very good Christian (First Peter 5:5). Below are two remarks, from two actual profiles, as nearly as I can recall them from memory. Read them for yourself and see what they tell you about the persons who wrote them:

1. “I am an excellent Christian—and much more!”

2. “Others have told me that they think I’m a very beautiful woman. If that is so, may the glory be to God.”

    Need I say more? So think about your remarks before allowing yourself to be carried away with them. You may feel grand in sharing a particular item, but someone else may read it differently and conclude that your heart is prideful, which may cause them to demur. Therefore, if you feel you must share something grandiose for honesty’s sake, try to think of a humble way of expressing it, as in our second example.

    “Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time. Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.”

(Colossians 4:5-6)     

    You should also bear in mind that writing your essays can be time consuming. If you try to do it online, your modem may log you out before you finish. Not good! And in any case, they require more thought than that.

    Instead, try to obtain a printout of those essay questions in advance, so you can compose your answers in a relaxed, prayerful attitude at home. But how would you get them in advance? Basically, there are three ways:

First, you may have a friend who is already a member and they could print them out for you.

Second, some of the services offer a ‘tour’ feature that will show you a sample profile. You could copy the questions from there.

Or third (blush), you could start to fill out the questionnaire, copy the essay questions as you go, then log off again before the form is completed. An incomplete profile will be deleted and never go online! And then when you’re ready, start over.

    When you’ve finished writing your essays, set them aside for twenty-four hours and then re-check them with a fresh mind set. You may be surprised how many typos you’ve missed, or how some of those really ‘clear’ sentences need clarification now. And be sure to use your spell checker! You don’t want your first impression to look sloppy!

    Finally, if you have a supportive friend, you might ask them to read your essays before submitting them (see Chapter 15). It never hurts to have the opinions of those who honestly care for you.

    When you’re ready for your adventure to begin, just open a free trial membership at the website of your choice and fill out their multiple-choice questions. Then, simply retrieve your essays from your word processor, and cut-and-paste them over. That way, from the very first day, you’ll log on in the best possible shape, with all of your ducks are in a row!

    And when you’re finished pasting those essays to your profile, don’t delete them from your computer. Two reasons:

First, it’s just possible that the meeting service computer will crash one day, so you’ll need to start over.

And second, you may be leaving that service to pursue a relationship with someone you’ve met, but later decide that it hadn’t work out. If that becomes the case, you might want to return and try again, so it would be good to have that information handy.

    Finally, you may want to check your essays from time to time, to edit and improve their wording or modify their content in some way. You’re allowed to modify all parts of your profile as often as you wish.

    Now let’s discuss the last major element of your profile: your photograph(s). Although they are entirely optional, I strongly recommend that you include at least one. The vast majority of members will do so, and it has become the norm. When you do, it speaks of honesty and integrity on your part, and it meets a desire for information from the other members. So it simply brings the best results all around. Profiles with photo­graphs are browsed at least ten times more often than those without them, and that doesn’t even begin to express how much more seriously they’re taken. So come now, don’t be shy! Get some of that attention coming your way! Why else would you be logging on?

    Another reason for including your photograph should be obvious. If you ever decide to meet another member in person, they’ll eventually see what you look like anyway; so your picture should be a realistic preparation. If your favorite picture is getting old now, then you shouldn’t use it. Or if for any reason you don’t really look like that anymore, you should exclude it. It could set an expectation that you'd fall short of later, and by then it could really hurt!

    We believe the next generation of websites will require brief photo-essays, disclosing the approximate dates when these photos were taken, and allowing a short explanation of the circumstances they depict. A picture is worth a thousand words, so you should be allowed to say them!

    Furthermore, you should include several pictures of yourself, taken from different angles and with different poses. This would give a more realistic, fluid impression of your appearance and speak highly of your honesty.

    Finally, if you have children, be sure to include a recent picture of them – but not as your primary photo, because that should be a picture of you. And tell the other members a little about your kids. (If essay fields are attached to photographs in the future, that would be the ideal place for discussing them.)

    Finally, let’s discuss a technical consideration. Even if you submit your photos on the very first day, they won’t appear in your profile immediately. Instead they’ll go into a ‘holding pen’ for quick review by the Webmaster, who will check to make sure they’re decent. After all, these are Christian meeting services—they have standards to uphold! It may be twenty minutes before your photos are approved, or it may be the next morning, depending on how busy the Webmaster happens to be. But the moment they are approved, they’ll appear in your profile.

    In summary: as you construct your profile, remember that God is keeping His own ‘master profile’ of you from above, by which He seems to assess your romantic hopes (see Chapter 8). Learn to cooperate with His efforts and you’ll find His favor and the best possible results, especially if your future partner is doing the same. In the end, an excellent match should reflect God’s own, heavenly evaluation as closely as possible:

“See that you build it according to the pattern shown you on the mountain”

(Hebrews 8:5)     

    Therefore, as you meet new people online, pray over the possibilities to see if God answers with the counsel of His heart, and if He starts to open doors for you.

    And now, it is time to actually go and meet someone!