I Can’t Believe I’m Buying This Book:
A Commonsense guide To Successful Internet Dating

Why should you listen to thirty one year old Katz who’s still single himself? Because Katz isn’t professing to be an expert on how to live happily-ever-after-with-the-person-of your-dreams, he’s advising you on what he does know about, and what he does know about is succeeding at Internet dating. As the leading customer relations consultant for Matchnet, plc (which owns AmericanSingles.com and JDate among others) Katz studied first hand just exactly how people were going wrong with their online profiles. His advice not only made his customer’s online dating experience far more enjoyable (and of course successful) it worked for himself as well.

In the Internet dating world Katz is a rarity – a man who has created an online profile that women actually write to. I should know I’m one of them. Yep, Evan and I met a couple of years ago when he was a member of The Onion’s personals and I was a member of Nerve’s (these two sites host personals created by the Spring Street Network who hosts the personal sites for most of the alternative newspapers around the country). By and large it’s still a “man writing to women” world on the Internet, but things are changing slowly and both Evan and I agree that it behooves a woman to take charge of her Internet dating and go looking for, and writing to, the men you find interesting rather than just posting a profile and waiting for Prince Charming to find you.

So just how do you succeed at Internet dating? Katz breaks it out point by point for you. The start, of course, is choosing the right site for you from the plethora now out there, he’s even got a chart listing the most popular dating sites and their different services and costs. Then of course is the writing of that all important “personal essay” each profile asks for that’ll have men lining up to write and get to know you. And finally, yes, why posting a photo is really a must unless your profession is such that you just can’t for propriety’s sake.

Have no fear. Even if the thought of writing a personal essay about yourself for an online personal ad nearly breaks you out in hives you’ll get through it fine if you follow Katz’s easy, handholding advice. He points out that many people see writing as different from talking and he doesn’t. He advises you think of this essay as a conversation instead of what most people do – treat as if it’s a job application (I cannot tell you how many men have sent me an introduction email that was literally their resume’).

Katz notes “People tend to respond to essays where they feel like someone is talking directly to them.” He goes on to spell out clearly why the more specifically you spell out exactly who you are and what your likes and dislikes are the more intriguing your profile will be to readers. After speaking with and getting to know a bit about a forty-seven year old woman who was having no luck with her profile Katz took the information she’d provided of “I like gardening. I like oldies music. I like live theater” and spun it into the personal and appealing following essay:

“Nothing makes me happier than waking up at 6:30 in the morning and looking out at my tulip garden. I’d take the Four Tops over ‘N Sync any day of the week. And I get chills when I think about watching M. Butterfly at the Ahmanson Theater.”

So, okay, a personal essay that’s personal is important. Choosing the right site is important, and yes, you heard us about the photo. What else do you need to know? Refraining from lying just to make yourself sound more appealing – obviously once you meet the person in person the truth is going to come out. Unfortunately as Katz points out because of many people’s inability to see themselves as they really are hypocrisy runs rampant in the world of online dating. Know it (and about yourself) and you’ll have far better expectations about not only who you’ll be meeting but the type of impression you really give in person.

Not using your Internet profile as a sounding board for past romantic woes, no matter how sad they might be, is also important. Bragging and thinking so highly of yourself that nothing but a millionaire or a Calvin Klein model with six pack abs will do (especially if you’re not all that yourself) is also a downer for the reader such as the ice princess who literally wrote “Tell me what island we’re flying to. What hotel we’re staying at. What restaurant we’re dining in. Cheap guys, you know where you can go. I am a rare diamond and do not want crappy metal surrounding me” such as one of Katz’s examples of “what not to write” did.

If you’re still not sold on the idea of Internet dating here’s a very important point that Katz brings up in the beginning of the book: Internet dating allows you to actually get to know a person before jumping into a relationship based simple on instant attraction, or even, loneliness. I don’t know about you, but the fact that I can know in advance what interests I have in common with a man is a real plus. And because I now know there are so many men out there with whom I really have common interests I can be far more selective, and frankly wise, in my dating choices.