Men seeking Wo:

The other day a friend told me she dove into the online dating world. These days, nothing wrong with that, it’s fun, and it’s become one of the more accepted venues with which to meet someone. However, it’s tricky. As my friend is finding out, some men are clueless as to how to put their best foot forward. Both in their profiles, and in the messages they send, those opening lines meant to catch your attention, they’re more like an express lane to delete. It appears men need a little coaching on how to present themselves in the most flattering way. So, all you guys, I’ve developed a short set of rules to help you navigate the cyber dating world.

1. If you live with your mother, while at some point that’s admirable, it’s not a great conversation starter.
2. No matter how poorly your ex-wife treated you, that’s between you and her, we don’t need to hear about it.
3. On that note: if you’ve been divorced for five years or more, and still stuck on how poorly your ex-wife treated you, you need counseling, not a dating site.
4. I know you find this hard to believe, but pictures of your car really don’t interest us.
5. Ditto on pictures of fish you’ve caught.
6. And hunting dogs… (Think about how attractive a woman holding her cats looks.)
7. If you’re not George Clooney, then it’s probably not realistic to expect us to look like a European super model.
8. Being unemployed is unfortunate, But it makes a better intro line on Monstor.com not Match.com
9. Really? Are there no photos of you alone? Cropping out an old girlfriend is just bad judgment.
10. Until we actually have met, it’s hard for me to believe I’m your sweetheart, the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen, or consider running away to Europe with you. Let’s keep perspective, shall we.

So, polish up those profiles guys, as in most Internet interaction, the average time spent on a page is 55 seconds. And you’re just a fraction of those seconds. So we have to make it count. Good luck. See you in cyber space.