We have been running a successful HIV dating site for 14 years. I get emails all the time from members complaining that no one is viewing their profiles, and they are not getting any emails or flirts. I log in to look at their profile and see they have left many fields blank, they have only written one or two words in the “about me” section, nothing in the ideal match section and they have no picture posted. Folks, I hate to break it to you, but if this resembles your profile, nobody is going to be interested in you.

Lets look at it another way. If you were shopping for cars online, and you came across an ad that said “Nice Car”, with no picture, no make and model, no price, no description and no details at all, would you even bother contacting that person about the car? Would you spend any time even viewing the ad? Of course not! What do you think you’re doing when you post a personal ad? Ahem…it is an AD! You’re selling yourself.

If you have one or two words, no picture, and no description, nobody is going to email or flirt with you. In fact, they are not even going to click on your profile from the search results, because from here they can see that you’ve only written 1 word and haven’t posted a picture. Then, you look at your profile and see that no one has viewed your profile and you think it’s the website that’s the problem. The real problem is you’re totally short changing yourself by not taking 5-10 minutes to write a brief description.

You may be thinking, “Well, yeah I haven’t filled my profile out completely, but I will just do the searching and when I see someone I like, I’ll flirt with them.” So you proceed to do this and you still don’t get any action. Why? Because when you send a flirt it tells the person nothing about you. The person that gets the flirt, then views your profile, sees there is no description, and no picture so they don’t even bother responding. Again, you think it’s the website that’s the problem, when in truth, if you would just take a few minutes putting some details on your profile, you would get way more action!

Let’s use the car analogy again. Let’s say you posted a wanted ad for a 1995 Toyota Corolla, with A/C, power steering and alloy rims. I see your ad and send you an email that says “I have a great car for sale”(a flirt), with a link. You click on the link and it takes you to a Craigslist ad that says “Great Car For Sale”. The ad has no picture or description. It doesn’t even say what kind of car it is. What would you do? Is this Craigslist’s fault?

The only way this scenario would ever work was if there was only a handful of cars available on the planet. Of course, there are billions of cars, and lots of options and so it is with dating too. There are tons of HIV positive singles so what makes you special? You definitely have things that make you special, so write about them.

I’ve been dong this for a long time and I can assure you 100% that the #1 reason people don’t get any action on a dating site is because they fail to fill out their profile completely and don’t post a picture.

Of course I understand on a HIV dating site, not everyone is comfortable posting a picture, but if you’re not going to post a picture, at least write something interesting about yourself! Sell yourself. Tell people you will share pictures once you get to know them. Or post a picture that blacks out your eyes or the top of your head. You can easily do this with Microsoft Paint, which is on every windows computer.

Anyway, the point is…if you don’t fill out your profile, you are not going to get any responses. Think about the car analogy. It’s the same thing. If you really want to meet someone, log in to your profile now and write something interesting and if you’re comfortable, post a picture!

HIV and Single is an HIV Dating site who’s mission is to help positive singles find love and companionship without the fear of disclosure. Founded in 2004, it is one of the most popular HIV dating sites, according to Google rankings. It features frequently updated HIV news, forums, instant messenger, a matching system, and many other features. It is free to join, create a profile, browse other profiles and flirt with other members. You can visit them at www.hivpositivedatingsites.net