Less is more as you think about what to divulge to potential dates on line; leave talking about your boxed set of Prisoner 'til you actually meet!

• Keep stuff back for the first date
• Focus on your strengths
• Use spell check and avoid greengrocer’s apostrophes

It’s the worst sort of writer’s block in the world - that feeling of drawing a complete and utter blank when staring at the empty white boxes of the online profile waiting to be filled. You just know that if you could find the right words to capture exactly who you are, anyone reading your profile would be bowled over by your amazingness and your soul mate would shortly turn up at your door bearing flowers and their heart on a plate. (To be fair, that actually sounds a little creepy, but humour me for a second. )

From Facebook to LinkedIn to Tom Dick and Sally - no matter what purpose the social networking site, there are still all those confounded profile boxes to fill out. The feeling of not knowing where to begin to describe yourself can be so overwhelming that it can be tempting to immediately find something easier to do — like your 2007/8 self-assessment tax return — and push all thought of online dating aside. The experience can be all the more nerve-wracking because we all know the importance of making a good first impression, and it sometimes feels twice as hard to do that online than in person, where you can at least make an effort with clothes/hair/make-up/cologne to put your best foot forward.

But it’s definitely easier than you think. The mistake most people make when writing their online profiles is to put forward too much information. Just as you wouldn’t take a photo album filled with pictures of you from pre-birth to present day to a first date (and if you would, then sweetie, you and I need to talk…), you don’t need to lay it on too thickly in your profile. Think about it — most couples who have lived happily together for years are still discovering new things about each other and that in itself is part of the delight and joy of long-term togetherness. We don’t stop changing or growing as people as we grow older, so it seems almost futile to try to pin oneself down in an online profile.

There’s also the small matter of context. You may be a gay man with a deep and abiding love for Prisoner Cell Block H. You may have spent the better part of ten years collecting all the episodes on VHS and you may now be very excited about slowly transitioning said collection to DVD. That is exactly the sort of information which would be a fabulous conversational ice-breaker in person but which could well be a deal-breaker online.

You might find that including too much information is more trouble than it’s worth. One TDS member learned the hard way to share information about herself by degrees – in the same way that she would as she gradually gets to know people better through social interaction. She happens to be able to speak fluent Russian and has a PhD - things that might ordinarily never come up during a first casual conversation. It meant women who viewed her profile formed an impression of her – multilingual foreign academic – that fell far short of defining her as a person. It meant that on top of all the other complexities of a first date, she had to contend with the hurdle of setting them right on that score as well.

So the best advice is to start small. Think broad brushstrokes - leave the detail for your darling to discover in the fullness of time.

One last piece of advice – just as in your offline interaction, online appearances do matter. Profiles with sloppy spelling or greengrocer’s apostrophes are certain to let you down if you’re trying to show off your sparkling wit and obvious erudition. Use your spellchecker and just to be safe, read your profile out loud. If you can’t imagine yourself saying those things to someone in a conversation, it’s got to go.

Once you’ve got all that in place, take a deep breath, relax and have fun. Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly, as GK Chesterton once wrote – and the same goes for human beings looking for love.

Article by Basheera Khan