



I don't know anyone who loves dating. None of my friends cherish those awkward moments when first getting to know someone, finding a polite, but firm way to say, "sorry, not interested," or recovering from the misunderstood good-night face lean in which one participant attempted a kiss that landed somewhere awkward and unintended. Now add to the mix being a single parent. Final ingredient? Geeky single parent. Yikes!

To the quantitatively minded, online dating makes sense. Increase your pool of potential matches, anonymously share information in a way that allows you to filter out poor matches and rank potential good matches,then live happily ever after. Ah, if only dating could be reduced to such an efficient process! It can't. But there are definitely ways to write a better online dating profile.

1. Focus your attention on drawing in only the best matches. You're a single geek parent. You don't have unlimited resources. It's tempting to try to catch the eye of many potential matches so that you have more options, but this ultimately just wastes your time. And theirs.

2. Be up front, and tactful, about your parenting status. The fact that you are a parent isn't just about you, it's about your potential date as well. Provide enough information so that the voluntarily and emphatically childless are not tempted by your siren song. It's easy enough to work this into your text by saying something like, "I enjoy building Lego sets with my kids, who live with me (choose one: all of the time, most of the time, some of the time)."

3. Wave your geek banner high. In the end, don't we all want to be cherished and accepted as who we really are? You don't get to that point by hiding your geekiness and hoping that your date will accept this "flaw" because you've been otherwise charmingly normal. I'm not saying that your profile needs to reveal that you hope your mate will be just as turned on by a Starfleet uniform in the bedroom as you are... but I am saying that you may want to state your position in the eternal Kirk v. Picard debate. (P.S. Picard. Duh.)

4. Post at least one less attractive photo of yourself. Not your main photo. Not your only photo. But among many, there should be a photo of you looking less than cover-shoot ready. It's not merely a question of honestly portraying yourself, it's about weeding out the love-hungry that are only interested in your physical appearance.

5. Avoid cliches. OkCupid asks you to list the six things you could never do without. Here's what not to write: food, water, air, your friends, sex, movies/books/music. Using any of these items in your lists merely demonstrates your imagination void. Here are a few more cliches that litter online dating sites like toilet paper around the outhouse: "I'm not into playing games, I'm just a fun person looking for someone fun to hang out with, I like to cook, I love my family and friends, I enjoy travel." EVERYONE SAYS THESE THINGS.

6. Ignore all the advice that is designed to net you a high response rate. I'll be the first to admit that OkTrends, the blog of OkCupid, is alarmingly seductive. I mean, there are numbers! Graphs! Infographs! Interactive infographs! But this approach is all wrong. You don't want lots and lots of hits, you want the right hits. As much as Jon Fnkel's ill-fated date with Alyssa Bereznak lit up the interwebs, wouldn't it have been better to prevent that mismatch to begin with?

7. Listen to other kinds of conventional wisdom. Your online profile should have proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation. You can even defend your use of the Oxford comma, if you wish. This is not the place to rant about your last relationship, or spout gross generalizations about all women and all men. Nor is it appropriate to be "still married, but we're divorcing I promise, and we still live in the same house, but I'm not going to tell you that until after our second date."

Got all that? Great. Now consider a few geeky dating tips, and don't delay your in-person meeting. As much as you both may have written brilliant online profiles, there's no replacement for that first face-to-face.

What kind of online dating profile would capture your interest?