The One Piece Of Dating Advice That Will Save You From Making A Huge Mistake

Don't put yourself out there until you've taken this advice to heart.

Last updated on Dec 01, 2023

Woman using dating app grinvalds| MartinPrescott | Getty Images 
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I know I’ve written about this before, but it seems to continue to plague online dating. It doesn’t matter if you’re on OkCupid, Match, or Plentyoffish. You could even be using a dating app like Hinge or Tinder.

The biggest mistake women make on their profiles is their pictures.

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Most men don’t read your profile, because most of the time men expect to be rejected anyway so they never spend long looking into your history.

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They may skim quickly to contact you and that's about it.

What they're looking at is your pictures.

   

   

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Women will put pictures up of themselves that are old, and then they'll put one picture up that's current that unfortunately doesn't look like them at all. This is a big mistake. 

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If you felt more attractive when you were younger, not a big deal. But you're still attractive right now, as you are, and thus, should you put up a picture of yourself as you are now. 

This honest advice — not to use old photos — may be hard to swallow, but the guy will look at it and think to himself that you may not be honest or are purposely being deceitful. (By the way, the same advice applies to men, too.)

I see this discrepancy in photos all the time.

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If you’re 25 to 30 years old you’re not going to put up a picture of when you were a teenager because you still feel like you're at that young, hot stage of life.

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When you put an old photo of yourself up and then meet the guy, he’s learning two things about you right away: He’s learning that you’re not confident in the way you look right now, and he’s learning that you’re prepared to lie to attract a man.

Put up the five best pictures of how you look right now. Not how you used to look 10 years ago. You need pictures of how you look now, so you’re able to attract the right man for you now.

Never give him a reason not to contact you. When we see pictures with a discrepancy it makes us think you’re hiding something.

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You might be ruining your chances with a great man. Five current pictures, all consistent with who you are now. Try it, and I guarantee you’ll see your dating life online improve instantly.

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David Wygant is a dating coach who spent the past 20 years helping men and women transform their love lives. As a lead writer for Ask Men and Huffington Post, his advice has been offered across television, newspapers, and magazines, including MTV, The New York Times, MSNBC, Fox News, Cosmopolitan, Men's Health, E! Entertainment Television, and more.