To be honest, I’ve always thought that dating site “headlines” were a little silly. It’s less words than a Twitter update and supposed to give the singles on the site a real idea of your entire personality… how is that fair? Still, though, we rarely see even a halfway decent headline on most dating sites, and many are just straight-up disasters.

So how do YOU make your dating headline stand out from the crowd? Or at least not be the over-weight kid in Crocs of the crowd? Here are OBC’s tips to making a better dating site headline.

1. Actually have a headline

I can’t tell you how many headlines we’ve seen that are either blank, say, “Um…” or say “Never done this before.” That is almost certainly a one-way ticket to IGNORESville. No one wants to go on a date with someone who can’t even stand to be the least bit creative for ten seconds. Whether its a high school essay or your dating site headline, you get points just for writing SOMETHING.

2. USE. SPELL. CHECK.

Interesting fact about 2019: we have this incredible feature called “spell-check.” If your browser doesn’t have it automatically built in, there is also Dictionary.com and the omnipotent Google.com which you can type words into and instantly find out if they are spelled correctly. Also, in case you were wondering, “misspellings” includes but is not limited to: the wrong forms of their, there & they’re, to, too, & two, your and you’re; abbreviations using numbers (b4, 2nite, etc), and using Zs in place of Ss (see the above photo). Oh also, there is a button to your left that says “Caps Lock.” Make sure that’s not on.

3. Don’t use movie quotes

You might think that one Anchorman quote is just the funniest thing you’ve ever read and that it just totally exemplifies your outlook on life, but really all it says is “I can’t think for myself.”

4. Be positive

No one likes Debbie Downer. If you have baggage (and hey, don’t we all) leave it for the 6th date or 4 months in or if you’re just looking for a booty call, don’t bring it up at all. Whatever you do, though, do NOT bring it up in the first 12 words of meeting someone, which is basically what your headline is. While you may think saying “NOT LOOKING FOR PLAYERS OR LIARS, WANT AN HONEST PERSON” might just be straightforward and selective, it looks desperate and crazy. Oh, and also, let’s be honest here. Do you really think “players and liars” are going to read that and be like, “well good gentlelady, in that case I shall kindly escort myself back to the Players and Liars section over yonder”? Doubtful. They’ll most likely just see it as a challenge.

5. Say your headline out loud, a couple times. And think, “is this ME?”

Many of the problems we see day to day in peoples’ dating profiles, are when they try and write things that make them sound interesting or attractive, but that in real life they would never say. Remember, the goal of online dating is to eventually meet in person. If you planned on having the shield of internet anonymity forever, you’d just hang out in AOL chat rooms, right? So, while “Looking for a lifetime lover to read Thoreau with” might attract some women, if you haven’t read since first grade and just want a one time booty call, you proooobably should rethink that one. Always, always make sure that your headline sounds like something that would come out of your mouth before you hit “Save”.

That’s about it. Improving your dating profile can be as easy as giving a little Spring Cleaning to your headline. Remember, along with your photo, your headline is your first impression. Even if you had all the qualitifications for a job, you wouldn’t show up to the interview in pajamas, would you? No. So dress up that headline in some slacks and a tie and start your job hunt.