Finding Your Match on Match.com: Part Two, The DreamGirl Search
In Part One of this series, you learned why the three major searches promoted by match.com are in essence pretty useless.
Veteran fans of the blog know that I met my Geek Boy / Code Monkey / Redhead Dreamboy / Love! through match.com’s Custom Search feature.
Because I couldn’t find any decent singles in my town that even came remotely close to dreamboy status, I decided to spread my wings and search the entire country. Crazy? Maybe. But it worked, and you can’t question that!
Here’s how to set up your own Dream Girl search…
Step One: Find the Tiny Link to Custom Search
Look for it… look for it…
Oh, there it is! It’s in tiny font at the top. Go on, click that. Amazing how they hide it, isn’t it? They wouldn’t want you easily finding the BEST way to search profiles!
Step Two: Build the Perfect Woman
Here’s the screen you’ll see when you get to Custom Search:
Go on, go hot wild. Your first custom search is your wildest dream search. Build the perfect woman.
Basics:
- How tall is she?
- What type of body does she have?
- Is she single, divorced, widowed, separated?
- Unless you’re a firm believer in astrology, skip her sign. (Besides, sun signs have soooo little to do with personality!)
- What are her turn-ons? Pick a couple.
- Turn offs? Again, just one or two.
- If your dream girl has particular eyes or hair, select those.
Lifestyle:
- What are her exercise habits? Gym bunny? Couch potato?
- What kind of diet does she have?
- Is she a smoker or drinker?
- Does she work in a particular industry? (Think backwards too… are there certain professions that you wouldn’t date – aka “I’d never date a lawyer..” or “No more eternal students!”)
- Should she have a particular yearly income?
- Who does she live with?
- Does she have kids or pets?
Background/Values:
- Are you attracted to a particular ethnicity? (…and burning question, does this make you racist?)
- Should your match share your faith?
- Where did her education end? High School? Grad School?
- Does she speak any languages other than English?
- What is her political bent?
Once you’ve gotten it all in there, don’t look back! Don’t second guess! Don’t say… “Oh gee, maybe I’m being TOO picky.” This search is your fun search.
Step Three: About Location
Trust me on this one. Set the search radius for your dreamgirl to the entire country.
For starters, because you’re being super picky, you probably won’t see many/any in your home area. If you do, you are extra lucky!
Second – if the full country search pulls up matches, you can find some great penpals that will share your interests. If that penpal turns into something more, then lucky you! (It happened to me!)
Step Four: Don’t Forget To Save
The most important thing is to save this search so you can go back and use it later.
You can select to have match.com email you if a match to this search comes up. That’s up to you.
In the next post…
How to take that dreamgirl and whittle her down to something more realistic and local.
E. Foley is a geek girl extraordinaire. She writes amazing online dating profiles for geeks and non-geeks, helping clients all over the world find love. Her writing can be found at Examiner.com, Dating Sites Reviews, and elsewhere as a ghostwriter. By day, she is the Copywriter at ThinkGeek. She lives in Maryland with DaveTheGame and her adorable cats, Mr. Peanut and Don Juan. (Email e, or follow @geeksdreamgirl on Twitter.)
Thanks for the follow up E, very helpful.
I seem to remember doing this once and finding a girl in Orlando who didn’t want to date me …
Jos last blog post..paul newman 1925-2008
@ Jo – just because she’s your dreamgirl doesn’t necessarily mean you’re her dreamguy
I had a few guys come up on my dreamguy search who didn’t pan out after talking with them. These things happen.
I think this is absolutely terrible advice.
You can be very selective in your searches with these tools, yes, but not as selective as you can on some other sites, thank god.
Match.com’s objective is to get people face to face and meeting each other, period.
Their job isn’t to provide an endless number of tools for you, so you can weed people out based upon criteria that wouldn’t have even mattered if you had met face to face in the first place.
Super accurate tools, where you can dial down the length of someones toes ARE NOT conducive to meeting someone and creates further barriers to meeting someone.
@ Tony – You have some very good points. I agree that sometimes there are people who look awful on paper but turn out to be wonderful human beings. (The opposite is true as well.) Meeting in person is the only way to tell whether or not something is going to pan out to be something real.
HOWEVER… if you’re super busy with your career or kids, you don’t necessarily have the time to date every person who is a remote possibility. That’s where the custom search tools come in handy.
@Tony -
That’s why the article ends off with:
I’d advise reading Part 3 before you call this horrible advice.
Graham´s last blog post..32 hours of D&D gaming party!
Wow, I had images off. Helping guys like you get girls like me huh?
Why would I want you? Just by that sentence alone you come across as conceited…christ…
Yeah, sure BUT ONLY “if you’re super busy with your career or kids, you don’t necessarily have the time to date every person who is a remote possibility. That’s where the custom search tools come in handy.”
@ Tony – It’s all very tongue in cheek, but thanks for the vote of confidence.
I love you too.
@ Tony – Also, I sincerely hope that Christ isn’t your patron deity, because I hear tell he doesn’t approve of his name being used in such a manner.
“if you’re super busy with your career or kids, you don’t necessarily have the time to date every person who is a remote possibility. That’s where the custom search tools come in handy.”
Your advice is targeted towards men. THAT statement only applies to women, pulling the rug out from under your entire argument.
@ Tony – The fact that you imply there are not TONS of wonderful single dads out there show YOU as the ignorant one here.
If you don’t agree with my advice, leave my site and don’t come back. Heck, start up your own blog about how much you hate me.
Either way, I’m putting your IP in my spam blocker so the rest of my readers don’t have to deal with your venom and ignorance.
lol.. I wish I knew what my dream girl was
I have a very wide array of saved searches. One, specifically for Scotland, lol, ya just never know. Their are things I would “love” to have.. and there are things that will never work.. its that mysterious bar that is made of the inbetween stuff that is fascinating. I know guys that have become bitter over the bar ” those women on their have” I dont buy into that. we all want what we want. Match is backwards. Real world you see a round peg and like it, and try to make it fit into your square world. On match, if they dont fit into your world, they dont get a chance it seems.. which is why I have several searches..just in case the personality and smile outweighs her fast food preferences ( or insert other silly things we may feel important ) Nice article though.. food for thought
@ David – It is always good to have several different flavors of search. I had about 6-7 different searches going when I was on Match.com. I’d always glance at the Reverse Searches too, just to see if anyone who was looking for ME looked interesting. (Oh, and to laugh at the 60 year old men who wanted a 20-something. Ew.)
I’ve had my Match.com profile turned off for the better part of a year. After reading the advice here I went and turned it back on.
On a whim I tried the advice here for the “dream girl” search.
The search returned 0 results.
Went back and turned my profile off again.
@ Mike – The point of the dreamgirl search is to have it as a “just in case” – not because a dreamgirl will appear magically if you do it.
Also, match.com’s search functionality takes 24 hours to work properly for extremely specific searches. A little patience may help in this case.