🎭 1) Presence vs. Performance: The Online Dating Distinction That Changes Everything

Let's start with a concept that sounds deceptively simple and is actually, if you let it, quite profound: there is a massive difference between being present and performing presence.

Performing presence in online dating looks like this: you open the app, you send some messages, you reply to some replies, you close the app. You have been active. You have technically engaged. If someone asked whether you were "trying" on the app today, you could say yes with a clear conscience. Box ticked. Moving on.

Being actually present looks like this: you open the app, you look at a specific person's profile — actually look at it, the way you'd read something you were genuinely curious about — you notice something that sparks real interest, and you write a message that could only have been sent to that person, about that thing. Then you wait for their reply with the kind of mild anticipation that means you've actually invested a small piece of yourself in the exchange. That small investment? That is what the other person feels when they read your message. That is what makes someone want to reply.

The world right now — and I say this as someone who watches culture closely — is awash in performed sincerity. We live in an era of carefully curated authenticity, of people who have learned to look genuine without necessarily being vulnerable, to sound interested without necessarily listening, to appear engaged without putting anything real on the line. It's a rational adaptation to an online world that has historically punished genuine exposure. But it has created an epidemic of interactions that feel hollow — and the people experiencing that hollowness are exhausted by it, even if they can't always name what's missing.

What's missing is actual you. Not performed-you. Not carefully-optimised-for-maximum-appeal-you. The one who has genuine opinions, real curiosity, specific things they find interesting, and an actual reason for messaging this particular person today.

📖 2) Reading the Room — or in This Case, the Profile: The Skill That Separates the Connectors from the Broadcasters

Here is an uncomfortable truth about a very common online dating behaviour, and I offer it with the gentleness of someone who has watched it play out hundreds of times and genuinely wants it to stop: a significant number of people on dating apps are not actually reading profiles before they message. They are looking at photos, forming a general impression, and sending a message based on that general impression — often a template message that requires no profile-reading whatsoever, because it was designed to work without any.

Now. I want to be fair here. Profiles vary enormously in how much they give you to work with. Some people write four paragraphs of rich, fascinating information about their lives. Others write "ask me anything 😊" which is, technically, an invitation and also, practically, a homework assignment. So if you've ever looked at a profile and thought "there's nothing here to reference," I believe you — and we will address that in a moment. But for the profiles that DO contain information — interests, values, little windows into someone's actual personality — the failure to read them before messaging is one of the most quietly self-defeating things you can do.

Think about it from the receiving end. You have spent some time and thought writing a profile that says something about who you are. You've mentioned that you love hiking, or that you're learning Italian, or that your most controversial opinion is that musicals are the highest art form. And then someone messages you with "Hey! How's your week going?" — a question so generic it could have been sent to literally any human on the planet, regardless of anything you wrote. What does that tell you about how carefully they read what you shared? What does it suggest about how carefully they might listen to you in an actual conversation?

Contrast that with: "I saw you're learning Italian — I'm genuinely curious what made you start. Was there a specific moment or is it something you've always wanted to do?" That message took thirty seconds longer to write. It requires having actually read a profile. And it is worth approximately one thousand times more in terms of making someone feel noticed, interested in, and inclined to reply enthusiastically. The maths on this is not complicated.