After being involved in this Internet dating thingy for over 2 years, I finally got around to writing my hit-list of my Top 12 Profile Annoyances. Here it is. All examples are real-life, culled from profiles viewed in the last 24 hours.

1. A tagline that is a whine.
Here’s a great example: “Almost 1900 views this past month and NO EMAILS??? Is this another Voyer Site????”. Well no my dear, has it occurred to you that nobody wants to talk with you because the tagline showed that you have, well, a bit of an attitude problem? (Also, you can’t spell either, which further undermines your whole profile).
2. Inability to write the English language anywhere near correctly
Example: “We love fullfill interests of others as well as our selfs where all are mutual about there wants”. This is a dead giveaway that (a) English might not be your first language, and (b) you don’t write it well enough and need to get some tuition.
3. Pictures that are clearly way out of date
Hint to the ladies: bubble-cut perms went out of fashion about 1985. Hint to the guys: mullets are not quite out of fashion, but you are really really typecasting yourself if you have one. Can anybody say “Bubba”?
4. A profile that consists of a humorless list of things you do not want to encounter.
This is the dating site equivalent of the salesperson who cannot talk about his product, but insists instead on talking about how bad all of the other competing products are. The only way this is acceptable is if you use a lot of humour. Unfortunately nearly all of the people that do this write the list in a way that shows no discernible sense of humour. Who wants to spend time with a negative, humourless person?
5. SHOUTING LIKE THIS IN A PROFILE. EVER.
It makes you look inarticulate, angry, or both.
6. A profile that consists of a long list of precise attributes that a prospective partner must meet before you will even consider them.
The law of averages suggests that if you do this, you may have to wait until Mountains Crumble To The Sea before you find anybody who matches all of the items on the list. In the meantime, oh look, there goes another person who might be good for you..shame he/she didn’t meet criterion #37 on the list…
7. Profile pictures that make you look sad, angry, confused or just plain weird.
Nobody wants to seriously consider going out with a person who looks like they might be one of a psychopath, depressed, suicidal, narcoleptic or totally screwed-up.
8. A really really long profile.
The average American has an attention span slightly longer than that of a gnat. A long profile containing a synopsis of your life story and social attitudes, a bunch of GMHAP about how wonderful you are (see below), an exhaustive list of your hobbies, your likes and dislikes and what you really want to be doing in 10 years may impress your close friends, but most potential suitors will have suffered eye-glaze and gone walkabout about 3 paragraphs back. A profile this long has to be really well written in order to avoid becoming a cure for insomnia.
9. Telling everybody how damn nice and wonderful you are.
Nobody is going to admit to being a miserable psycho, so telling me that you are a nice, family-oriented person who helps old ladies across the road, talks to God etc. is what I define as God Motherhood And Apple Pie. Everybody claims it, and some are maybe not telling the truth. What I really want to understand is (a) Why You Are Different and (b) Why Should I Be Interested In Meeting You. Telling me how wonderful you are does not answer either of those questions. (It also puts you well on the way to falling into #8...)
10. Including an Instant Message ID and then refusing to chat on that IM client.
If you are going to include an ID of this type, you can expect people to try to contact you using it, the same way that they would use an email ID if you provided one. Refusing to talk to them is a really good way of not meeting anybody, and woe betide you if you decided later that you wanted to talk to me, because guess what? I just put you on my ignore list.
11. Saying absolutely nothing about yourself.
Here's a doozy from a woman who is really going to attract interest:

What do you hope to find
SOMEONE WHO IS HOT

Extra Notes
MAYBE LATER

Well that was informative wasn't it. Guess what happened to her profile?

12. Repeating yourself repeating yourself.
Saying "NO MARRIED MEN" 6 or more times in total, once in each section of your profile, certainly gets the message across. Unfortunately it also tells me that you might have a chip on your shoulder, or an attitude problem, and you obviously think I can't read, so guess what? You just lost me. In this case, you also scored on item #5 (SHOUTING).