How much to share in your online personals ad?

How many times have I talked about online personals?  Way too many to count.  One thing I struggle with every day is my own 'personal ads' online.  (I hate the term personal ads - all I think of are the old time ads that used to be in the newspaper.  They were very different from what we have today.  Sentences didn't exist, and they used a lot of short choppy phrase with weird acronyms (wait - we still do that).  Granted, the whole process was a lot creepier. 

So, our online ads today, lets get back to the issue at hand.  Every online dating website has these long forms you have to fill out - with open ended and multiple choice questions claiming to "understand" you to varying degrees.  Eharmony claims to match you on some 500 measures of compatibility or some bullshit like that (I've met couples that have married to their eharmony "match" - umm, some I've questioned about their compatibility AT ALL, others I totally agree that they belong together).  OKCupid (my current favorite, mostly because it's free, asks questions and gives you likely "match," "friend," and "enemy" percentages based on your answers to user and OKcupid based questions.  Personally, I like the idea of questions because it allows for an objectively based assessment of your qualities based on someone else's answers as well.  No matter how questions are asked and what website is asking them - it's easier to match your like and unlike answers.

Now, on to the open ended questions.  This is where it gets tricky. With the open ended questions you can obviously share as much or as little as you want (duh, isn't that the very definition of open ended).  The question is how much should you share?  Obviously lets keep the important details like your address, phone number and social security number off of your profile - well, that is unless you are are looking to have another person take on your persona - and maybe that's your thing, and if that is - go ahead... include all that, make that easy for the person! 

But for the rest of us...

We have to reach this balance of which details do we include and which do we leave out.  Personally, I'm a "full disclosure" kind of girl.  I want to lay it all on the line.  You know, tell them all about my good things, my bad things, and let them decide if they want it all - good, bad and ugly.  Umm, yeah... not the best philosophy in online dating.  The guys glean (yes, nice word!) over the good things and see the bad, and the ugly things have flashing lights around it. 

So, what you have to do is sugar coat everything (which to me seems like a lie of omission), but where you are overweight, it's "curvy".  And where you are a drunk, it's that you like to "have fun and stay out at night,"  and probably my favorite - if you are unemployed you are "taking some time off to find yourself" oh bull shit, you are unemployed, you have no money, and the only "self" you are finding is your wiener every morning noon and night to jackoff because you have nothing else to do.  Enjoy that porn bill (wait, even porn is free nowadays because the Internet! - so enjoy your Internet bill!)

What I've found is to just share what you are willing to share with a stranger in a bar.  Keep it light and keep it quick.  Give yourself enough to start conversations with someone, but also enough to be able to elaborate via email if they actually respond to your ad (miracles do occur! But only if you are hot, so make sure your pictures look good!)  Don't include that personal information - keep your phone number, house address, and social security number out (unless you are really retarded, then by all means but that in there!), and lastly, have fun with it.  Be stupid, silly and funny - someone who is serious in these ads just doesn't get it.  You are advertising yourself online - it's really kind of creepy if you think about it.  Just have fun with it.