Why take advice from complete strangers?

"You’re here trying to fuck complete strangers. Their advice may be helpful in this situation."

HA!

I've always felt that if you want a truly honest opinion on something, especially if it's self critical, ask a stranger. They have no reason to sugar coat things or lie in an attempt to spare your feelings. Some of the most honest conversations I've ever had in my entire life have been with the stranger sitting next to me at a bar, on an airplane, and in online forums.

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You’re here trying to fuck complete strangers. Their advice may be helpful in this situation.

Btw, Velma and GGMM...I think you sell yourselves short. If this was easy, this part of the forums wouldn't exist.

Meh. There's a few trolls that wander through offering unsolicited advice (Esperanza and AndrewRobin are a couple examples that I've blocked, others I just ignore their posts) that really don't add value to any conversation they participate in, they're just stirring up shit because they're attention whores, or they believe their way of swinging is the only way to do it. It's just part of the online experience unfortunately.

This part of the forums is definitely a big reason we stay on SLS. I'm fascinated by the perspectives that each of the participants here brings to the table. I learn a lot from seeing how others view a profile, what clicks for them, what advice they offer...so much insight into human behavior.

Why should you listen to my advice in particular, and why does that fascinate me so? I don't know that I've shared this before, but I've been dating online exclusively for close to 25 years, starting with Kiss dot com, then Match, and a host of others. I'm much more interested in what's on the inside than the outside, and you just can't learn what you need to know meeting someone at a bar. Through my online experiences I've learned by trial and error things that will get you views, things that will get you contacts, and things that will get you the views from people you really want to contact you. The best evidence that it works: I met Mrs. C on Match, and for both of us it was the honesty and sincerity of our profiles that got us together. She's as good at it as I, tbh.

My advice doesn't work for everyone, though, because I'm sharing what I see through my own filters. That's something I really like about these forums: Each of the contributors shares their own perspective, one of which will resonate with those seeking help. If the person offering advice is the type the OP would be interested it, functionally it then becomes the fish teaching the fisherman(woman) how to catch them.

That's why its awesome to see folks like HollyBlue and PAW offering advice to single men, GGMM offering her perspective as a single lady, Velma's advice on pictures (Their profile pics lead us here tbh), and the plethora of couples offering their takes on what appeals to them and what doesn't. We are teaching those that want to learn how to achieve their goals. That warms my heart.

So for those trolls that wander through to stomp about, shit on everything and leave: All you're accomplishing is proving what makes the online experience better than bars and clubs, saving us the trouble of ever meeting you in person in the process. Thank you for showing us in advance what kind of assholes you really are. We're forever in your debt.

Remember kids: Block early, and block often.

Eh. It's a valid question, but the gist of the backup for it totally misses the point.

You're asking strangers to basically stand in for all the other strangers who will be viewing your profile. So it doesn't matter what those volunteer strangers have in their profiles or what they're looking for. Their job isn't to be a good match for you, it's to distill their impressions of how you appear to the outside world.

Countless times, sincere and lovely people come up with stuff in their profiles that makes them look like complete fucking gits and without that mirror strangers hold up, they'll never know the impression they're making. After all, they know their own intent, so they know they aren't gits.

Anyone can hold up that mirror, given even a small slice of empathy.

My advice isn’t rocket surgery.

Have a good, updated pictures. don’t have a messy background. Talk in complete sentences. Don’t be too fat or look too weird.

I’m not exactly Annie Sullivan here This is just common sense shit.

Do you want to have hairy armpits or a beard like an 1849 prospector? Great. But you also have to face the fact that you’ll get less interest.

Why take advice from complete strangers?

This question was asked in a different thread. It’s a good question, and worthy of its own thread.

The “Better Profiles” forum is one of the best and brightest features of this web site. I wish other web site would develop something similar. It’s an area where people spend time and energy trying to help their fellow swingers, and wannabe swingers. It’s always nice to see positive actions in this increasingly negative online world.

The main reason most folks seek advice is because they are not totally satisfied with the results they are currently getting. They ask for help in this forum because they see that people try to give honest and earnest advice. It’s good to get different and sometime conflicting perspectives. To paraphrase Wulferic Brian, help will always be given at Better Profiles to those who ask for it.

Our profile is somewhat meh, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t have information that may prove useful to a newbie. Similarly, I’ve seen excellent advice about photos given by people who don’t even have public pictures posted. The analogy here would be an author taking advice from an editor; many editors are failed writers, yet their advice is sound.

This thead was started in response to Esperanza911l’s post, which is quotes here:

“Not sure why people want or take advice from complete strangers who might be looking for completely different things in terms of what makes a profile worthwhile. Some of the people giving advice have some of the most uninspiring profiles I have seen. Just as I am sure lots of people would be completely turned off by ours. Minimally, be sure you are taking advice from a profile that you find appealing.
Like... if you were writing a novel, would you want feedback from some rando who had barely written a cohesive sentence, or from a favorite author”