- Hey guys, I've got Sana with me today.
- Hey.
- You've never been on my channel before.
- I haven't, I haven't. - Ah.
In the video about being single I kind of mentioned
that I was done with online dating
and I couldn't be bothered with it before.
So obviously now, we're gonna make
a video about online dating.
- So my dating backstory is that I didn't really date
up until two years ago and I was like,
hmm, I kind of wanna give it a go and I actually had
a couple of friends around me that were seeing people
off of dating websites and I was like,
those are some really nice guys, I like this.
And so, I sort of went on a year of
going on online dates and sort of, you know,
I feel like I went into it thinking of it
as a bit of a social experiment.
Like, oh let's see what this is like.
And I've been seeing someone for a year and a half.
- Success story. - Very good.
- And I'm feeling lonely so I'm like,
Sana I'm desperate, help me.
- And I really enjoy sort of talking through
what I did to make it work for me.
- The first thing we're gonna do is reactivate my profile.
Woo-hoo-hoo.
Here we go, there it is.
- Very nice.
These are all general tips and the first one
that I think is one of the most important ones
is to pull up the security gates.
So what I did is I immediately put on the filter
that was only people with an 85% match or higher
can message me and that's how you sort of
get rid of most of the harassment.
So that is tip number one for me.
At least you know you won't get any people that are
entirely different from what you're looking for.
Tip number two is about pictures.
So let's see what you have.
Six pictures, good number.
- It's not too many, it's not like a whole Facebook album.
- So basically what I did as my strategy was
I put my best picture as my second picture.
- Ooh, interesting.
- My idea was my first picture was still a good picture
but I don't want people to go in and then go for the best.
- And then be disappointed.
(laughing)
- And also I want people to like me
for what I look like usually.
- Just looking human.
- Yeah, so that's one of my tips,
like have your first picture be a nice picture
but one that looks like you and then you can always,
if you have more glamorous shots or whatever.
- Glam, glam, glam, glam.
- Tip number three is attached to that
and that is show your friends your pictures
and ask them honestly, "Is this what I look like?"
- Sana, is this what I look like?
- Yes, I think it is, and you also have
a full-body shot, which is always good.
I think this is a good mix and then you've done
a friend picture towards the end which is nice
so they don't have to guess which one you are.
I would probably put a picture in as well that has,
'cause you have lots of cute dresses
and pictures from premieres and stuff.
- Yeah, but I don't wanna like be all braggy and like that.
The only braggy picture that I have
in there is me with the Radio One mic,
'cause then people are like, Radio One hey.
- So you've done really well on my next point,
which is the don't fill out too much
but also don't do too little.
'Cause sometimes you'll go into someone's profile
and they've put two or three words for every question.
But you wanna know a bit more and you can't go off
of three lines and obviously if you're on different dating
apps they sort of go off of very little information.
Yeah, I've had some people that are basically having
conversations with themselves in their profile
and you come off as a bit unhinged basically.
- I find the writing of your profile and answering
the questions the hardest thing to do.
- For me the best way to do it 'cause I sort of tried
to write as I would usually write.
And then I left some Easter eggs.
So I'm gonna get into that.
- What are the Easter eggs?
- Biggest critique I had on other people's profiles
when I was looking for dates was they would
forget to show not tell.
So they would say, "I'm sarcastic and witty."
And I'm like if you're sarcastic and witty
just write something that's like witty
but don't say that you're witty if that makes sense.
Yeah, so the Easter eggs I did basically,
my idea was that if they ask you for your favorite films,
your favorite music, and your favorite books
and what I did is I put lots of general ones in there.
Like lots of people like Game of Thrones, that's cool.
But then I put some things in that I thought
not a lot of people might know and
if they do know it I really like it.
- You're like points, points, points.
- I put Galaxy Quest in there, which is a really weird,
I think it's like a 2000-and-something film
with Alan Rickman in space.
It's great and I actually got lots
of messages from people saying,
"Oh my God, you love Galaxy Quest."
So if you can find that thing that
if someone else will see it and go,
"That person likes that thing that not
"a lot of people like but I do like,"
then that's a good conversation starter.
- Interesting.
- So yeah, you can go quite general and then put
some specific ones in that if someone picks that one out
you'll know that that's a good sign.
So this is about the messaging bit.
If you get messages what would they usually be about?
- Kind of like what you said, like oh you like this thing,
blah, blah, blah, I like it too.
Who's your favorite character or what's this?
Or they're really interested in my job and what I do
and they ask loads of questions about that.
And then I'm immediately bored.
I have these conversations with people every day.
- I put some specific questions in my profile
and so it's like what my favorite tube line is.
I got so many messages from people that are like,
"100% the Jubilee line. Central line's the best."
Because it's like quite London based.
- Victoria line, Victoria line.
Oh wait no, Circle line, sorry.
(laughing)
- And so, I would try and put some open things
in it that people can go, oh okay,
this is something I can easily message about.
Just 'cause they, you know, people are looking
for conversation starters really so the more
you give them to work with the easier it is for them.
The other thing I did is that I put
a dating idea in my profile.
And so, I said I really wanted to go to a museum late.
Basically I just tried to make it as easy as possible
to get in touch and have a conversation.
- I'm handing this to you.
(laughing)
- 'Cause I don't want to make it,
I didn't want to make it a test,
I just wanted to make it if this sounds like
the person you'd like to go on a date with
then here are the kind of dates I'd like to go on.
- Did you get a date to a museum late?
- Not until I started actually dating someone properly.
Basically giving them as many things to work with.
And I could see that I had three things
in my profile that everyone messaged me about.
- Galaxy Quest.
- It was Galaxy Quest and Firefly.
- The tube line. - Yeah.
And then I also said I had synesthesia.
So lots of people have been like what's that?
- I think I put in my profile what's the most
personal thing you're willing to be open about.
I have ulcerative colitis, it's shit.
And everyone was like, was that a pun?
I'm like yeah.
And then you just end up talking about poo.
(laughing)
- I mean, what a way to start.
(laughing)
That is sort of the profile stuff I had.
When it comes to messaging what kind of messenger are you?
- When I was using it I would go through profiles and I had
to be really compelled by someone's profile to message them.
I only went on two dates from this dating website
and two dates from Tinder.
- How long did you talk to them before you agreed to go
on a date 'cause I have a theory about this as well.
- Maybe only like a week.
- So my usual strategy was that
on a Tuesday I would think,
"Oh, I'd love to go on a date this weekend."
So I'd go on with a specific purpose of I'm gonna chat
with someone and then if I like them I'm gonna ask them out
on a date or I'm gonna wait until they ask me out on a date.
For me there was a rule where I don't really
wanna have more than 10 or 12 exchanges.
- Do you say this to them?
- I'll say it at some point but basically
I don't wanna have a three-hour conversation
with someone online if I don't know
if they're even interested in actually meeting up.
Like I didn't do full, huge paragraphs.
It was just a short conversation,
we chat a little bit, maybe over the course
of one or two days and then I'd be like,
"Hey, wanna grab a drink on Friday."
- I know how awful this sounds because so many people
meet their partners from online dating now,
but I still, there's this barrier, there's this wall
for me of being I do not want to have
to tell my children that we met online.
And I hate that that still is in my head.
- I've met so many of my friends online.
- Yeah.
- Like everyone I know here I've met online.
- But it's like on an online dating site,
where it's like this is what I'm looking for
rather than just like, 'cause I've met friends online
through Twitter or YouTube and things like that,
but that seems different 'cause that's
not the purpose of it.
- I very quickly realized I wouldn't meet
the kind of person that I wanted to date at a bar
just because of my personality and stuff like that.
And so, I was like where am I gonna meet them?
They're probably on the internet like me.
(laughing)
Did you message a lot of guys or did you
sort of wait for messages to come in?
- I mean messages just came in,
and I would ignore most of them.
I did message people because I knew
that the people that I was messaging I actually
genuinely wanted to have a conversation with.
- A lot of the guys that I sort of talked to will say
that they don't get that many messages from girls.
On the website that seems to be a thing where it's like
girls get lots of messages in and guys rarely do.
So I was just sort of be like if you wanna send a message
to anyone that you're interested in you should just do it.
And I also have my tip number 10.
- Is this the final one?
- Which is that all rules are made to be broken.
- Ooh.
- This worked for me and it's
an interesting thing to just think about.
Like all these things are things to think about
while you're writing your profile.
But obviously different things work for different people.
Like you said, some people want to have really long
conversations before they meet up with someone.
- One of the things I will say is I was watching
a few TED talks and stuff about attraction
and about dating and things,
and one of the things that professionals say
is that you have to meet up with the person
as soon as possible because you can develop whatever
connection with someone online but ultimately
you're not gonna know if you have that unexplainable spark,
connection, attraction in person.
- If the conversation flows well in person.
- It's so important. - Definitely.
- I'm not sure if I'm convinced.
Guys what do you think?
Should I start online dating again?
All right, well, thanks Sana,
- I hope that was useful. - for imparting your wisdom.
on us all.
If you guys enjoyed the video please give it a thumbs up
and if you let us know your own experiences
with online dating, different apps, websites,
if you have met your partner through online dating.
- If you've got the perfect trick.
- Yeah, your own tips and things, little hacks,
that would be great.
We did a video over on Sana's channel
so you should go and subscribe to her
and we talked about our favorite 90s films,
which was very cool.
Yeah, don't forget to subscribe 'cause I make
new videos every week and we'll see you soon.
Bye. - Bye.
(funky electronic music)