Girl on the Brink: Surviving Desperate Times with Desperate Measures

When I read online dating profiles, I don’t really know what I’m looking for. I just know it when I read it.

I spend about as much time reading them as I imagine recruiters spend reading resumes—about 30 seconds.

Like a hiring manager, I’m looking for someone that grabs my attention. It could be the sincerity of their writing, originality or the turn of an old phrase into something baby-powder fresh.

Take, for instance, “successful looking.”

When I read that, the phrase leaped out at me, not for what it said but for what it didn’t say. His picture provided context. I’ll spare the details.

I think saying you’re successful looking is so much better than saying, “I lost my job, and it sucks. I hardly have any money so don’t expect much if I take you out. But throughout my career, I’ve acquired some spiffy clothes, and I promise to wear them. I also keep myself fairly well groomed.”

When I look at myself in the mirror, I think I could also say I’m successful looking. But I don’t think I’d ever write that in an online dating profile, just like I don’t think I’d ever list “domestic executive” as one of my job titles. That’s a euphemism for women who have exited their careers to enter motherhood.

While I like to look nice (okay, like a babe), I don’t measure my success (entirely) on how much money is in my bank account.

I look at my past successes, add them all up and compare myself to peers in my profession, at least that’s how I look at it from the inside.

On the outside, I wish we could all  get naked. That way, our clothes couldn’t signal that we were successful looking but our body parts could.