Top ten online dating tips

　　Follow our top ten online dating tips and create your free profile at the Telegraph's online dating site, Kindred Spirits. With over 30,000 members you are bound to find that special someone...
　　It's hard enough being single - for whatever reason - without friends trying to set you up on double dates or drag you along to the nearest speed dating event. Nowadays, with the growth of online dating, it's much easier to sit at home and chat via computer than meet people face to face in the real world and make that initial contact with them.
　　But if you want to get the most from online dating there are some key 'rules' and top tips that can really make the difference. If you're looking for friendship, love or companionship and are considering online dating (as over 30,000 other Kindred Spirits members already have) then you should follow our top ten tips for first time online daters.
　　The essential photograph
　　Online dating without a profile photograph is like buying a car from eBay without seeing a picture – pointless. You've got more chance of changing a traffic warden's mind before they give you a ticket than you have of piquing a potential date's interest without a decent photo. Therefore ask a friend or relative to help you out. Maybe you’re shy or worried people you know might find you (workmates, perhaps). If it’s the former, buck up. You’ve made a brave step by joining, but you’ve got to complete that step to make it worthwhile. If it’s the latter, then take pride, and make your profile the best profile anyone ever clapped eyes on.
　　Age of your photo
　　Your main photo should be no more than four years old. If you look preposterously more attractive in it than you do in real life, that's fair enough, if it really is a recent photo of you. However, to prevent a date's crushing disappointment followed by bitter resentment, you should include some more realistic shots in your extra photos.
　　Best strawberry on top
　　Write your profile. Read it through. Take the best bit and make it the first sentence, then re-write. Online profiles are like articles in a flicked though newspaper: if they don’t grab you immediately, you don’t read them.
　　Choose wisely
　　Pick a friend and get them to write a few sentences. Rather than picking the person who knows you best, pick a good writer or a witty friend (because this is an advert, not a confessional).
　　The truth will out
　　“I look 29, so it’s OK to say that I am.” claimed one 35 year-old. “I live in Birmingham, but I’ve said London because I go there often” said another girl. Women’s lies tend to be subtler and more easily rationalised than men’s blundering fibs about height etc., but that does not make them better. Just be truthful, white lies always come out in the end.
　　Activities
　　It's unacceptable to claim that you are still involved in activities that you haven't indulged in for years. “Keen gymnast”, for example, when you haven't vaulted a horse since your early teens, is not on. However, if you're just in a lull - perhaps you like swimming in the sea, haven't done it for three years, but are keen and able to do it again - then that's fine to include.
　　Once you have uploaded all your relevant pictures and information...
　　Your matches
　　Click ‘my matches’ on your home page, and you will see people who best fit your specified criteria (‘my ideal match’ in your profile), and the people that you fit best. The more specific you’ve been, the more specific the results.
　　How to deal with responses, or lack of them...
　　Some people get loads of mail and simply don’t have time to respond to every one. Some have abandoned the site but left their profiles on. Some just don’t feel compatible with you, even if they did initially... Basically, it’s complicated, but often people just don’t reply. You mustn’t let it put you off.
　　Take time
　　Taking time to get to know somebody with emails and a phone call before meeting is the key to online dating. Possibly patronising to include this, but, if you want to be certain about a person's intentions, hold back for a few dates. If they’re still around, chances are that it’s you, and not just the act, that they’re after.
　　When you finally do find that special someone and agree to meet up...
　　Meet somewhere interesting
　　Arrange to meet somewhere like a book shop, local monument or on a village green. The person who arrives first will have something to look at and do while waiting, and something to talk about immediately.