This is important. In fact, this is the most important thing ever. eHarmony pitches itself as a service that matches you on a zillion levels through their overly complicated and annoying questionnaire process. However, think of it this way – if you have decided to bite the bullet and pay for matchmaking service, you want to get your money’s worth. Without an excellent picture in your dating profile you are wasting your money. Was that the idea? Hardly.

No matter how many questions you answer and how carefully eHarmony’s algorithm will be picking your matches, if your potential soul mate will see a garbled picture with someone wear something flashy shot against some kind of car – you pretty much making sure they won’t be interested. Imagine the girl of your dreams passing by because you yourself didn’t make any effort to make the connection.

One good thing about eHarmony is that even after another party has decided to close the connection, you still have a “grace shot” at it, sending your kind of closing message. After I have posted pictures to my profile I went through most of closed communications and shot back with “I have uploaded the pictures”. I bet only about 10 – 20% of ladies will give it another look. Just think about the rest of them and how much you are missing by simply being a lazy ass and not posting your pictures.

Remember: before you can get to her ears you need to please her eyes. Regardless of how many questions eHarmony will have you answer, not a single one of them makes you closer with your match.

It’s year 2008 and there’s no need to remind you that almost all communications are now online. There’s also a great chance that you are trying to find your dates on the internet, on one of numerous dating web sites. That – or rather pictures on those profiles – would be the focus of our attention here.

The most common mistake almost everyone seems to make is taking a picture with something that should translate a “subliminal” message. Guys take their pictures with their supposedly hot car in the background, while girls prefer to lean heavily on party or travel photographs. Let’s look at these cases a little closer.

There’s nothing wrong in posting you picture in or around your car – IF YOU DESIGNED THE CAR YOURSELF! Otherwise the message you’re sending is basically “I am so fat/ugly/dumb that I had to put my car into the picture to make the photograph worth looking at“. Think about it for a moment. Unless you are on a hunt for a gold digger the expensive car in the background doesn’t really add anything to your profile. By the same rationale you might have took picture with your neighbour’s car, so if you think you project an image of a wealthy individual – you’re wrong.

Same kind of thought process should be applied to the pictures from parties. Just think there for a moment: if you post your pictures from your friend’s bachelor partwhere you’re surrounded with at least three almost naked strippers – you’re saying that you are unable to be in a serious relationship. If you have that macho look with a bottle of beer in your hand – it means that’s pretty much what you want to do in life. If you pose semi-naked showing off your muscles it means there’s nothing else about you but those muscles. Good for a one-night stand, but nothing more. Picture of you and similarly drunk friends – well, you got the idea.

So what’s a good pciture? Honestly – I don’t know. The picture I had on my dating profile that won me the hottest girl that was around wasn’t of a good quality. It showed me from shoulders up, the naked shoulder muscles were out, with one of my cats sitting on my hand. I wasn’t quite shaved and had a regular inquisitive look on my face. As I have found out what girls thought was something like “Well, this guy is strong – look at those muscles – but has a tender side to him, since he’s holding a cat just like he would have held a baby. Let me give him a try…” Can’t say how close to the truth all this is, after all – this was said on a date in order to get me interested, but I think you got the drift.

Of course, the picture alone won’t give you a perfect date, as it has to be YOUR picture. You also should think about what you say or write. And good luck with dating, the season is long open.