A friend I knew had made her first foray into the online dating scene a few years ago. A confident urban young woman with a lot of poise, she was receiving a lot of requests for connections. One guy in a particular profile managed to email her directly. She showed it to me with a giggle. It read something like this:

Every morning I wake up smiling with the sun shining on my face and a smile and a song on my lips. I drive dancing to the tune of the radio on my way to work. I bring joy and happiness to those around me all day at work and when the sun goes down I get in touch with my spiritual side as my (light) head hits the pillow at the end of a glorious day.

Okay. Perhaps he didn’t mention his light head but the email was something very much like the one above.

I seem to remember that with all that sunshine in his life, he was wearing a pair of very dark glasses in the profile picture heroically holding a fish that he had caught from some water body behind him.

What can a person’s written language tell us about them as people if we don’t know them at all? Are we right to make an assessment about a person solely based on the way they come across through their writing? For example, would it be right to assume that the guy above is either silly or over-the-top or working too hard to impress? Were we right to giggle? Continue reading Who *are* you behind your online words? →