The other day a woman sent me her online profile and asked me to evaluate it.

Now, she had this beautifully written profile.

It was amazing.

It was like a story of her life. A little too long, but still it was nice.

And then I went to the most important part—the pictures.

That’s right, ladies—wake up, we’re all about the pictures. We don’t care what you put in your profile if the pictures aren’t good.

So, I looked at her pictures.

She had the classic looked-like-she went-to-Sears-Picture-Studio shot—and so I dismissed it immediately. (Whenever we see the professional photo first, we think to ourselves, “Now, she doesn’t really look like that. She basically went into Sears, got some make-up done at the Nordstroms makeup counter, and had a Sears photographer take the picture.”)

So then I scrolled down to see the other pictures. The next picture is always something ridiculous, like with her in the distance. There’s always a picture of her riding a bicycle or maybe jumping out of an airplane, or maybe rock climbing or something.

But that long distance shot is the one that really gets me.

Ladies: we’re not eagles. We can’t see what you look like in the distance.

Now, you may think it’s cool that you rock climb.

You may think it’s cool that you’re jet skiing.

But we don’t care.

We want to see what you look like from top to bottom. We want to see your eyes, your face, your body—everything.

We’re men.

Then I scroll down and the next picture had a picture of her dog. Yeah, that’s what we want to date—your dog. Great.

Scroll down to the next one. Then I see a picture of her and some of her friends.

That brunette, wait…which one is she? Which brunette is she?

Here’s the deal: if you put the Sears Photo Studio picture first, then we don’t really know what you look like because you definitely don’t look like that professional picture.

Then you put the one where we need to be an eagle to see what you look like.

Then you put the dog.

Then you put a picture of you and your friends, so we don’t know which one is which.

We’re not going to know what you really look like. So we’re going to get frustrated and leave your profile immediately.

Men are not interested in playing Where’s Waldo on your profile. We want to see you.

So here’s what you do:

Five pictures. Two head shots. Three body shots. Make sure they’re all current. No shots of you on a hill 50 yards away. No Sears Portrait Studios shots. And we could care less what your dog looks like. (We’ll meet him later if we find you attractive.)

You want to be more successful and get more messages in your inbox?

Fix your pictures.