[SAI_Peregrinus]

OKCupid. I'm male. I'm not ugly or out of shape, but not particularly attractive (IMO). I filled out a decent profile. My (now) wife messaged me first.

In general, I had success during the dating phase by looking at the woman's profile, finding something interesting, and then making my initial message reference that. Gets a conversation starter, stands out from the thousands of "hey" messages. If there was nothing interesting, I just moved on to the next person.

One thing I consider important that I did was to make a list with 5 categories: "No-go" aspects that I'd break off a potential relationship over, "must have" aspects I would require, "prefer not to have" traits I'd rather avoid but would compromise if there weren't many, and "prefer to have" traits where I could accept the absence if there weren't many, and lastly "don't care" traits. The list wasn't the important part, but evaluating my own preferences & deciding what I truly cared about was important.

[JackMorgan]

What was on your four lists if you don't mind sharing?

[bschne]

> The list wasn't the important part, but evaluating my own preferences & deciding what I truly cared about was important.

I get the temptation, I got very curios too and my first impulse would be asking the same, but maybe it might be better to just sit down and make one's own list instead.

[SAI_Peregrinus]

OP here: making the list is the point. Make it honestly. Knowing your own preferences is the important part, even if they're not things you'd admit in public. Even if they're things you want to change about yourself, or things you don't want to change about yourself but didn't know you wanted to keep. It's a way to discover part of who you are, and from there to decide how to continue. My lists won't be your lists. Sure, some things are probably identical (anyone who murdered their previous spouse is in the "no-go" list), but things like preferred physical traits are preferences that vary from person to person.