As I was walking into my neighborhood coffee shop, I see this cute little smiling girl and sign in the window. FREE FLIRT ADVICE. The nosey sort, I chat up the friendly lady, Laurie Davis.
What is eFlirt expert? Laurie offers advice on dating online, about things like the quality of your online profile, how to message and respond to people, etc. She says she does these little coffee shop sits and gives people free advice, and they can hire her to make changes, or even take care of all their dating tasks (what she calls “dating management”).
She got so many clients needing the dating management service (imagine a time-crunched New York executive) that she’s started a second business called FlirtExpertVIP for “independent and executive singles.” (My question? If the person doesn’t have time to answer their own emails, how will they find time to date?)
She’s doing as a business something I’d been asked to do for free (kicking myself now!) I’m a writer, and although my profile is impossibly long, it’s well-written. I’ve had people ask me to rewrite THEIR profiles. But I’ve always refused, thinking it’s sort of a bait and switch. If you read a well-written profile, you might infer the person is well educated enough to write a good profile, and might be sorely disappointed. I asked Laurie what she thought about that.
“Oh I don’t make anything up. There are people who are perfectly nice but who just need help in presenting themselves better.” I guess you could think of her like a ghost writer for dating profiles! She preserves the “voice” of the “author” while simply crafting something readable. I guess from my point of view I’d be able to ascertain the difference between a profile that is merely readable and one written by someone with a gift for turn of the phrase.
I asked her if there was anyone to whom she said, “I can’t help you.” She said no, but there are inevitably people who just like to go to Applebee’s and take walks, and they want to date too. She helps them all present this in the most appealing way possible.
She gives 10 minutes of advice free, so I asked her to take a look at my OKCUPID profile.
I know it’s quite long and I’ve been told it is “intimidating.” She said pretty much what I expected “good information, but it’s “overwhelming.” She says “guys only read a few paragraphs and if they saw ‘all this’ they’d click away.” She said for lists of books and movies, to only list three things each. No need to go into infinite detail. She did say something like, “this is just a bunch of random facts” and I had to say, “honey, I’m ALL ABOUT random facts.”
But I understood what she was saying. I was throwing too much at these poor strangers who were looking for love and ended up reading a novel. I guess I can leave all the information for dates, when you are actually supposed to throw novels at people. Doesn’t dating me sound FUN? 
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