And That's Why You're Single

Do You Reveal A Sensitive Situation In Your Dating Profile?

Posted: 17 Apr 2014 05:29 AM PDT

Alias (DO NOT USE A REAL NAME!!): Hobbs

Comment: Hi all,
My situation is a little unique. About a year ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. My wife left a few weeks after the diagnosis so I moved back in with the folks and continued my treatment. Fast forward to today, I still have some significant health issues related to the cancer treatment. I’m returning to school to finish my degree and I’m still living at home. I would prefer to put all this information in my profile. However, I have been verbally abused before because she didn’t think it was fair of me to have anyone help me (I think she was just a little crazy). How much should I put in the profile? Everyone here wants to do more physical activities, which I just can’t do at the moment and may not ever be able to do again. Also, this was testicular cancer so there was some very important damage to that area. Thanks for reading.
Age: 29
City: Colorado Springs
State: CO

The thing with cancer, any kind of cancer, is that a lot of people think of it in one way. They don’t realize that millions of people get diagnosed with cancer, get treatment, and continue to lead normal, healthy, and productive lives. They just hear “cancer” and go to a dark place.

If you physically show signs of having undergone treatment like radiation or chemo, then I can see why you might want to address this. But if you don’t, then I would wait until you get to know someone before you go in to any specifics. I know you’re trying to be honest and attempting to weed out people who might turn you down once they here this news, but you’ll also be alienating perfectly decent people who don’t have a full understanding of your personal situation. Plus, by being so honest, you’re making yourself uncomfortably vulnerable via a very, very public medium.

At any given time, many of us have something going in in our lives that will somehow impede our love lives. The death of a family member, a recent break-up or divorce, an illness, etc. Maybe someone, oh I don’t know, even writes a dating and sex related column. Everybody, or at least a lot of people, has something. When I used to inform guys of what I do for a living, and I addressed it in a way that revealed that my job has been problematic for some, you can bet I scared those guys off. When I simply sent them a link to my site and said, “This is me” I had a much higher success rate of converting those guys in to offline dates. Instead of seemingly apologizing for having suffered an illness or divorce or weight gain or career choice, just accept that certain people will pass you by for those things. And other people won’t. Everybody has their own baseline of what works for them. That’s not about you. That’s about them.

When I read a profile that addresses something sensitive about the person that they feel might make dating them difficult, I take it as a warning. It’s almost like their telling me to greatly lower my expectations. Which, of course, I already do. But I don’t need them to tell me to do that. Being this upfront sets the wrong tone. It’s as if you’re telling people to think twice before contacting you. You’re also telling people that other people have disqualified you for this supposed problem.

You don’t ever want to tip your hand that you’ve had any kind of issues with getting people to meet or date you. By doing so, you’ll be planting a seed in someone’s head that there’s something about you that is so troubling that you are repeatedly getting rejected.

Hobbs, you can say in your profile that you don’t see yourself scaling mountains any time soon due to a medical issue and that you’ll happily explain over a drink, but I wouldn’t make your health the focus of your profile.You don’t have to apologize or explain yourself to strangers.

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Thursday, April 17, 2014