Facebook stalking, online profile may ruin your chances of a good date

Should a single man be on Facebook? Not if he’s looking for a mate.

Writer Kate Carraway told KIRO Radio’s Jason Rantz that when a single woman like her starts dating a guy, the first thing she does is go to his Facebook page.

“Every single girl that I’m friends with would do the same thing, it’s not just Facebook – it’s beyond. The first few pages of your Google results are definitely going to be considered,” said Carraway. “Facebook is just the one that is typically the most informative, and the most stocked with information.”

Women immediately look for photos that might indicate there are some red flags about their date.

“A lot of times, guys will have photos of say, themselves with a beer model or themselves doing something really dumb, drunk antics, whatever. It’s not a matter of doing these things, it’s a matter of representing them on your page as though you’re really proud of them,” she said. Even a really good guy, a really conscientious guy with really bad photos that show him in a negative light on his Facebook page, that’s a red flag. I would think, ‘Why would he want us to know about those moments?'”

Women also look for bad grammar, web slang, such as a lot of LOLs, and the type of people who follow you.

The bottom line here is that you may know you’re a decent guy, you may know that you’re responsible and sober and nothing like the poorly-educated arrogant beer-swilling slacker that you appear to be on your Facebook page. But these days, your Facebook page is your personal brand.

“The reality is we have more and more people we’re confronted by all of the time. We make quicker decisions, I think. We go through relationships, I think, a little more quickly,” said Carraway. “My argument is not that it should be this way, it’s more about looking at the reality and deciding the only way to win and to be true and be honest and to have a good representation of yourself is to be off Facebook. Only present yourself in person, in a real way.”

But having no Facebook page? Wouldn’t that be going too far in the other direction? Wouldn’t that make you suspicious that the guy is hiding something?

Absolutely not. Carraway said that finding a mate is the time to go low-tech.

She said it’s powerful for adults who have dated before, been in long relationships, have baggage of some kind to not be overexposed.

Instead, getting offline and having an in-person date and getting to know someone is far more powerful and romantic.

And use the phone too. “I don’t think of a man as someone who texts me, I think of a man as someone who calls me to say, and be vulnerable in that moment, and says, ‘Do you want to go out with me?’ That’s much more sexy and much more powerful. So if you’re the only guy that does that […] she’s going to think about you very differently and very positively.

I love it! Thirty-somethings who carry smart-phones 24/7 are rediscovering that those things can actually be used to make phone calls.

Kate Carraway wrote about what a woman wants on your Facebook page for GQ Magazine.

MyNorthwest.com’s Alyssa Kleven contributed to this report.