me🧔irl

Clearly a cat-fisher. ;)
Okay, jokes aside, advice for the 40+ dudes making dating profiles, assuming they want an actual relationship and not just a hookup.
(1) if all of your photos are selfies, you are unintersting, and probably anti-social. Don't just scroll through your photos on your phone and crop out your head four times from four selfies. If that's all you have on your phone, you need to work on the rest of your life.
(2) Get someone to hold your camera if you're doing profile shots. Find good backdrops. Choose one good full face profile shot, one good full body profile shot. Wear something nice in at least one of them. Or at least get a tripod so it looks like someone held the camera ;)
(3) Get a few pictures of you doing something. Even if it's fishing, and someone else took the photo -- it means to the viewer that you can be social, outdoorsy, etc. A picture of you hitting a ball at beer league baseball will do wonders. Show that you aren't boring and have varied interests.
(4) Get at least one picture of you in a group doing something social where people look like they're laughing and having a good time. Halloween party in costume with a red arrow pointing at you, or poker night table shot where you're making a face at the camera and everyone is laughing. Whatever. Show that you aren't dull, and that other people find you pleasant to be around.
Done.
When you're online dating, you're the product. Be a used car salesman selling yourself, the used car. Convince people that they'll have a great time if they make this choice.
Source: I've had a career where I've had to move a lot -- playing professional bachelor. I have entered the online dating scene after each move. The websites and apps change, but the strategy is largely the same.
- if all of your photos are selfies, you are unintersting, and probably anti-social
  When I’m doing things with friends, we’re enjoying whatever we’re doing. We don’t take photos of each other doing it. Even if a photo happens to be taken, we don’t actually share those photos. None of us have social media so we don’t post them anywhere either. I literally have zero photos of myself.
  Frankly, it really weirds me out that some people do have all these photos of random activities. Like they have a camera crew following them around in daily life.
  
  You would have a hard time online dating then. Lifestyle choices have lifestyle consequences. Such is life. ;)
- if all of your photos are selfies, you are unintersting, and probably anti-social
  Or you don't take a lot of photos.
  
  Start taking more then
- I am a woman who used dating apps for years (and eventually met my husband on one) and this is exactly the advice that I would give anyone using a dating app. These 4 pictures are enough to give someone a quick window into your looks/personality while also giving them something to ask about or bring up in conversation. It can feel vain or odd to post pictures of yourself but it's really a kindness to the person on the other side of the app that makes initial contact much less stressful!
- But also, and this applies for everyone on dating apps, don’t make the group photo your primary photo. A group photo is awesome to see you hanging with friends. It’s not awesome when I want to know who you are, and it’s a bunch of guys or girls in the photo and not just you first. Show me you, and then show me you can be fun around others
  
  Halloween party in costume with a red arrow pointing at you, (..)
- Dating profile salesman: slaps 40 year old divorcee
  “You can fit so much social activity in this bad boy”
  
  I mean, it'd make a great farside comic.
- the used car
  Sold!

The face the cats are making... After my divorce I tried taking new photos for dating sites, and after a while I found that I was making a very similar face (much like these cats) in all of them. Turns out, that's just what a depressed man looks like, even smiling I looked depressed.
So I stopped trying to date and have been working on myself since then. It's weird but I feel better about who I am now, and maybe that means I'm ready to try taking pictures again

False. At leat one of these should be holding a fish!
- That’s not even limited to the 40+. When I was on Tinder I started trying to keep tally of all the guys holding up fish or dead deer heads, but when it was like 90% of the profiles I gave up. (Midwest USA probably skews that a lot though.)
  
  It's probably some sort of sample bias. People who don't take a lot of photos will still almost always snap a photo with a nice fish.
  Back when people actually used plenty of fish, it was considered ironic.