The face In The Mirror
Now, coming to the picture as such, if you are sending over a picture of yourself, for heavens sake, send over a decent picture. It should be a recent one and please do not make any compromises about the quality. Get a professional to do the job for you and with the digital techniques of today, they can do a very impressive job.
At the same time do work on your expression before the photograph is taken. Stand in front of your mirror and try out various expressions till you get something that you think is the best for you. And remember that it has to be a picture of you smiling. You should not have the classic hang dog expression, or the “butter-will-not-melt-in-my-mouth expression”. Smile, it costs you nothing and it really lights up a person’s face.
Now, the first thing that you should do is take out a pencil and paper and write down the raw details about yourself. By raw details we are referring to things like you age, your height and your weight.
This is the skeleton of which we are going to work on. And when we have added enough flesh and blood to this back bone, why even you will be impressed by your profile! But first let us steer clear of certain pit falls into which most people fall.
The Modesty Pitfall
Most of us have been trained to be very modest. When it comes to saying something good about our selves we feel very queasy about blowing our own trumpet. Right, no body is asking you to do any trumpet blowing but facts have to be stated as facts.
If you are a music lover and have a good voice too, I can’t see why you can’t put it down like that itself. Why can’t you declare simply without sounding very proud that you have good voice? A pointer that you could bear in mind would be to add something like, “My friends think that I sing rather well.”
There now, you can’t feel too bad about something as simple as that. It is as good as saying “some people think that I sing well, but it is for you to decide whether I have a good voice or not.” Similar statements that you can work on and even add are given below.
“Lots of people appreciate my cooking.”
“I am no Rembrandt, but I enjoy painting.”
“I like decorating, and many of my friends think that my tastes are not too bad.”
So go ahead, if you really have a talent, you might as well as let others know about it, after all a talented person would any way like to be appreciated by a partner.
While we are talking about modesty, there is one question that I want to address right now. It is something that all of us are familiar with. If you have chatted with a stranger with whom you are trying to build a rapport you must have been confronted with the question before. The question is “what do you look like?’
I have often wondered about the sense of this question. The best answers that I could come up with are
“I look like a cross between an orangutan and a Tasmanian devil” or “I have my mothers teeth, my fathers nose, my uncle’s eyes and my roommates’ shoes.”
But of course we cannot give such answers which funny though they might sound, might just rub the person in the wrong way. What the person actually means is, “are you good looking or not?”
A very tricky question indeed! How can you answer such a question with out sounding either super modest or extremely vain? The answer to that is not to tell them the answer directly. You can say something like:
“I am as fresh as peppermint.”
“I look like a bunch of fresh lilies.”
“I have the appeal of a bowl of fresh fruit.”
If the person still does not take the hint, then give them a detailed description of ever inch and let he or she decide for himself or herself.
The Braggart Pitfall
Bragging, as we all know, is a major turnoff. So it is best to steer completely clear of it. This is especially true in the case of physical attributes. You might be one hell of a looker, but let the other person decide, remember that what wine is for Peter can turn of to be venom for Paul.
You can make implied statements like, “I am certainly not a bad looker,” or “opinion is divided, some people think that I am good looking while others think that I am not.” But perhaps the best way of describing yourself would be to add a touch of humor to it.
If you are chubby you could say something like, “I am round in all the right places…I hope.” If you are tall you could say something like, “some say I should play basketball.” If you are on the short side you could say something like, “I might seem to lacking in size but I assure you, it is all there.”
You know what is the best part about such witty remarks about oneself? Love Humor always works. All of us have been blessed with a sense of humor to some degree at least and if a person is able to make funny comments about himself or herself, that always acts as a turn on. And you can take my word for it; humor sells like a billion dollars.
The Hackneyed Pitfall
We have seen and heard other people describe themselves and these kind of descriptions sort of sink into our heads. The moment some one asks us to describe ourselves, we start off by using such hackneyed phrases.
I think it is much better to completely steer clear of hackneyed phrases. It makes us look like just another face in the crowd. Tell me, unless you have an identical twin, have you ever seen any one who looks exactly like you?
Then why on earth should your description of yourself sound like a banal organ that has been played again and again. Try to sound as original as you can. Make yourself sound interesting.
Try to use as many similes and comparisons as possible. If you are blonde, well don’t just say that you are blonde. You could descriptions like,
“My hair is the color of freshly harvested hay.”
If you are a brunette you could say something like
“My hair color would make a raven blush.” If you have red hair, you could try something like, “My hair is like the setting sun.”
Another point that I would like to add is you do not have to belittle yourself. Every coin has two sides and it all depends on the way you look at it. For example, if you have dark skin, there is absolutely no reason to feel bad about it. It all depends on how you put it across. You could try expressions like, “If you like chocolate then you are going to love the color of my skin.” Or “My body looks like polished wood.”
Remember, beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, and it is left to you to convince the beholder. Most people are willing to believe what you tell them, provided you tell them convincingly enough. |