There’s a moment in every rom-com where everything changes. The big reveal, the grand gesture, the accidental declaration of love over a karaoke performance of “I Will Survive.” For me, that moment of clarity didn’t come with an audience cheering or a cheesy pop song swelling in the background. It came on a Tuesday night, alone in my parents’ Buckhead kitchen, staring down a frozen lasagna like it owed me an explanation. I was 26, freshly dumped, and for the first time, truly untethered.

The break-up wasn’t a shock; the guy—let’s call him Michael because, well, that was his name—had all the passion of beige wallpaper. Our relationship had slowly fizzled like a flat soda, but it was comfortable, dependable, and as Southern as Sunday brunch. The end, though overdue, left me staring down a very different reality: one where my future didn’t look like the glossy Buckhead Garden Club newsletters I’d grown up reading.

But here’s the thing about being raised in a place where everyone seems to have their life neatly gift-wrapped with a monogrammed bow—you start to believe any deviation from the script means you’ve failed. It’s baked into every Garden Party, where “What are you doing these days?” sounds like a casual question but feels like an exam you didn’t study for. That night in the kitchen, shoveling burnt lasagna onto my plate, I realized the real question wasn’t what I was doing these days. It was who I wanted to be. And spoiler: Ceiling-staring, lasagna-burning Carrie wasn’t it.

Realizing the Old Script Doesn’t Fit

Up until that point, I’d been playing by what I call the Buckhead Blueprint™: meet someone “appropriate” by your early twenties, settle down, join a tennis league, and host casually perfect backyard cookouts with mismatched yet somehow curated linens. It’s like beige wallpaper Michael embodied everything I thought I was supposed to want—even if I secretly longed for something with a bit more color (and spice).

The truth is, dating in your twenties can feel a lot like a particularly grueling episode of The Bachelor. Everyone's jockeying for an engagement rose, while you’re wondering if you even came for the right reason. That Tuesday night, I flipped the mental script. What if I stopped doing what I was "supposed" to do and started figuring out who I liked, without the pressure to turn every date into a lifetime commitment?

Learning to Love the Profile Game

Enter: online dating. I’ll admit, the idea of swiping through potential suitors like I was scrolling through Net-a-Porter felt ridiculous. But after a few glasses of wine and a pep talk from my best friend, I decided to do it. Dear reader, that early Bumble profile was...not it.

In hindsight, my first dating profile read like an application to a very boring HR position: polite, sanitized, and utterly unremarkable. "I like books, live music, and exploring the city" said precisely nothing about me other than the fact I hadn’t fully emerged from my post-Michael identity crisis. It wasn’t getting any attention, but I wasn’t surprised. After all, a profile without a real personality might as well be Michael in text form.

So I hit reset. I took a deep breath, poured another glass of wine, and rewrote my profile with one rule in mind: say what actually matters to me. And in the process, I discovered a few things about creating the kind of profile that sparks genuine connection.

Here’s what I learned:

Own Your Weird (Or: Why Your Quirks Are Your Superpower)

You know what’s sexy? Specificity. Instead of vaguely listing hobbies, get personal. Love reading? Mention that Flannery O’Connor’s Southern Gothic vibe makes your heart sing—or that you’re secretly obsessed with YA thrillers. Are you into cooking? Name the dish you’d whip up for them on date three—or mention the great lasagna disaster of 2016.

By being unapologetically myself, I invited the right kind of attention, the kind that started conversations. Someone once messaged me just to debate whether Edith Wharton would have thrived or withered on TikTok (for the record: I’m team thrived). Don’t blend in; stand out. Your quirks aren’t liabilities—they’re invitations to amazing connections.

Let Your Photos Tell a Story

Ah, profile pictures. The ultimate first impression. Initially, my photos screamed "polished but forgettable," like the prom queen in a Hallmark movie before her big-city glow-up. Here’s the thing: your photos should reflect the broad spectrum of you.

  • Show your face. No sunglasses, no duck lips, no crop-your-ex-out photos. Just you. Preferably smiling like you’ve just discovered Friday-night margaritas are two-for-one.
  • A full-body shot is your friend. Not because we’re all modeling for Vogue, but because realism goes a long way.
  • Have range. One photo at a wedding (yes, you look great in evening wear), one doing something you genuinely enjoy (hello, kayaking shot you barely survived), and one candid moment where you’re laughing or goofing off (chess on my front porch, anyone?).

Keep it authentic. The goal isn’t perfection—it’s personality.

Craft a Bio that’s Equal Parts Wit and Heart

A good bio is like a rom-com trailer: it teases the best parts of you, leaves a little mystery, and makes people want more. The trick? Balance humor with honesty.

Bad: “Seeking partner-in-crime to share adventures and food delivery apps.”
Good: “The kind of girl who’ll spend Sunday binge-watching Ted Lasso but show up to trivia night ready to win solely on 90s pop culture.”

Bad: “Looking for something serious.”
Good: “Serious about exploring the local tacos scene. Bonus points if you also have a strange and unnecessary opinion about guacamole portion sizes.”

The bio is the moment to flex your voice, show your vibe, and set the stage for conversation. Make people laugh, make them curious—just make it you.

The Swipe That Changed It All

After a few weeks of retooled profiles and casually disastrous first dates (one involved a guy lecturing me about cryptocurrency for 45 minutes), I finally found my moment. One swipe, one chat, one date that felt nothing like all the others.

We met at a café tucked away in an art gallery downtown. He—let’s call him Not-Michael—kept asking me the kinds of random, offbeat questions that made me forget I was supposed to be nervous. I left that date feeling like I’d spent two hours talking to someone who already understood that weird overlap in me—the one where Southern tradition meets modern curiosity.

Spoiler alert: we’re still texting each other unnecessarily detailed takes on guacamole.

The Takeaway

The moment that changed everything wasn’t just the end of a relationship or the swipe that led to connection. It was realizing that before you can find someone who truly gets you, you have to get yourself—and be willing to show up as that person, lasagna disasters and all.

Online dating isn’t a perfect science, and yes, the landscape can sometimes feel like an awkward mixer where everyone’s wearing name tags reading “Hi, I’m Vaguely Interested.” But the right people—the ones ready to meet you where you are—will notice when you let your guard down, your quirks shine, and your personality take the lead.

Because here’s the truth about dating profiles, lasagna fumes, and life in general: the moment you stop trying to edit yourself into someone else’s expectations, is the moment your real story starts. And trust me, that’s the story worth swiping for.