Raise your hand if you've ever encountered an online dating profile with a line sounding like this:
So my guess is that you are looking at the fact that I am from New Jersey ... I promise you all that I am not the typical Jersey girl.
Now raise your hand if you've ever written one.
Seemingly innocuous lines like these can actually be incredibly detrimental because they contain qualifiers. A qualifier is used to modify the interpretation of something previously said. Want a recipe for Instant Qualifier? Just add the letters "J" and "K" after a joke. We do this all the time. So what's the problem? The problem with them is the insecurity they convey.
Let's take this woman's profile excerpt above. As context, there may be a real or imagined stigma toward someone who lives in New Jersey. (In college, I was told I was from "the armpit of America" because I was from New Jersey. Lovely.) She immediately presumes that her location could be a deal-breaker for her prospective suitor and goes into prevention mode. Not so fast! While I'm not a psychologist, I can tell you that there are two cognitive distortions occurring here that shed light on how and why we qualify ourselves.
Mind reading
Wouldn't it be amazing if we could predict the future? Apparently this woman can! Somehow this woman knows that the instant we click on her profile we will begin struggling with the fact that she is from The Garden State. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, that isn't what happened. My first thought had nothing to do with her being from New Jersey _ it had to do with how presumptuous she sounded. Ironically, her efforts at being seen in a favorable light hurt rather than helped her.
Filtering
Have you ever received a really good grade on a test but couldn't stop thinking about that one question you answered incorrectly? (Ahem, my SATs) Sometimes we dwell on that one negative aspect of ourselves at the expense of everything else. Hypothetically, let's imagine that New Jersey is an objectively bad place, somewhere only social misfits are sent. Let's say she lives there. Does that define her completely? Are there no other redeeming qualities to this person? It seems that her intellect, looks, sense of humor, and kindness have been completely overshadowed by the fact that she lives in New Jersey, hell on Earth. JK!
Why do we do this? Creating an online dating profile, thereby putting yourself "out there," is admittedly scary, so qualifying tends to reduce people's anxiety. I imagined this woman sitting down to write about herself and becoming overwhelmed with these possibilities:
Will guys in Philly or NYC like me? Would anyone take the Turnpike here? Will people judge me for having a Bon Jovi poster?
Believe it or not, we sometimes prefer to create negative certainty than tolerate uncertainty. She would rather pretend that we loathe the land of full-service gas stations than not know how we feel about it. Instead of qualifying yourself, leave your statements as is.
I live in Cherry Hill.
That's it. Move on to the next sentence describing all your other, likely desirable, qualities. How did the reader react? Who cares? We can't read minds!
Here are some indicators you may be qualifying yourself in your online communication:
Don't worry, I swear, Sorry, But...
A few revisions can go a long way toward conveying that you are a secure person who is, indeed, comfortable with not knowing exactly how you are being evaluated. By eliminating qualifiers, you are actually practicing confidence and taking the first step in becoming that person.
