{"id":1074,"date":"2026-08-04T16:40:50","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T16:40:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/replyguru.online\/?p=1074"},"modified":"2026-08-04T16:40:50","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T16:40:50","slug":"people-who-are-generic-bland-usually-use-4-casual-phrases-when-dating-christie-hartman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/replyguru.online\/?p=1074","title":{"rendered":"People Who Are Generic &#038; Bland Usually Use 4 Casual Phrases When Dating | Christie Hartman"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>As part of my job as a psychologist and relationship expert, I periodically get online and read online dating profiles, both men&#8217;s and women&#8217;s. I rarely come across a profile that impresses me.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Sure, I&#8217;m a tough crowd, but that&#8217;s my job. But while some online dating profiles are truly bad and need to be overhauled immediately, most are decent, except for one common problem: they use generic, bland phrasing that suggests the person behind it hasn&#8217;t put much thought into how they want to present themselves. This happens in person too.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2>Generically bland people usually use these casual phrases when dating:<\/h2>\n<h3>1. &#8216;I enjoy traveling&#8217;<\/h3>\n<p>This is a generic, bland phrase to use because, well, a lot of people enjoy traveling. Try making this casual phrase more specific:\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Where specifically have you traveled? Which destinations do you want to visit in the future? There&#8217;s a big difference between someone who enjoys a relaxing cruise to the Caribbean and someone who loves to explore a country on a budget.<\/p>\n<h3>2. &#8216;I spend a lot of time outdoors&#8217;<\/h3>\n<p>I live in Colorado, and this is practically a required statement in online dating profiles here. Yet every person has a different idea of what outdoor enjoyment looks like.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Do you walk your dog daily? Hike every weekend? Climb mountains? Barbecue in your backyard? Details, rather than a casually bland phrase like this one.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-body-related-links\"><strong>RELATED: Trial Attorney Shares 3 Casual Phrases That Immediately Shut Down A Gaslighter <\/strong><\/p>\n<h3>3. &#8216;I enjoy reading\/movies&#8217;<\/h3>\n<p class=\"media media--type-image media--view-mode-default\"> <span class=\"field field--name-field-media-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.yourtango.com\/sites\/default\/files\/image_blog\/2026-07\/attractive-young-woman-online-dating-profile.png\" width=\"850\" height=\"850\" alt=\"attractive young woman looking at her online dating profile\" title=\"People Who Are Painfully Generic &amp; Bland Usually Use These Phrases In Their Dating Profile\" class=\"img-fluid\" typeof=\"foaf:Image\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/span> <span class=\"field field--name-field-credit field--type-string field--label-hidden field__item\">Dikushin Dmitry \/ Shutterstock<\/span><\/p>\n<p>These are popular pastimes. Feel free to mention that you love horror or classics, that you&#8217;ve seen <em>Star Wars<\/em> twenty times, or that you&#8217;d see anything that starred Keira Knightley.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Specific examples, rather than a generic phrase, tell people so much more about you and will generate much more interest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-body-related-links\"><strong>RELATED: People Who Are Mental &amp; Emotional Losers Usually Say 11 Phrases In Casual Conversation<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3>4. &#8216;I want someone with a sense of humor&#8217;<\/h3>\n<p>The same goes for &#8220;I love to laugh.&#8221; I&#8217;ve never met anyone who hates laughter or funny people. Yet everyone has a different idea of what&#8217;s funny and what&#8217;s not. Sprinkle some humor into your profile or cite examples of funny movies you love. The humor in <em>When Harry Met Sally<\/em> differs a lot from <em>Dumb and Dumber<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re online and not getting many emails or the emails you receive are from people who don&#8217;t interest you at all, it&#8217;s likely because your profile uses too many generic, bland phrases and doesn&#8217;t give people a sense of who you are. As I discuss in my book, <em>Find The Love of Your Life Online<\/em>, it&#8217;s much harder for the right person to find you if you don&#8217;t convey your unique self in your profile.<\/p>\n<p>What does it mean to be bland &amp; generic, though? Generic means you have no clear identity; you&#8217;re just the everyday person in plain brown wrapping. Sure, you won&#8217;t annoy or turn people off with a generic statement, but you won&#8217;t get them clamoring to meet you. Generic is boring, and you&#8217;re not boring. You&#8217;re unique and interesting, and the right person is looking for your type.<\/p>\n<p>If you want to succeed in dating, you must highlight what&#8217;s unique about you and what makes you different from other women. But often, people do the opposite when dating online: they hide anything unusual about themselves, afraid of reducing their number of possible suitors. This &#8220;trying to appeal to everyone&#8221; strategy will backfire. Instead, you want to appeal to <em>your<\/em> kind of people. The good stuff is in the details. Why sound generic &amp; bland when you can sound like you?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-body-related-links\"><strong>RELATED: People Who Know How To Get Others To Listen Usually Say 7 Phrases In Casual Conversation<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Christie Hartman<\/em><em> is a psychologist, scientist, dating expert, and author who specializes in unraveling the scientific and psychological mysteries behind dating and attraction.<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"midcat-most-popular\"><span>Related Stories From YourTango:<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yourtango.com\/love\/people-painfully-generic-bland-use-casual-phrases-when-dating\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As part of my job as a psychologist and relationship expert, I periodically get online and read online dating profiles, both men&#8217;s and women&#8217;s. I rarely come across a profile that impresses me.\u00a0 Sure, I&#8217;m a tough crowd, but that&#8217;s my job. But while some online dating profiles are truly bad and need to be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1075,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"tmauthors":[],"class_list":["post-1074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-self-love","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/replyguru.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/replyguru.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/replyguru.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/replyguru.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/replyguru.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/replyguru.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/replyguru.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/replyguru.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/replyguru.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/replyguru.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1074"},{"taxonomy":"tmauthors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/replyguru.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftmauthors&post=1074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}