Providing biographical details is not worse than writing a CV; it's just different, and this may be the source of your trepidation. In a CV your goal is to paint yourself, and particularly your achievements, in the best possible light so as to attract potential employers. Self-aggrandisement is pretty much expected, and discussing your faults and failures is a no-no. Your goal is to secure an economic relationship by selling yourself to the employer. A dating profile is much different. Here you are not looking to win over a potential source of income by boasting about your achievements and glossing over your faults; you are looking for a mutually compatible personal relationship, and therefore need to give an honest and open accounting of yourself, warts and all. You also need to give at least a vague description of the sort of partner you are looking for. A good dating site, such as OkCupid, will guide you through this process by posing some biographical essay questions for you. All you need to do is to answer them truthfully, without concern about how people in general may view your answers. Remember, you are not trying to impress people in general; you are trying to find someone who happens to share your interests, find your personality intriguing, and accept your faults. Unless you want to deal with rejection after people have already gone through the trouble of contacting you, the only way of doing this is to be open about your interests, personality, and faults in your profile. Better to be simply and silently passed over by people browsing profiles than explicitly rejected by someone who contacted you, or even went on a date with you, only for them to find out that you weren't what they were looking for in the first place.
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Providing biographical details is not worse than writing a CV; it's just different, and this may be the source of your trepidation. In a CV your goal is to paint yourself, and particularly your achievements, in the best possible light so as to attract potential employers. Self-aggrandisement is pretty much expected, and discussing your faults and failures is a no-no. Your goal is to secure an economic relationship by selling yourself to the employer. A dating profile is much different. Here you are not looking to win over a potential source of income by boasting about your achievements and glossing over your faults; you are looking for a mutually compatible personal relationship, and therefore need to give an honest and open accounting of yourself, warts and all. You also need to give at least a vague description of the sort of partner you are looking for. A good dating site, such as OkCupid, will guide you through this process by posing some biographical essay questions for you. All you need to do is to answer them truthfully, without concern about how people in general may view your answers. Remember, you are not trying to impress people in general; you are trying to find someone who happens to share your interests, find your personality intriguing, and accept your faults. Unless you want to deal with rejection after people have already gone through the trouble of contacting you, the only way of doing this is to be open about your interests, personality, and faults in your profile. Better to be simply and silently passed over by people browsing profiles than explicitly rejected by someone who contacted you, or even went on a date with you, only for them to find out that you weren't what they were looking for in the first place.