100 No Bullsh*t Ways to Attract and Find a Husband

Before the coffee shop, before the bar, before the first date, there is one place almost every man is going to look you up. And most women have no idea what it is saying about them. Unfortunately, he does.

It is your Instagram.

I put “unfortunately” in the title on purpose. I know a lot of women are tired of hearing that their social media matters. You want a man to like you for you, not for a grid of photos. And the right one will. But before he gets the chance to really know you, there is a very good chance he is going to open your profile and start scrolling.

Here is what that looks like from his side. He meets you at a party, or matches with you, or a friend mentions your name. That night, he looks you up. He spends maybe ten seconds on your profile picture, your bio, and the first few rows of your grid. And in those ten seconds, he starts deciding whether you seem like a woman he could build a life with, or a woman he should not take too seriously.

Is that fair? Not really. Does it happen every single day? Absolutely. So let us make sure your profile is telling him the truth about you, and the good version of it.

Yes, he is checking

Okay, let me nerd out for a second.

Back in 2012, Match’s Singles in America survey asked more than 5,000 single Americans about their dating habits. It found that 48 percent of single women and 38 percent of single men looked up a date on Facebook before meeting them. More recently, in a 2024 survey of about 1,000 single Americans run by the advice site DatingAdvice.com, 64 percent said they look a date up online before they meet.

And according to Pew Research, 80 percent of American adults under 30 use Instagram.

So if you have ever wondered whether he looked at your profile before your first date, he probably did. He may have looked before he even asked you out.

He sees it as actually you

You might think every man knows a profile is a highlight reel. Kind of. But people mostly take your profile at face value, and they are usually not far off.

In a study of 236 social media profiles from the US and Germany, strangers looked at people’s profiles and rated their personalities. The researchers compared those ratings with how the owners actually were, and with how the owners wished they were. The strangers’ impressions matched the real person, not the idealized one. So whatever your profile shows, he assumes that is who you really are.

What other people put on your page counts too. In another study, researchers built fake Facebook profiles and changed what the owner’s friends had posted and how attractive those friends looked in their pictures. When the friends were more attractive, strangers rated the owner as more attractive too. And when friends’ comments hinted at bad behavior, the women who owned those profiles were rated as less attractive. The same kind of comments actually made the men look more attractive. I never said it was fair.

In the next chapter, I will show you how fast a man forms a first impression when he sees you in person. Online it works the same way, except this time he can stare as long as he wants.

What he looks at, in order

1. Your profile picture. Can he see your face and your smile?
2. Your bio. Your city, what you do, a couple of things you love.
3. Your top nine to twelve posts. This matters most. Does it look like you have a fulfilling life? Friends, family, work, travel, a hobby.
4. Your highlights. If spring break 2019 is still up there, it is time.
5. Your tagged photos. Almost every man taps it, because that is you the way other people see you.

What you want him to see

A man who is looking for a wife is trying to answer a few simple questions. Is she warm? Does she have a life she loves? Does she have good people around her? Could I picture her at Thanksgiving with my family?

Your follower count does not matter to him, and neither does looking like a model. What he wants are signs of the kind of woman he would love to build with.

So post the life. Photos where you are smiling and actually doing things. With your girls. With your family. At a job you love. On a trip.

What hurts you is a grid that only shows one thing. Twelve selfies in a row, or twelve nights out in a row, tells him that is all there is to your life, and he will believe it. Vague posts about being betrayed do damage too, and we will talk about that in Chapter 87. And none of this has anything to do with showing more or covering up. Wear what you love.

Your move this week

1. Look at your profile like a stranger. Open it on a friend’s phone and give yourself ten seconds. What would you guess about this woman’s life? If it is not the life you actually have, start there.
2. Update your picture and your bio. Clear, recent, and actually you. Then one or two true, specific lines, like “Austin. ICU nurse.”
3. Archive instead of delete. If old posts do not represent who you are now, archive them. They are still there if you ever want them back.
4. Make your next three posts count. One with people you love, one doing something you love, and one that shows something you are doing.

Your profile is what he sees on his phone. But the second you walk into a room, before you say a single word, a man already has a story about you in his head. And most of that story comes from something you picked out of your closet that morning.

Let me show you how to make sure it is the right story.