After your profile is posted ...

Your profile has made it past the approval phase, and it is "live" on Yahoo! Personals. What next? You can wait for someone to contact you, or you can become a subscriber and start conversations with other singles you find interesting and attractive. By joining, you'll be able to get in touch with anyone on Yahoo! Personals. Membership is less than $25 a month.

Here are some helpful hints for managing the new relationships you'll develop on Yahoo! Personals:

• Determine the most important qualities you are looking for and rank them by importance; e.g., 1) likes opera/football, 2) looking for a serious commitment/casual dating, 3) on the corporate track/free spirit, etc. Don't be overwhelmed – create a "dating ranking system."
• After reading through your responses, print out the "keepers" and send polite declines or delete the ones that just don't interest you.
• Create a special file for your potential dates.
• Begin rating your respondents based on your requirements.
• Read between the lines – you can tell a lot about a person in their correspondence.
• Spend time emailing, instant messaging, and talking on the phone and make notes on your conversations.
• Get input from friends and family; send them copies of the profiles and see what they think.

Not receiving the results that you expected? The main reason people don't get many results is that their searches are too narrow.

Consider broadening your requirements. Don't limit yourself to such things as "must make $200,000, have blonde hair and blue eyes and live a quarter of a mile from me."

Love comes in the most unexpected packages.

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