For the freeform question, fill in single words that identify you or specify what you are looking for, separated by commas or newlines. In many cases, you'll want to put the same words in both boxes. For instance, putting bear in both boxes would mean you're a bear looking for bears. Putting museum in both boxes would mean you like museums and want to meet other people who do too.

You must use dashes to make compound words, like rock-climbing. (Rock climbing is invalid and will confuse the system).

If you just want to describe yourself without stating a preference, put it in the right-hand box only. For instance, putting smoker on the right indicates you are a smoker, but do not care whether your matches also are.

Similarly, if you watch to look for something without saying anything about yourself, put it only in the left-hand box. For instance, putting astronaut on the left indicates that you want to meet astronauts, but you are not one.

Combining those two allows for options like putting femme on the left and butch on the right, meaning "I'm butch and would like to meet femme people". Similarly, putting extravert on the left and introvert on the right means that you yourself are an introvert, but prefer partners with a contrasting social personality.

You can indicate strong preferences with a varying number of exclamation marks, such as nerd! or one-night-stand!!!.

A Short FAQ

Q: How does the matching work?
A: We prioritize matches that have shared terms. Only matches where both people use a term are impacted.

Q: What about misspellings and different words for the same thing?
A: We maintain a mapping of synonyms and misspellings, so similar words get treated as the same, as long as we notice them. But we don't always notice, so checking your spelling while filling out the form is not a bad idea.

Q: What happens if I am the only one who uses a term?
A: That is okay. It does not help or hurt your matches.

Q: Can I prevent potential matches with this?
A: You cannot make a date impossible with these free-form match words. No matter how many exclamation points you put on "adventure!!!!!" it won't stop you from matching with people who aren't adventurous (after all, not everybody is going to use every word that might describe them). What we DO do is promote matches that are positive, and promote them more if you use more exclamation points.

Q: What if I want to avoid something?
A: You can put "not" in front of your words, e.g., not smoker would penalize a match with someone who identified as a smoker.

So what words do I use?

Good question! Use what you like, but for some example tags people have used, go here.