hey, I'm
Kalin.

Hey there! If you've landed on this page, you're probably curious about who's actually behind Better In Person, so let me tell you a bit about myself.

I'm Kalin, a 26 year old girl born and raised in Melbourne with a genuine interest in helping this clusterfuck of a dating market. By day I work in Brand Strategy, which means I spend a lot of time thinking about how people and brands come across. What makes something interesting, what builds trust, and how small changes in presentation can completely shift how someone or something is perceived.

That's a big part of why I started doing this. I see dating profiles as basically tiny personal brands to be judged, whether we like it or not. You either make it or break it in 10 seconds max and having seen my fair share of profiles, most people are much worse at representing themselves than they realise.

I've worked a lot of random jobs over the years — hospo, retail, academia, finance — and have always been a bit of a serial hobbyist. Between that and the people in my life, I've spent a lot of time in different circles around very different personalities and backgrounds. It's made me really curious and open towards people, and if I do say so myself, pretty good at picking up on what makes someone interesting, memorable, and what actually makes them attractive.

One of the things I'm best at is spotting what's good about someone quickly, even when they're not very good at seeing or articulating it themselves. Oddly enough, I've also been a bit of a matchmaker, successfully setting up two couples because I deemed they had similar values — and they're still together!

On a personal front, I've been on the apps myself, and I met my long term partner on them. His profile was pretty mid, a bit cringe if I was to be real. Most women probably would have skipped straight past it. But there was enough there for me to take a punt. It ended up being one of the best dates I've ever been on. This combined with talking to guy friends over their challenges with online dating, I truly believe that a lot of men are far more interesting, attractive and likeable than their profiles make them seem. They're just presenting themselves in a way that doesn't translate.