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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   2112 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 6, 2025

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Does anyone have any good links to blogs or posts about how to use dating apps optimally? I figure someone has this stuff figured out

Based on friends who have all gotten long-term relationships from the apps, combined with my own experience, here's what I can tell you:

  1. Use Hinge, and nothing else. The quality of people on there is much better and the other apps are garbage.
  2. Use good photos; don't just pick the six most recent photos with you in them. The first one should be a good picture that shows what you actually look like. One picture should be of you in a group, so they can see that you actually have friends, but more than one creates confusion as to who you actually are. It also shouldn't be one of you and your ex, and ideally shouldn't include anyone better looking than you are. This also shouldn't be your first picture, and should be somewhere down in the order so the only people who will see it will be those intrigued enough to scroll down that far. At least a few pictures should be purpose-shot. You don't have to hire a photographer, but a friend who knows how to work a real camera with a long lens will help. Don't include too many pictures where you're wearing a hat or sunglasses as this makes it hard for to see what you look like. Some of the pictures should be "action shots" of you engaging in hobbies so they can see that you're interesting rather than read about it. Make sure you're smiling and showing your teeth. A lot of guys tend to smirk or look overly serious, and women don't like that. Women also don't care about cars so shots of you posing in front of your Mustang or WRX just make you look like a douche. The only exception would be if you own a Lambo or something and want to attract women who are after your money. Don't include pictures of you with deer you shot or fish you caught. No pictures of you shirtless or flexing. Selfies are bad. Bathroom selfies are worse. Bathroom selfies of you flexing are worst. You can include a Linkedin style professional photo if you have one, but I'd save this for last.
  3. Fill out the profile completely or almost completely. The purpose is to make you look like an attractive, well-rounded person. Include your job (unless you're a doctor, which will get you more matches but from women looking for guys with money), especially if you have a good professional job. If you're working as a bartender but graduated from college, it's okay to just list the college. It's also okay to just list the job if you're paranoid about them being able to figure out who you are (which can be surprisingly easy). It's fine not to list your religion if you don't want to, but your politics are liberal. Most young women in urban areas simply won't date Trump supporters, and if you say you're moderate or other or nothing they'll just think you're a conservative who doesn't want to admit it. Your height is an inch taller than you actually are, unless you're like 6'5" or something. Unless you're obviously black or East Asian your race is white. It's fine to omit one or two of these but if you omit too many the profile looks incomplete and it makes you look either uninteresting or like you have something to hide.
  4. If you have children, say you have children. If you don't, say you don't. Omitting this does you no good and can fuck things up. Women who aren't open to dating guys with kids won't risk it on guys who they don't know that about if they have other options. If you do have kids and they find out later it might be a dealbreaker. As far as intentions, be specific with those as well; if you want kids say you want kids, if you don't say you don't, and if you're open to the idea but not committed one way or the other say that. "Not sure yet" may be an option if you're under 30, but in general you'd just be turning people off since a girl who wants kids isn't going to be happy if the guy decides he doesn't want them after she's been dating him for two years. You're looking for a long-term relationship; if you're looking for a hookup you shouldn't be on Hinge. Saying "life partner" may be fine but could come across as a bit intense. Saying "figuring out my dating goals" makes you look confused and indecisive; I always assume people who write this are dipping their toe in the water after a divorce and will probably be flaky. Saying "long, open to short" or the reverse makes it look like you're either taking what you can get or are looking for a hookup but don't want to admit it.
  5. Select your prompts carefully, and include as much information as possible. I don't have a list of prompts at my fingertips, but you should be able to discern which ones actually say something about you and which ones don't. You only get three of these so use them wisely; saying that you order the loaded french fries for the table doesn't add anything to the discussion. On the other hand, saying what you do on a typical Sunday communicates what you like to do when you're not working or running errands, and saying what you could do together communicates what you have to offer in a relationship. Avoid one-word answers and non-answers, which are things that apply to pretty much everybody. So, you like tacos, travel, and music? Great, so does everybody else. Give her a reason to date you over the masses with generic responses. Even if she doesn't like all the things you like, it will at least make you seem interesting.
  6. Avoid using negative prompts. The last thing you want to do is give someone a reason not to match with you. If something is a serious dealbreaker, Hinge has a match note feature where it will come up when you match and give them the option to back out. I've only seen this once, and it was just a generic thing about actually being serious about starting a long-term relationship. But unless something is a serious no-go I wouldn't bother; you only get three prompts, so use them wisely. Also, and this probably goes without saying, but there are a bunch of prompts that mention therapy that shouldn't be used by anybody.
  7. The general theme of this list so far is that your profile will make or break your success. Six photos and three prompts are the only information the person on the other end is going to have when deciding to make a match. This is valuable real estate and you don't want to waste any of it. I've talked to a lot of female friends about this, and they're pretty unanimous and unequivocal about their complaints. It's been said over and over again about how women have it much easier on these apps then men, and while that's true to an extent, women have their own frustrations. Sure, a woman may be flooded with likes, but a large percentage of those are going to be from guys who have half-assed profiles that don't give them any usable information and another large percentage is going to be from guys who put some effort into making profiles that seem designed to appeal to other guys (though women are equally guilty of both of these). If you're not supermodel hot, seeing one of these profiles will make her hit the dump button without a second thought, and if you are supermodel hot she'll think about it and come to the conclusion that you're a fuck boy looking to score.
  8. No that we've gotten through the profile, you have to actually use the app. First, you won't get many likes, and the ones you do get will be from women you probably aren't interested in dating. Hinge isn't a swiping app like Tinder where you have to randomly match with someone. You send out likes to profiles you're interested in and the other person can choose to match or reject. Like in real life, men have to take all (or at least most) of the initiative—men match by sending out likes, women match by reviewing incoming likes. The only women who normally send out likes are the ones who aren't receiving a sufficient number of quality likes themselves. The rest are either women who happen to really like your profile or women who just got on the app and haven't yet realized they don't have to send likes out. The likes women send out are generally to men who are supermodel hot. This has created an interesting dynamic where men rarely get any incoming likes and don't match with the ones they do get, while women may send out a bunch of likes but rarely get matches from those.
  9. When you send out a like, Hinge gives you the option of including a message along with it. You should always do this. Remember, women are getting a lot of incoming likes, and most of these won't have messages. You're going to have to start a conversation eventually, so you might as well do it now, and it will at least give the woman a reason to check out the profile rather than just hit the dump button. And these messages should be well thought out and have something to do with the profile, preferably one of the prompts. This shows that you actually read the profile and are taking an interest rather than just clicking on a pretty face. And sending messages like "Cute" does nothing to start the conversation and doesn't demonstrate anything—if you didn't think she was cute you probably wouldn't have reached out in the first place. Some guys online have said that this does nothing but make them waste time thinking of something to say to someone who probably won't respond, and that they get comparable results by not saying anything and only putting in effort if there's actually a match, but this seems lazy to me. Again, most guys won't say anything, and you need to do whatever you can to make yourself stand out.
  10. When you actually get a match, respond promptly, and try to follow up your response with a question to keep the conversation going. Remember, women have an easier time getting matches, and you don't want to give them any reason not to respond. Don't be afraid to go back to the profile to get more source material, but also don't be afraid to get into things that aren't covered by the profile. Put some effort into this and don't slip into idle small talk; "How was your day?" isn't going to elicit any useful information for you and isn't going to communicate anything to them. Don't communicate during the work day unless you want them to think that you don't work very hard. Weekends are trickier; remember, you're trying to give the impression that you lead a busy, interesting life, and messaging on Saturday night or a beautiful Sunday afternoon doesn't give that impression. That being said, if it's a miserable day or they message you first, don't be afraid to respond on a weekend, and don't wait all weekend to respond to a message you got after work on Friday. Pick your shots.
  11. Don't be afraid to respond promptly. You don't have to check the app every 15 minutes, but you should be logging in at least once a day, preferably not late at night. If a girl is slow to respond it can be tempting to use that as a license to stall yourself, but remember, she probably has other options, and isn't going to keep talking to a guy who doesn't seem that interested. Sometimes you'll catch her on the app at the same time as you and you'll get a real-time conversation going, but mostly you'll get one exchange per day, and sometimes you'll respond one day and she the next, and you the next, etc. Sometimes things move faster, and people get busy and don't check the app for a while. Also, give her at least 48 hours to respond, but after this don't be afraid to double text. Sometimes people are just busy and forget, or possibly you did something to make them think you weren't that interested. I wouldn't worry about this making it look like you're needy. She might not be that interested, but you have to take all the shots you can at this point. If she still doesn't respond, but hasn't unmatched, at that point I'll wait until it's been two weeks since the last communication and send another message. After two weeks the app hides the dead conversations, but if there's another message it will unhide it and get you back on the radar. Usually it's a lost cause at that point, but you never know. Some people have things come up that make them drop everything, and by the time they get back on they won't respond to your message because they think the ship has sailed. I take the view that if they haven't unmatched me or otherwise communicated that they're not interested that I'm still at least marginally in the running and it's something worth pursuing.
  12. You should aim to have about three active matches going at once. Less is fine if you aren't getting any, but any more than that is wasting your time. Trying to keep a dozen conversations going at once is going to get pretty unwieldy pretty fast; it's time-consuming, and you're inevitably going to be more interested in some of the matches than others. There are obvious exceptions. Sometimes you'll get nothing for a while and get a flood all at once. Sometimes you'll have a full plate and more will trickle in, or conversations you thought were dead will get unexpectedly revived by the other party. Think of it as a podium with a first, second, and third. Any other active matches are off the podium, and the ones that have been around longer should be closer to the top. Everyone else you may be matched with is an off-podium reserve, and may include both active, unintentional matches and dead conversations who haven't unmatched you for some reason. If something changes with one of the finalists, knock them off the podium and rearrange things accordingly. Also, once you have a full podium, you should stop sending out likes. The last thing you want is women you might be interested getting short shrift due to bad timing and dipping out due to lack of attention on your part.
  13. Don't string along those lower in the running. This can be tempting, either because you have limited time for dating you don't want to waste on them, and you don't want to be on date two with your third place before you've gotten to date one with first place, or whatever. Women aren't stupid; if a conversation goes on too long without you asking them out, they're going to get the picture and will stop wasting their time.
  14. To that effect, don't let conversations drag on with anyone for too long without asking them out. This is obviously going to depend on the frequency of messaging, but unless there are unusual circumstances, you shouldn't go more than a week, and if you're getting (and sending) prompt responses it should be a lot less than that. In-app messaging should be used to establish rapport and show interest, and that's it. It's hard to get a feel for when a good time to ask someone else is, but you'll quickly get the idea. If the topic you're discussing is played out and you're scrambling to change the subject it's a good sign. If the conversation is flowing on multiple subjects it's a good sign. If the conversation is dying and you can't think of a response, it's a good sign. Sometimes you'll ask someone out because you're excited to meet her, and other times you'll ask someone out because you're bored with the conversation and are willing to take a chance that she'll be more interesting in person. If I get an unexpected response from a months-dead conversation, I'll usually just ask her out right there because I'm not interested in wasting my time again. As for what to say, keep it simple. "It's been nice chatting and if you're interested in hanging out let me know when you're available" is as good as anything. You don't have to propose anything right away, though if you're not available certain days, let her know. Sometimes people will be good with responding but get cold feet when it comes time for action. Usually it means they were just stringing you along as a plan B. I'll usually give them longer to respond to a date request, like a week, because I don't know if they're trying to figure out a schedule or something. If they still haven't responded, they're going to keep getting weekly messages from me until they either respond or unmatch. I can understand losing interest and not responding while in the messaging phase, but if there's an offer on the table, I think they should either accept it or reject it. There's no penalty for persistence, so there's no reason not to.
  15. As for what to do, I usually prefer drinks or coffee for a first date, preferably on a weeknight. Dinner is a traditional date option, but doesn't work as well for online dates. The cost of dining out makes it expensive for something that probably isn't going anywhere, and can attract the kind of woman who just wants a free meal. More importantly, there are disadvantages due to timing, as there is no date where dinner is the appropriate length. If it's going poorly you're stuck there til the end. If it's going well you're going to have to find a bar or somewhere else to go afterward, because the 60–90 minutes a restaurant meal takes isn't really enough time. If you're at a bar or coffee shop you can linger as long as you want or beat a retreat if necessary. For what it's worth, I only went out to dinner on a first date once, and only because the girl backed me into it, and she ended up being a bitch (not to me, but you can usually tell). I also don't like "activity dates" for a first date, since they tend to be similarly expensive and don't give time to interact. The purpose of a first date should be conversation, and I don't want to spend money to not talk to someone.
  16. When you're on the date, be yourself. If you end up getting involved, she's going to meet the real you eventually, so don't waste her and your time putting on a facade. If things went well and you'd like to see her again, let her know that you had a good time and text her the next day asking her out again. If you don't want to see her again, tell her you had a good time and leave it at that. Giver her a day or so to reflect on things. A decade ago, with IRL girls I already knew, I would tell them I'd like to see them again at the end of date one, but I don't do this anymore, because it puts them on the spot. I said this to the last IRL girl I dated, who was ten years younger than me, and she seemed uncomfortable and gave a noncommittal answer which ruined the rest of my night and the next two days. Imagine how surprised I was when she agreed to a second date after I asked her out again. Which brings me to another thing—I don't know if you're familiar with the "three day rule", but if you are, forget it. It may have some applicability depending on your age, but most mature women don't expect you to play games. Give them time to reflect, but don't feel the need to drag it out. If she agrees to a second date, it's going to be because she's interested in you, not because you used proper dating technique.
  17. Don't get discouraged. It will probably take I while for you to get matches, and you're probably going to be plugging away at it for months before you get off the app. This is normal for everyone. If you aren't getting matches after a month, then you need to take a serious look at your profile and make an adjustment. Also, keep in mind that these are real people, and treat them like you'd want to be treated. Online dating is similar to the internet at large, where people use the nature of the medium as an excuse for shitty behavior they wouldn't do in the real world. Try not to be one of these people, but don't hold it against other people. People will abruptly cut off conversations, but not unmatch you. People will cancel or reschedule dates at the last minute. People will take forever to respond without an apology or explanation for the delay. People will match with you but never talk to you. You'll meet people who text really well but in person have the personality of a manilla envelope taped to a beige wall. You'll have dates that you think went awesome with someone who doesn't want to see you again. You'll have dates that you think went terribly but you'll get a second one out of nowhere.
  18. There are a lot of people online who will tell you that this is impossible if you aren't a male model with an MD. Ignore them. I have numerous friends who have met long-term partners on Hinge, and none of them are exactly Adonis. None of them ended up with women below the standard of what I'd expect, and most of them are dating (or married) above what I'd expect. Also don't believe the people who tell you that since the apps have an incentive to keep you single they're specifically designed not to work. While this theory sounds plausible, there will never be an app that works so well that a major market will run out of single customers. There are definitely some weird idiosyncrasies and glitches, but by and large, the apps do what they say they do.
  19. Don't, under any circumstances, pay for this. Some people are convinced that the apps are designed to keep people paying, and that they won't work unless you pay. As I said, they work as advertised. Paying gives you access to features that are of dubious benefit. For instance, getting unlimited likes per day may seem like a good thing (the free version limits you to around five), but the consequence of this is that you end up burning through the local dating pool before you've had time to optimize your profile. Roses are a scam; don't bother with them, even the free one you get a week. Filters may have some use, but not for what they charge. Profile boosts are pointless for men, who don't need more people seeing their profile for reasons stated above. These features are window dressing for their real purpose, which is to attract the kind of undateable whales with bad profiles who are convinced that their lack of success is due to them not paying enough money.
  20. Beyond this, I can't really give you advice. The first step is creating a profile that is likely to get you matches, and the second step is managing your matches so that you can get dates. During this period, you basically are your profile, which is why the profile is so important. After you meet, though, you transform into a real person, and so does she, and now anything I can tell you is just basic dating advice you can get anywhere else.

Best of luck to you.

I encounter a very specific problem in the messaging stage where I'll ask someone out, they'll say yes, then ghost the day of the date. This happens more often than dates actually happen.

A few years ago, they'd cancel and reschedule repeatedly until I got the hint and stopped bothering them. Now they just ghost.

Speaking of, a few years ago, I actually got matches and occasionally received likes from women who were attractive enough. Now I live in an empty soul-crushing hell, despite having lost weight and gained muscle since then.

Depressed quibbles: How is stand-up an ick? multiple times in IRL conversations, women will out of nowhere ask me if I'm a comedian (I always say "no, I'm just like this"). I've done an open-mic set once or twice and killed it, it's something I keep on trying to get myself to do again, now apparently it's an ick? "Oh, only once? You should do it more, you're so funny." I guess I was right to not believe her.

Also, bartending? I thought the entire point of being a bartender is to get laid?

I thought bartender or stand-up was being interpreted as 'poor'. Like how sometimes people say self-employed when they mean unemployed. Or how women are plus-size, curvy, big-boned rather than fat.

I don't entirely know how to explain the behavior of certain people online, but I have my theories. I think some people have a tendency to be agreeable and avoid confrontation even if it's texting with a stranger, and if they get cold feet for whatever reason it's easier to just ignore the situation or come up with an excuse than it is to be honest. The polite thing to do here is to lie in the bed you made, go on the date, and if he asks you out again say you had a good time but aren't interested in pursuing things further. I've had cancellations before, but most of them have come a couple days before the scheduled date, which give me the opportunity to make other plans, or have been quickly rescheduled and gone off, or both. I was only ghosted once day-of, about ten minutes before I had to leave the house, and it pissed me off to no end. Basically we had been ironing out the details for several days, and when I got out of the shower to check for any messages I had a notification but when I tried to open it I had been unmatched. Apparently she thought that I'd see the message, not realizing that unmatching me prevented this. In any event, not knowing for sure what had happened, I felt compelled to go to the location anyway on the off chance that there had been some mistake or glitch and she showed up, as unlikely as that was, because in no instance will I be responsible for standing somebody up. I had already found her Facebook page through some mild "research" and was tempted to send out a message under my real name expressing my disappointment that someone 37-years-old would be so immature and have such disrespect for somebody else's time, but I wisely decided against it.

How is stand-up an ick?

I wasn't the guy who posted that, but the problem isn't so much stand-up itself as it is putting it on your profile. The issues with stand-up are two-pronged: First, the vast, vast majority of stand-up comedians are bad. Second, bad stand-up comedy fails harder and more spectacularly than other forms of public entertainment. Bad musical and theatrical performances draw polite applause. Bad comedic performances do not draw polite laughter. Laughter is a visceral experience that can't be credibly faked. Imagine dating a girl who sings badly in community musical theater and drags you to one of here shows. You may have to bite your lip but you can make it through. Now imagine she drags you to her stand-up show, and you don't find anything she says remotely funny. She's going to notice that you aren't laughing, and it's going to be especially noticeable if nobody else in the audience is laughing either. Bad stand-up comedy in cringeworthy in a way that other things done badly can't approach, and the sight of a comedian truly dying to the point that you're expecting crickets after every punchline is physically uncomfortable.

I wouldn't say there's anything particularly wrong with doing stand-up on occasion at an open mic, but putting it on your profile when you aren't doing it for a living suggests it's a more central part of your personality than it probably should be. Part of the issue with this and podcasts are that anyone can ostensibly do them without any obvious talent. By way of analogy, being in a horrible band you're totally serious about at least requires the ability to play an instrument to a passable degree. Now compare this to those people who take karaoke way too seriously. Most of these people sing passably well but wouldn't be allowed anywhere near a recording studio, yet they always pick songs nobody's heard of because they think they're going to bring down the house. One guy sang some lame Josh Groban song that sounded like "O Canada". One woman preceded her off-key caterwauling by telling everybody she was enrolled in a contest to win $10,000. No that she won the contest, that she entered the contest. Think of it like Disney. If you find out the girl you're dating likes Disney, then maybe you can deal with it; it's a popular studio. But that's different from the girl who puts a picture of her in mouse ears in front of Cinderella castle on her dating profile.

Also, bartending? I thought the entire point of being a bartender is to get laid?

That was a stand-in for barista or cashier or parking lot attendant or the kind of other jobs that people with college degrees may do while they're looking for an actual career. Women with professional jobs are going to wonder what the deal is with a college-educated person working a job that decidedly doesn't require a degree. Better to explain it in person.

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