Is there like a cheat code for dating apps?
32m here and ive been on dating apps for over 10 years and think they've gotten worse since the whole swiping algorithm. I always do max swipes daily on fb dating, tinder, and bumble with minimum to no success. Tinder being the worst of the three. Ik irl is better, I just am not good at it with social anxiety and overthinking. Anybody find what works on these apps if you're an average looking man?
Been in a relationship for quite a while so this is 2nd hand knowledge, but you wanna avoid any app that's been around for more than 2-3 years.
At the beginning the apps need to get a reputation for successfully hooking people up and they're usually not urgently searching for money thanks to venture capitalism. After that point though they need to grow and profit.
You know what's bad for user growth in a dating app? Successfully matching people into a long term relationship; those users may never return.
The end result is what I hear tinder is these days: a siphon into the bank accounts of single people that will do everything it can to avoid making them not single.
Absolutely no idea what the current set is called, I'm afraid. I've been in my current relationship for over a decade
One of my mates was telling me the other week he is getting a lot of luck with one where you match and then immediately set up an IRL date without directly talking. I don't remember the name though, sorry
Having gone from the guy with no matches to getting good matches, in part from advice from female friends, here's what worked for me in order of priority:
#4 is so true, even 15+ years after I stopped using dating sites. I went on a lot of bad dates with attractive girls until I found my wife, who I matched mostly on details than looks alone.
Good photos. Not shitty selfies. Have your friends take “candid” photos of you doing stuff. They’re not actually candid, they’re fully thought out and planned.
Have your friends take “candid” photos of you doing stuff. They’re not actually candid, they’re fully thought out and planned.
In all seriousness, I don't think I could ever do that.
Even if you can't manage staging something like that, even just asking a friend to help you take some pictures will up your odds significantly. The pictures are going to be the first thing most people see on your profile so having a friend help find good angles and such will be really helpful
Are they really your friends if they wouldn't help you with that?
For someone who has not put much emphasis in taking good pics of mine, I really understood the importance of this when someone asked me to share good pics and I had to go dig out my pics from 3yrs ago.
I have never used these social media apps where main moto of them was posting your pics and hence I ended up not liking the idea of pics at all, until I realised they are important to have, just for yourself and your loved ones.
Haha, yes my friends! Like from the friend store. I shop there frequently.
As a woman my advice is as follows: be a decent and caring human being who does something positive for others on a daily basis. Needy and deceptive behavior drives away people who are attracted to you.
This is a good idea in general, however this doesn't help when it comes to getting the first interest, because how can you tell if someone is really genuine about caring from a few words on a profile?
But yeah, my girlfriend wanted to start dating me not because I am the most attractive person, but because I am always nice to her and to people in general. To me it seems crazy to not be, but I guess not everyone is like that.
True but OP's question was about dating apps, where the other person is shown your picture and prewritten blurb, and spends at most a few seconds deciding whether to swipe left or right. I can very easily understand a swipe-right ratio of well under 1%. So I think the question was about how to get past that.
You don't prefer attractive people?
There is no universal definition of attractive for all people, women, men, robots or space aliens.
Be your true self and if you look far enough, you’ll be someone’s fantasy ( no guarantees on if you will find them attractive as well ).
Even if only 1 in 10 million people think of you as their fantasy; that means you have 800+ possible partners to choose from.
I've had pretty good success with online dating in the past, and my current long-term relationship (3.5 years) is a lovely woman I met on Tinder. When we first matched, neither of us was looking for something long-term. For me, it helped to look at dating apps as just a first impression, which means you don't want to overwhelm someone with your profile. My advice is going to be tailored to Tinder, because it's where I had the most success. That's probably due to sheer volume though. It also worked on Bumble, but I have no experience with FB Dating, so I can't speak to that.
When selecting pictures to use, there's a couple things I would suggest. •Always include multiple pictures with friends or family. People swiping on your profile will want to know that you have a social life, and you'll probably look happier in pictures with others. •Try to also include pictures that reveal a hobby or interest of yours rather than talk about it in your bio. I'll elaborate on this point later. •Be honest and kind to yourself and think about what makes you attractive to others. Personally, I've been told that my laugh is infectious, so I went with a candid picture of myself laughing with my friends. Dates have specifically pointed that picture out as the one that sold them on me. There's something that sets you apart, you just have to identify it. •You don't have to completely avoid pictures of yourself alone or selfies, but you have to be intentioned when including these. Is it a picture where you look really good? Is the composition of the photo interesting or different? Does it show off your flair or sense of style? Is it one of the aforementioned hobby photos? If you can't answer yes to at least one of these questions, it probably shouldn't be included. A picture with just you is going to lead to heightened scrutiny of the only subject that is of any interest to someone looking at your profile: you. Make sure it showcases you well.
I personally like to keep the bio short and sweet. The point of the bio is to give them enough information to want to know more about me. They don't need my life story, and they probably don't want to read a wall of text. If you match, you want to give them space to ask questions about you so that the conversation doesn't go stale. If they can look it all up in your bio, it becomes redundant to ask. To that end, my own bio was only two lines: my height and a statement that was funny and personal. I always included my height because I'm on the shorter side (5'7) and I know it's a dealbreaker for some. I'm fine with that, since I'm not trying to waste their time or my time. The second line was "My mom cuts my hair." It's true, and to me it was funny in an unexpected way. It also revealed that I have a good relationship with my mother. However, I later learned that some people just thought it was a joke, so maybe it didn't come across the way I intended. You could definitely find something that works for you in between the wall of text and my completely barebones bio.
Lastly, and this might not be the easiest because you mentioned having social anxiety, but you should be looking to go on a physical date as soon as possible. It's where I really got to know the people that I matched with, and let me better figure out whether it was someone I could see myself in a relationship with. An in-person date doesn't have to mean something serious. I prefer coffee dates, which I've read that some women see as a sign that you're not serious about them or a cheapskate. I'm here to tell you that those women don't exist, or at least never did for me 3.5+ years ago, so don't worry about it. It's a casual setting where either party can leave if they're not feeling it, and many people appreciate that. If the date goes well enough, it can swing into lunch or dinner pretty easily. Dating is a skill, and it's a pretty different skillset than being in a relationship. The only way to improve at dating is to actually go on dates, so push yourself to ask for them. Chances are, if they're still messaging you back after a day or two, they're interested enough to go on a date.
I tried to be as comprehensive as possible, but please let me know if there's anything you want further clarification on. I'd be happy to help, and I'm rooting for you :)
Good advice. I also would say for me it was just the speed of going from a match to a Meetup. Text was always dishonest and just spending an hour over a drinks or something told me everything I needed to know. Id rather cast into the strange and know vs getting all the right texts.
Thank you. Appreciate the advice
Seconding this advice.
I think also for me it helped to think of it as a long term effort. Trying to get into a relationship as fast as possible isn't really realistic or healthy. Once I stopped trying to hard to pull everyone I was interested in, I felt a lot more comfortable being myself and just shooting my shot, if it didn't hit or we didn't vibe it was ok.
Definitely agree that it's a skill, and the more you do it the more comfortable you'll be. You've got this!
Profile:
Behavior:
The goal is to train the algorithm on the types of people YOU like. If you swipe right on everything it learns nothing and will show you people, and show you to people who share much less potential interest in a date.
This limited swipe schedule is also to combat brain-rot incelification and burnout. Sucks to be alone but go touch a tree and hang out with friends. No friends? I know it sucks shit but you gotta start there. Do the stuff you like doing around other people and take pictures. Helps with the profile, softens the loneliness, and you'll have people to confide in after a bad date.
Lastly, if you abused your account before(swiping right indiscriminately) it may be messed up. Let it sit a few weeks before trying again.
Short answer: No
Long answer: Nooooo
If irl feels difficult one thing you might try is actually online roleplaying with real people (via text or voice). All the time in the world to overthink and process anxiety and allows building a bit of confidence before trying the real deal.
The 5 yrs I was on apps I've had maybe 3 or 4 dates (no second dates) from maybe 3x as many matches. Meeting people irl during the same time maybe 9 dates with some resulting in follow ups, and maybe 2 dates from people I met online from other spaces.
Disclaimer: I’m not straight, but when I used the apps I mostly matched with women, who were mostly cis and mostly het.
It sounds like you’re looking for a LTR. Tinder is mostly for HUs. Everyone I met on there was casual-only or wanted long term but like, desperately. Bumble wasn’t a significantly different crowd when I tried it, in spite of the hype. Hinge I heard was better for LTRs, with a questionnaire system and everything, but never tried. Overall, my impression was that lots of the “looking for something real” folks in the apps probably should’ve been prioritizing therapy and learning to love themselves before throwing themselves into another LTR. This leads to my main point at the bottom.
For more swipes/matches, top rec is almost always better photos, especially for straight men, but I would modify that recommendation slightly. I think you should first ask yourself some questions about your target audience.
Why: Let’s say you’re advertising yourself as a kind stable safe and hard-working man looking for a LTR. That profile, to be successful with your target audience, will easily scare away the casual crowd for lots of reasons. The sincere and detailed bio, the high quality face shots and full length profiles with your hobbies carefully framed in the background and at least one fancy outfit and picture of you and your dog, etc etc. All that will earn you high praise in the OLD profile support groups but IME can sometimes telegraph expectations that are daunting to many people you’d probably like to meet if given the chance. Depending on the level of polish on that LTR profile, you could inadvertently limit your marketability to a very specific subset of users who mostly lurk and windowshop, vet candidate pools thoroughly, and tend to bring a surprising number of their own expectations, many of which seem to have to do with your “stats.” Again, that’s if they even pull the trigger and I suspect many of them are skilled at talking themselves out of it.
As an alternative, just for kicks think about a hypothetical “fuckboi” version of your usual profile, complete with poorly lit bathroom selfies, lots of shirtless outdoor photos, badly cropped group pics at dark venues, and a bio that’s just a line from a Tarantino film. As unpolished as that profile is, I guarantee this alter ego will get more swipes than the one I described above, not because he’s prettier or fitter (it’s the same guy) but because he’s approachable to a greater number of users, many of whom are specifically looking for simplicity, zero long term expectations/possessiveness, and someone who won’t make them feel guilty for not calling. They also tend to match with others far more frequently. Those users are everywhere, so if you’re not getting matches at all, maybe ask yourself what of that fuckboi alter-ego actually expresses aspects of your personality, and consider incorporating a bit more of him.
Ultimately the apps weren’t built for courtship rituals. It’s just hard to generate chemistry with text and photos alone. Casual relationships are a totally valid and IMO more natural path to a LTR anyway. Those relationships can evolve with time and tend to be healthier, because fundamental aspects of compatibility are already explored and they begin with everyone’s cards down. Just my .02… GL
Edit: clarify wording to sound less like “go forth and be slutty”
I've always tried to go for the ltr profile with lots of details.. I've since given up but I feel like it might be worth it trying your suggestion with a more easy going version. Thanks
I've never never bothered with online dating, but I've heard quite a bit of anecdote about it being an absolute dumpster fire for anyone over 30 who doesn't look like a pornstar. As others have mentioned, stop wasting time with the apps and do -something- that interests you that'll get you out and interacting with like-minded people, and see where that takes you.
do -something- that interests you that’ll get you out and interacting with like-minded people
But then you meet either normies or other male nerds, depending on whether you pretend to like normal stuff or actually do the stuff you really like.
I wish old OkCupid was still a thing. There were still way more men than women there but at least it was possible to find the interesting women.
I mean, you'll have to choose a hobby or w/e that puts you into a compatible crowd. If you're interested in women, don't choose something that's male-dominated.
...also idk what 'normie' means to you, but it's actually okay to date someone who isn't a carbon-copy of yourself as a different gender. My wife isn't into hardly any of the nerdy shit that I am, nor vice versa, but there's enough overlap that we don't generally struggle to find things to do together; but enough that's distinct that we can explore our own interests when the other isn't available. What's way more important is you enjoy eachother's perosnality. Specific interests, field of study etc absolutely do not need to be on the same page.
So again, pick something. It doesn't have to be your favorite thing to do; if you enjoy it even a little, there's your like-minded overlap.
I think it's swipe up 2x, swipe down 2x, swipe left 2x, swipe right 2x, B, A, Start
That's just the normal cheat code. You have to fast open your calculator at the end and type 666 for goth girls.
Yes. Give up and go get a social hobby or volunteering. If you volunteer, you will literally be drowning in pussies
Only if he volunteers at a cat shelter...
100% volunteering. Think about it: 2 randos volunteering for the same thing!! Instant commonality! Whodda thunk!!
Dating apps hate this secret.
ymmv, but for me, the cheat code is to get out of the app asap and meet in person once the app let's you find someone.
imo, it is best for their business to keep a person in for the engagement.
best of luck on your search!
Short answer: pay them. These apps have made themselves the barrier to human interaction and will put you in front of more people if you pay them. If you're online dating then you're playing a numbers game and the best way to win a numbers game is playing as much as possible
Me and my partner met on a dating app and we’ve been together for years. Idk I hate dating apps, but there’s no rules. You can meet someone anywhere. I’m kinda shy, so dating app worked for me
I am very awkward when it comes to women so yeah it would be nice if the apps worked
Just treat her with respect and be a good listener. Maybe my perception is skewed but it seems like most men can’t do that these days. For context, I’m also a man.
Edit: also want to add, find someone that makes you feel secure. Being in a secure relationship may take time if you’re anxious or avoidant, but it’s worth it. Don’t waste time on people that play games. Even if it’s fun, there is no substitute for a secure relationship
Absolutely. It's Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start. But you didn't hear it from me.
The uninstall button. That's where the real magic happens.
Posted this 2 years ago and dug it up for you!
Here to offer hope and advice to anyone that’s given up. I’m a 52-yo American male and have knocked it out the park with dating apps. In the 4-years since my wife left, thank god, I’ve had 15-20 dates and 5 steady gf’s for a bit. Getting married 11/24 if y’all want to come!
Pro tips:
How I met my fiancé:
She hit me up on eHarmony. Gods that site sucks. Only date I ever got there. Blew her off because her pics were… not so great. She had nothing interesting to say about herself, barebones bio. 3-months later I’m revisiting and saw her “like”. “Yeah, what about this girl again?” She posted more about herself, and more attractive pics and here we are.
Yep, there's a cheat code.
For "be attractive" a lot of people think the requisite level of attractiveness is unattainable for them. Its not. Be decently in shape, groom yourself, have some style in the way you dress. The other half is taking good photos. Take photos that look good, that you look good in, and which create a vision for what the best version of your life looks like.
And then pay them. Tinder, bumble, and hinge basically have a monopoly on the market. Its pay to play. You can get matches without paying, but it is a lot fewer and a lot less.
Never pay. If you pay once, they make it even harder to get matches to entice you to pay even more.
Have you experienced this yourself? Because I have not experienced this.
ive been on dating apps for over 10 years and think they’ve gotten worse since the whole swiping algorithm.
I feel like there's actual empirical evidence I've seen of that. Great engagement-drivers, though, and never getting you into a serious relationship helps keep you a customer/product.
People are getting savvy to it now, and completely moving away from online dating. We'll see if non-shit services make a comeback.
Ik irl is better, I just am not good at it with social anxiety and overthinking.
I mean, irl is the eventual goal, right? The online part is, at best, a better way of picking who to date.
Otherwise, online roleplaying might push all the buttons you need. Or therapy, if you want to handle your anxiety better.
Data shows that something like 80% of guys on dating apps don't get any attention from women. I don't remember the exact figure. But dating apps are a tough demoralizing place for most men. I'd say branch out in your hobbies and focus on self improvement and hopefully you'll bump into the right person with some shared interest.
Are you going to therapy for your social anxiety and over thinking? Cuz even if you got a match on the apps, you're still going to face those issues when you actually meet up.
One thing I've seen reported in recent times is that men hardly show up to singles events and speed dating type things anymore. But that might be a lot of pressure for your social anxiety if you showed up somewhere and you were the only guy in a room of women.
sexy horny gay dudes are always ready to show you what a real sexual revolution looks like.
Remember when conservatives used to say it was a choice? If it was a choice, I would have lost my virginity a lot sooner.
Same here. I'm like a classic bear IRL and I get attention. My luck with women is nowhere close.
My friend bought a camera, learned to take good pics and we made ourselves a photo session. It helped, I got more matches, but I couldn't get along with any of them. Well, I did with one until I fucked it up…
Anyway, I ended up joining an AuDHD meet up group on FB and soon after my now girlfriend posted and we're now 1.5 year together
If that fails, try being filthy rich.
They absolutely have gotten way, way, way worse. I deleted all of them, despite 1.) being single, 2.) wanting to date again, and 3.) having met multiple dates on multiple apps in the past. They're simply not like they used to be, in part because of Match Group buying them all up and in part because the other non-Match Group options followed that same "successful" model.
It honestly feels like the only way to succeed is to pay, but EVEN THEN, using Tinder for example, you'll still be pestered to pay even more to "make sure your messages are seen" and most of the likes they suddenly turn on once you pay will be fake, bot profiles. To an absurd degree these days. And the prices are outrageous, with many of them having the gall to charge WEEKLY now.
It's not a you thing, it's a "the apps really, really suck" thing. There's a reason so many people, men and women alike, complain about these apps and insist they must "only see the worst matches." Because they almost certainly do. If they send you your best matches, you wouldn't subscribe anymore. If they send you bad matches, plus "good" fake matches, they think it'll keep your hopes up. Except it's obvious when all the fake profiles look the same, are exactly 99 miles away from you, etc...etc...
Be a girl.
After a long discussion with all of my co-workers comparing everyone's experience, it would be safe to assume that they do not work effectively. They are a commercial product whose entire purpose is to make money. The algorithms are designed to keep people on the app as long as possible. They don't work on purpose. Every single person in the discussion that met their SO on an app, were marched because some sort of fluke or exception. It only works when the pattern is broken. We were even calling people's SOs up to hear their full stories.
Online dating is for the birds. Meet me IRL or don't meet me at all.*
currently here, btw
Swiping right "too much" lowers your hidden "social score" which determines who you are shown to
I don't swipe right all the time but I'm also not super picky
The cheat code to dating is don't use the fucking apps unless you are a legitimate adonis who doesn't need to.
Go out and find groups that do things you like to do, make friends, then you'll meet people organically.
Edit: from a guy who used dating apps for 2 years and had a 6 dates from them, but in the same time frame had 2 IRL based dates, one still friends with, the other is my SO of 8 years.
This may sound like an odd question, but why are you dating? What are you seeking out that you don't have now?
I guess what I'm trying to say is my philosophy is to not go out of the way to find someone directly, but rather build one's own self confidence and communal hobbies that naturally draws you to people, friends or love interests alike.
Ironically I ended up meeting my soul mate within a year of committing to being content with being single. That altered my mindset and I guess made me more attractive and focused on self-improvement.
Because I never had a partner and it's frustrating
I've been there. Always been awkward, always struggled with it, always had complex emotions about it. I can confirm though what the previous person said: building yourself up as someone with your own rich world that people would be interested in, that's the healthiest way. You should try as much as possible to do this, I know it's hard. I know you just feel like it's never your turn. But you have to try. I've never met anyone on dating apps but that's also because I used to go out a lot for specifically this reason. But pubs and clubs aren't exactly healthy, it lead more to wasted years, wasted money, and meaningless hookups that left me just as miserable... It was eventually when I took up traveling with organized groups (where I could socialize with like-minded strangers around a healthy topic that we had in common) that I met my current partner.
If you have social anxiety, that's the bottleneck here.
Don't stress about the apps. I'm an attractive guy, almost always in a relationship, and in any of the times I was single, I never got a date through a dating site.
Tell us more about your current usage. What are you doing and where is it failing?
Some of the other posts already hit the highlights. Have a variety of well lit photos. Your profile should be short, but with some unique-ish hooks for people to talk about (eg: "reading 'such and such' for my book club!" - several things for someone to ask about there).
When you do match with people, don't send generic messages. Don't just send "hey". Go read https://nohello.net/en/ for a post about that in other contexts.
After you've had one or two successful exchanges, clear any deal breakers you might have (eg: "really enjoying this conversation but wanted to make sure you saw on my profile I have a toddler. Are you okay with that?"). If that succeeds, ask them out.
Don't provide too many choices. People get overwhelmed easily. "I'd love to talk more about (whatever we we were talking about). Do you want to go on a date? I like (local bar), but (other bar) in your neighborhood looks fun, too!". Two choices. They'll probably pick one.
More specific advice may be available if you tell us more about your specific experience
Just haven't gotten any matches although I got back on the apps like a month or so ago
What part of the world are you in?
In my experience, tinder is pretty bad. I don't use facebook so I can't vouch for that one, but I assume it's also bad. I never got a single match on Bumble.
Hinge, I got pretty good results on. Even though they're all owned by the same Match Group, hinge seemed to work better. I could get about a date a week on hinge, as an average guy.
I think it worked better for me because you can send a note when you see someone you like, so if you can write complete sentences you're already a cut above the average guy.
Never used any apps but I've gotten some decent connections and a few meetups from craigslist (back when when it had personals ads) and (believe it or not) more recently, reddit. Just write literate messages that are responsive to what the other person wrote, instead of being generic.
Also, proofread your responses very thoroughly before sending. Make sure that the grammar and punctuation is all perfect. The slightest error can be a huge negative in how well your response is received. Why is that? I don't know. But I've seen multiple people comment on this. Some have come out and told me that they responded to me because of it. It really matters.
Reddit has apparently just ditched its PM system in favor of a chat system. That seems pretty terrible for those of us who prefer to write carefully.
On the apps, the cheat code is paying up. Even then, it won't guarantee any success. Last app I used was bumble, around the end of 2023, which was on its way of enshittification, but still worked muuuuuuuuuch better than tinder. Got lucky and met my current gf there (4th or 5th woman I managed to go out on a date from that app, out of many that I chatted with).
My main problem which makes me rely on the apps is that I simply rarely feel like going outside. Not doing any group activities seriously hurts your chances of finding anyone interesting.
Real life wise, your best bet would be trying dance classes, especially any that are supposed to be danced in pairs
I hear ya but dancing classes are definitely not for me
I think that's the only legit cheat code
It's not that simple.
You basically need to buy premium. It sucks and is predatory but it makes a huge difference. I would drop $20 on boosts Thursday afternoon and end up getting a date for Friday/Saturday maybe 2/3 of the time. About 75% of my matches came from paying for buffs.
Cheats? Never tried these myself, but I was being told that some dating apps use their own ELO system for "rating" users, and they try to keep the best matches hidden, so allegedly you can try to game the ELO by rejecting more ppl than necessary and on Hinge you can cheat by leaving the age range completely open (18-99)...
... or I guess beg family/friends for help to completely bypass dating apps I guess
Disclaimer I have never even dated & my only "dates" from a dating app ended in complete disasters, so... I wouldn't trust what I have just wrote
be hot
If you figure it out, let me know. I am also in my 30s and have never had any success with dating websites/apps. I've only ever had success meeting people the natural way.
Personally I wouldn't even bother with dating apps. Date someone from work or go to a singles event. I've had great success with those methods.
My wife said the "no fuckboys" line in my profile made her laugh.
Type "power overwhelming" in chat
Be interesting
its always attractive or not, race also matters because people are that vain; white people and attractive would get more hits, and it goes down the list least likely. do they ask income , and some ask about your "size"
Don't bother. I've tried so many of them and they're almost all shit.
Yeah there is, change your sexual preference to bisexual and match with a few guys.
Look abroad, try bumpy
Guaranteed to get matches if you show off big wads of cash in your pics, no matter what you look like.
Really? I feel like this needs to be empirically tested.
There's ways to accomplish that while not being rich, and rich people don't usually do that, but then again people are dumb.
Here are the steps
It's
Just not being ugly isn't enough, you gotta be actively hot.
I'm not hot. I'm not ugly, but also not hot and had plenty of dates from dating apps when I was on them.
Good job, not a slob, decent bio, and quality photos of myself.
I was also really selective in who I swiped on. I didn't swipe right on every hot chick. I swiped right on girls I found attractive and best guess from profile lifestyles were similar.
I went out with plenty of attractive women, hooked up with a handful and dated a few. I also went out on plenty of bad dates, the girl who carried a dead lizard she found on the ground. The autistic racist. The girl with gnarly teeth.
Then I randomly met my wife through a coworker.
Ah you're right
I wouldn't describe myself as attractive, just not unattractive. And I've always gotten a lot of matches (with actual people). My social anxiety has been in the way of going further with it most of the time but it's always been easy to find a date almost immediately when I want. One thing I know helps is my clothing style, 60s-70s, and I recommend people to try to find a style that they like and use photos that show it.