tl;dr: what matters is quality of swipes not quantity. Swipe on 1/50 profiles and spend no more than 5 min a day swiping. If you use it right, it’s better than meeting people randomly at a bar or being set up by friends.

Everyone worries about their profile. They think that perfect pic will get them 10X more matches. Or the perfect joke will make someone match with you.

It won’t.

You think if they swipe on just 10 more profiles that you’ll get one more match.

But you won’t.

Before I go on, the important thing to remember is that every dating app wants you to match with others and to go on a date. That’s the only way they get you to come back. The secret to dating apps is the algorithm. Your goal is to get their algorithm to show you only profiles of people that are likely to match with you and profiles similar to yours and to hide profiles that will want to swipe left. You don’t want to change anyone’s mind. You want the algorithm to deliver on a silver platter to you people that already like you and that you like back.

So how to do that?

First, you have to tell the algorithm what you like. What you really like. Not what would be acceptable. But excited about. Be picky.

Think about what you’re interested in right now. Whether it’s a hookup, fwb, or relationship, doesn’t matter. Pick one. Then think about people you’d actually like. If you want someone serious and thoughtful, then don’t try and swipe on an Instagram thot or a bro with his shirt pulled up showing his abs and holding a beer in the other hand. If you want a hookup, the person with a bunch of group family photos might not be the person. Swipe only on high quality profiles that you’d be excited to talk to. Ones that you think would actually message you back. Quality is effort put in to achieve a goal. You can have a quality hookup profile, a quality casual dating profile, or a quality looking for a spouse “right meow!” profile. If you want to find a setup relationship, then don’t swipe on a quality hookup profile. Swipe right only on 1/50 quality profiles.

Universal rules: 1. Their profile needs at least 3 photos 2. The first 2 photos can only have 1 headshot. 3. The first 2 photos can only have 1 group photo. 4. The first two photos must have at least one photo with their full body in it 5. Their description must contain info about themselves and not just things they don’t like in others 6. Their description needs to have more than social media links 7. Their description can’t be a novel 8. You need to already have thought of a unique opening line for this person based on the info they’ve given you in their profile or pics before you swipe right.

As I said before, the important thing to remember is that every dating app wants you to match with others and to go on a date. That’s the only way they get you to come back. If you fail to get a date or have low quality dates, you’ll switch to another app or give up entirely. If you succeed in getting a date, the odds that you have a good date but still come back to their app after a few dates is super high. It’s like fishing. If you get a nibble, you’ll keep trying. And if you catch a little fish, you’ll definitely keep coming back. You come back because it worked the last time and now you’re smarter and so this time will be better. Right? And if you get a date, you’ll tell all of your friends. Free advertising. Oh, and if you get into a relationship or get married, that’s fantastic advertising. And even better, if you have kids, that’s new customers for the app in 18 years. Nice. Win/Win.

What fails is the human element. They made it so easy to view and accept or reject profiles that you end up fucking yourself for a little dopamine hit. If you were trying to fuck yourself you wouldn’t need a dating app. The app’s honestly really good system. If you use it right, it’s a lot better than meeting people randomly at a bar or being set up by friends.

The algorithm is some variation of ELO. Or it used to be. There was a Vox article a while back that went over all of this. Google it. There’re proprietary algorithms now that they don’t talk about but effectively they do the same thing as ELO. By swiping, you give the algorithm an indicator of what you like. Then the algorithm puts you in with a group that also likes similar profiles. Like this big complicated vein diagram. And in all the overlapping spots are profiles that you liked in common. Then the algorithm does the same for the side that’s looking for you. The other side gets put into pools of users that like similar users. And then the magic part is that the algorithm uses that to find the overlap. It shows you users that it thinks you’re likely to like based on people similar to you who are also likely to like you back.

I mentioned that humans fuck this up by swiping a ton. By swiping a ton, you screw yourself and everyone else. To the algorithm you look either like a bot that swipes on everything or you look desperate. You’ve given it too much positive feedback. It’s like telling a puppy “good boy!!!!!” no matter what they do. You’re going to end up with a dog that excitedly shits all over the place and tears up your sofa and is generally awful, but still excited to see you. The most useless annoying dog on earth. If you tell the dog it’s good when it’s good and bad when it’s bad, you will begin to train it.

Same with this algorithm.

Be specific and intentional about who you swipe right on and put effort into chatting with them and you’ll see 3 changes in about 48 hours.

1. The quality of the profiles you’re shown will increase (not the hotness, but you will see more profiles that make you think, “oh shit, I bet I have a real shot with this person.”)
2. The percentage of profiles that you swipe right on that you ultimately match with will increase. Fewer swipes, more matches.
3. The percentage of profiles that reply to your messages and continue conversations will also increase.

If you want proof that what you just read is true, look at eHarmony, Match, OkCupid, and Hinge. They all introduce roadblocks to swiping on someone. They make it take more effort. The reason putting effort into tinder or bumble will work better than going to those other well designed apps, is because tinder and bumble have more users. A bigger dataset to match you with the best person for you. It’s not the profile questions and datasets that matter. The algorithm will get you to the same place. It’s using machine learning and the secret sauce is in a black box so the questions don’t matter. Only how consistent you are.

Once you have a conversation going, you have 48 hours to get a phone # and 24 hours after that to schedule a date. Not have the date, but schedule it. The date can be a week from now. But it needs to be on their calendar 72 hours from the conversation beginning.

Spread the word. The more people that use dating apps as they’re designed, the better they get.