We need to acknowledge that the dating marketplace has changed dramatically over the last 20 years. We all now have to stand out amongst millions of others.

Given my experience for the last 15+ years coaching people through dating and relationships, I can say this confidently: unless you’re a celebrity, supermodel, multimillionaire or have some other highly desired attributes, if you have a low-effort profile and put limited effort into communication you will generally attract low-effort partners. You get what you give. Low-effort means limited (a) depth and (b) breadth and (c) few clear pictures.

The Ask

So I argue that we should all create comprehensive, clear, unique, and honest profiles. They should explicitly state (a) who you are and (b) what you do and don’t want. Doing this benefits both you and your desired partner(s).

Neglecting to do so is self-defeating. The people you really want will generally skip over you or halfheartedly engage. They will often also lead you on. You haven’t given them a reason to invest in you as opposed to the millions of others on these apps. In most cases, you’ll attract people without many good options or those who just like to prey on others.

This isn’t said often enough, but it’s also unintentionally disrespectful: it’s not honoring the other person’s time. Asking and answering, “Who are you?”, “What are you looking for?”, “What do you look like?”, “What do you do for fun?”, etc. over and over to strangers on the internet isn’t anyone’s idea of a good time. If we can pre-answer those questions on a profile, we should.

I say this because time is precious and wasting it is an unnecessary tragedy. And it makes dating much less fun. It burns almost everyone out, leading them to think dating isn’t for them.

The stakes are surprisingly high: thousands of people will likely see, review, and reflect on your profile. The more cursory the profile, the more time potential pursuers are forced to communicate with you or research you off app to get the information they need to decide if you’re a fit or not. In most cases, the other person ultimately decides it doesn’t make sense to invest more time in you. 

This process varies, but it usually takes between 1 second and 1 hour per person at the pre-date stage. And then 1-100 additional hours in the dating stage, per person. The vast majority of potential partners and dates go nowhere. Collectively, that’s billions of hours of time wasted, for no reason. As a species, shouldn’t we be using that time to live, play, and make the world a better place instead? 

Profile Basics

Fortunately, creating a good profile is surprisingly easy, if you try. If you don’t know how to talk about yourself, ask your closest friend what you should write. If you’re unsure how much to write, as a rule of thumb the more specific your preferences are the more thorough and explicit your profile should be. If you don’t know what you want or what you want is context-dependent, just say so and let the other person decide whether to pursue you or not. If you don’t know how to take clear pictures, pay a professional to take them for you. Aim for 6-10, showing you in a wide range of environments. Never hide what you look like (unless you have legitimate privacy concerns, in which case you can broadly explain the situation via text). Videos are helpful, if the app allows it. And if you haven’t yet, review at least 100 other profiles of your gender so you know what your desired partners are comparing you to.

The goal is to be memorable with your profile–if you look at 100 profiles, was yours the 1 in 100 that actually stood out? Would you swipe right on you just from what you saw on your profile? Keep in mind you’d know nothing about this person’s inner world–you’d literally only have a few words and images and perhaps videos to go on. This version of you is 2D/3D, not the full, multifaceted you.

At a high level, if you think effective communication makes you look “desperate” or that you’re “trying too hard” as opposed to someone who is respectful and kind, I’d strongly urge you to reconsider that belief. That belief hurts everyone, including yourself.

Personally I love seeing deep, thoughtful profiles and I’ll effectively ignore 99% of incomplete profiles (even if we match). Matches or low-effort messages are not a good indicator of interest. Partly due to the deceptive design of modern dating apps, men are incentivized to pursue everyone (even women they aren’t genuinely interested in). Men will generally have sex with many more women than they’d be in a serious relationship with or marry. The ratio can easily be >1,000:1 for some men. And women are incentivized to collect matches, not real partners. It provides faux validation and perceived optionality of good partners “when they’re ready”. It’s less painful to get more and more unaligned matches that don’t go anywhere serious than to be rejected by a man they actually desired something real with.

Assessing Outcomes

Assuming you want marriage, what percentage of your matches seriously proposed to you? If you have a lot of matches, it’s almost certainly under 1%. And if you just want sex, what percentage did you ultimately have sex with? For most men, it’s almost certainly under 1%. For very highly desired men, it is almost certainly under 10% (partly due to lack of engagement by the man). Unaligned matches indicate you could online date much more effectively, wasting less time and harming fewer people. Remember that dates where both or all parties aren’t deeply satisfied in the end aren’t great dates. Relationships and marriages that don’t work aren’t usually a great use of time. Success is whatever criteria all parties mutually agree upon.

Consider taking data on your dating outcomes and paying special attention to your time, energy, and money invested and what results from that investment. Compare your results with other friends and strategize on what you can do to improve. 

Misaligned Apps

It’s crucial to be aware of the fact that most dating apps want you to keep using them. If you find a good match and delete the app, the app builders usually don’t make as much money. They actually want you to fail at dating so you keep using and paying for their app. And remember that more matches = more failure. The aim should be to get off the app and enjoy each other’s company in real life, right?

We need to fight this massive drain on our time, energy, money, and well-being. One way forward is someone creating a new dating app designed around user needs. See a proposed design here. 

Modern Dating Basics

Until we get better apps, I think we each have to master the modern dating game. If you want to be more successful at dating, creating a great profile is the first step. Then studying the literature on how to communicate and how to build a good relationship. Here are some studies from the field of relationship science you might want to check out.

• An evidence-based approach to an ancient pursuit: systematic review on converting online contact into a first date
• Young singles’ scripts for a first date
• Machine learning uncovers the most robust self-report predictors of relationship quality across 43 longitudinal couples studies
• Predicting nonmarital romantic relationship dissolution: A meta-analytic synthesis
• Development of relationship satisfaction across the life span: A systematic review and meta-analysis
• How relationship satisfaction changes within and across romantic relationships: Evidence from a large longitudinal study.

Men, you’re traditionally the ones pursuing so the onus is on you to do it ethically and effectively. Sadly, it’s still a numbers game and it’s incredibly hard for you to stand out. So up your profile and conversation game as much as possible and pursue intelligently and persistently (within reason). Be real, fun, and interesting–you’d probably want the same from people you’re pursuing. And don’t expect much. You’re not owed anything, except basic respect. That doesn’t mean a reply (until you’ve already built a real connection). And pro-tip: pursue offline as much as possible. Online is usually extremely hard for you.

Women, you can subtly but persistently pursue–which is highly appreciated by most men–or attract partners to pursue you. This generally means creating an amazing profile and fully engaging with matches you like. The men you want are also overwhelmed with choice, so if you don’t stand out and flirt he will generally ignore you. Even “the one”*–he’ll go for someone else. Being passive doesn’t work well in today’s dating market. Unless you genuinely don’t want much from a partner or partners, you do generally have to put in the work to improve yourself and effectively date, just like most guys do. If you’re getting no or low-quality matches, that’s something you can work on. One option to consider is clearly stating you won’t be physically intimate with any new partner for several months. That immediately filters out almost all but the most interested.

*Remember that “the one” doesn’t exist. Usually, many amazingly aligned partners exist. You should aim for deep connection and value alignment instead of fantasy. Hollywood is fun but not realistic.

Trans folks, much of the above applies but it’s even more nuanced. Careful communication matters even more when you’re dating across genders.

The Rules

For everyone, deception is never acceptable. You should never hide current romantic partners or kids, lead someone on you’re not interested in, catfish, pretend to be wealthier/taller/more interesting than you actually are, lie about your age, etc. This almost always backfires in the end. They find out. And are often angry (rightly so). Don’t take the integrity hit. And don’t take the risk of them retaliating. It’s physically, emotionally, and reputationally dangerous for you to deceive prospective partners.

You should also share your unique dealbreakers as soon as possible. A unique dealbreaker is anything the other person can’t easily infer and might end the relationship before it can even begin. Sometimes these things are private so it’s okay to not share publicly on a profile, but you should respect the other person’s time by revealing whatever they may be very early in the dating process (i.e., usually in the first conversation).

Tactics

Timelines

Generally, you should aim to find your desired partner(s) within a set time frame (e.g., 1-6 months) or within a set number of matches or dates. If you’re not successful within these constraints, it may mean your expectations are unrealistic and you might want to adjust accordingly. You can also choose to to invest in building your subjective mate value (i.e., desirability), then trying again. Perhaps with different strategies.

The optimal stopping rule applies–if you aim to date no more than 100 people in your life, then you ought to choose the best option you find after the 37th first date. 

It doesn’t make sense to wait for the right person to just “appear”. The vast majority of the time that passivity hurts your chances rather than helps them. If you do choose to deprioritize dating, know that it usually gets harder over time rather than easier. The main exception is if you’re increasing your subjective mate value during that time. 

There’s a lot more to it, but that is hopefully a useful first take on effective dating in the modern era. With that, I truly wish you the best in life, love, and lust. Good luck out there!