Are Dating Apps Good for Asian Men?

They can be, and they are worth using, but they are not magic. An app lets you reach a lot of women quickly, at a low cost per try, and it lets a good page and a sharp first line do work you would otherwise need a long conversation to do. What an app does not do is remove the effect of a stranger's first reaction to your face. That reaction exists for every man. For Asian men it is a reason to be more careful about the first thing she sees and the way you write. It is not a reason to stay off the apps.

On an app, a woman decides to look at you in a second or two, and then she reads what you wrote. In a bar or a street, a lot of the decision happens before you open your mouth, and you may never get to the part where you are funny or kind.

An app gives you more tries. You can reach dozens of women a week, you can improve between tries, and you can count what works. a dating coach says plainly that online dating has been an amazing source of success for him, and that testing is the whole game. That attitude helps any man who has been told, or has told himself, that his background is holding him back.

Race can change a man's starting position. Some women will not be interested because of it, and some are drawn to it. That is true of every ethnicity.

a dating coach has coached men for many years and says he has seen men of every race get women in large numbers. He says there are women who will like your background for its own sake, most who will not care, and a few who will not like it, and that this holds whatever you are. He also says men often arrive believing their ethnicity is the problem, and then change their results by changing what they do.

We do not quote a percentage here, because none we can verify exists. An average across thousands of men describes a crowd and says almost nothing about you.

Where you live decides which app has the most women who are looking to date. My view is that Hinge tends to be better in big US cities, while Tinder is nearly the only app in many places in Europe. Test two apps for a few weeks and keep the one that gives you real conversations.

Some apps let women set preferences about ethnicity. Hinge says its ethnicity setting is private and only works as a filter, and Tinder says race plays no part in its matching. If a woman has set a firm filter, you simply will not appear for her. That is not a verdict on you, and it is one of many reasons, along with distance and age, that a given woman is not in your feed.

The first picture does a large share of the work. Use one clear picture of your face in daylight, with a real smile. No sunglasses, no group shot where she has to guess which man you are, and no distant situation.

coach points out that you are judged on your worst picture, so if you have three good ones and a mediocre one, remove the mediocre one. Then add shots that show a life: something you do, somewhere you go, a person who clearly likes you.

Clothes that fit and a good haircut change how every picture looks. A shirt that fits at the shoulder beats an expensive one that does not.

Do not open with "hi, how are you." Write one specific line about something on her page, tease her a little, and keep it short. A message with some playfulness breaks a stereotype in one sentence, while a polite, passive one confirms it.

coach has a tactic for this: if the stereotype of your group is mild-mannered, be less mild-mannered, and if it is intimidating, add warmth. Use what you know about how people see you and play against it.

On your own page, give her three concrete things she could ask about. Skip the list of adjectives.

Do not read one slow week as a verdict. Keep the same pictures and the same opening style for two weeks, and count matches, answers, plans and dates. Change one thing, then count again.

If the matches are there and the answers are not, work on the first line. If the answers are there and the dates are not, work on how you ask. If the matches are thin, work on the first picture. Each step has its own fix.

The apps are a supplement. coach has seen men wait years to look right before they go out, and says to work on fitness, style and your messages while you are dating, not before. A man who is out meeting people and also on an app gets more dates than one who is only on the app.