Are Tinder Top Picks Mutual?

No. A Top Pick is not a woman who has already liked you, and she has not necessarily seen you at all. TechCrunch reported that Top Picks are a limited daily set of profiles that Tinder's algorithm chooses for you. It builds them from profile information such as education, type of job, hobbies and interests, combined with your own swiping behavior. Whether she liked you is not part of that, so a Top Pick is a suggestion and not a match.

The inputs TechCrunch named are about her and about you. Her education, her job, her hobbies and her interests go in, and so does what you have liked and passed on in the past. Tinder weighs those and hands you a small set to look at.

Notice what is not on the list. Who has liked you is not there, and neither is who you know in common. So if you wondered whether "mutual" meant a shared friend or a shared like, the reported inputs include neither.

That makes a Top Pick a good guess about taste, not a signal about her interest. She might like you, and she might not know you exist.

TechCrunch also reported that Top Picks refresh every 24 hours, and that Tinder Gold users can buy more in packs. So the set is small and it changes daily.

A daily set is easy to treat as a daily gift. It is better treated as a short list that Tinder compiled, to be judged the way you judge any other card. You would not take a stranger's recommendation for a restaurant without reading the menu.

If what you want to know is who has already liked you, Tinder has places for that, and Top Picks is not one of them.

Tinder's help center says the Likes page is where you see people who have already liked your profile before you decide to Like or Nope them. It is available to Tinder Gold and Tinder Platinum subscribers, behind the heart icon at the bottom center of the main screen. Tap a card to look, then swipe right to match or left to dismiss.

Secret Admirer is a separate feature. It lets you pick among four people who have already liked you, and if you like the person it reveals, you get an instant match.

Those are the two routes to a woman who has already said yes. A Top Pick is neither of them.

The risk with a curated set is that it feels like a recommendation, so you like most of it. Resist that. a dating coach's view is that liking everyone teaches the app nothing useful and makes you look less choosy. The women you like are how Tinder learns your taste, and that includes the Top Picks.

Read her cards the way you would anywhere else. Look through her pictures, read what she wrote, and ask whether you would be glad to match and whether you have something specific to say. If yes, like her and write a first line about her, not a greeting. If no, pass without guilt.

A Top Pick is a fair way to see someone you might otherwise have missed. It is not a reason to lower your standard.

If the set looks weak, remember the reported inputs. Part of what Tinder uses is your own swiping behavior. A history of liking nearly everyone gives it nothing sharp to work from.

Spend a week being selective. Like the women you would honestly ask out, and pass on the rest. Then look at the next few daily sets. Being selective like this gives the app a clearer picture of what you want instead of tricking it.

Gold users can buy more Top Picks in packs. That is a decision to make after you have a feel for how the free set performs.

Count first. Over a couple of weeks, note how many Top Picks you liked, how many liked you back and how many replied to your first message. If the answer is almost none, extra packs buy more of the same. If a few turn into conversations, the packs have some value. Do not pay to see more cards when the card you show is the weak point.