Can Ugly Guys Get Dates on Dating Apps?

Yes. A dating app never shows a woman your face the way you see it in a mirror. It shows her a few photos, a few lines and whatever those say about your life. a dating coach says looks matter even more online than in person. He also says that is the good news, because most of what a photo shows is clothes, a haircut, light and an angle. Every one of those can be changed.

The man who calls himself ugly is usually describing his results, not his face. He posted a set, got little back, and decided the cause was his bone structure.

a dating coach has seen the other version many times. A man with no results puts on better clothes, gets a better haircut and a better photo, and the results arrive. It works for average men and for good-looking men, since good-looking men with bad photos do poorly too. He was one of those men himself. His first photos got nothing, and he got results once he worked on them and on his page.

Looks will get your foot in the door more easily than not having them. a dating coach says that plainly. He also says they are not the whole deal. Women care a lot about how other people respond to you, what kind of life you could offer her, and the social cues you give off.

On an app those cues come from the photos. A man with friends in a shot, a place he actually goes and a look of ease reads as someone people like. A man who is good looking and alone in a mirror reads as someone with nothing going on. coach has coached plenty of good-looking men who get nowhere with women, because a face alone does not carry the rest.

Start with the things that change the most for the least effort.

• Haircut and grooming. a dating coach tells men on his programs to get a haircut and a fashion consultation, because it makes a real difference.
• Clothes that fit. A shirt that fits you beats an expensive one that does not.
• The lead photo. Daylight, your face, a small real smile. Skip sunglasses and hats.
• The gym, for its own sake. coach recommends it because it shows you look after yourself and have ambition. Do not make a shirtless photo the centerpiece, though. He tells men who are less attractive than the women they want to avoid building a page around their physique.

Men on forums describe the apps as a place where a small group gets most of the attention. a dating coach agrees there is a lopsided effect. A good page can reach dozens of women a day, so the men who are good at this have their results multiplied, and everyone else watches it happen.

That is a real description of how it feels from the bottom, and it points to a fix rather than a verdict. Being on the winning side of that scale means getting the page good, not having a better face.

No, and the apps do not sort men by looks into separate rooms. Hinge, Bumble and Tinder all lean mostly on your photos, so the way to do well on any of them is much the same. Pick two, test them for a few weeks, and keep the one where women answer.

a dating coach's most liked photo is not his best-looking one. It is the one that makes a woman curious: an odd, interesting picture with a short caption that she can ask about. It gets him far more comments than any of his flattering ones.

That helps a man who worries about his looks. A woman who is curious about a photo is not grading your face, she is starting a conversation. One strange, true photo from your own life does more than a fourth portrait.

Use the app steadily for two weeks and write down how many women liked you back. Then replace one photo and count again. If the number rises, keep the change. If it does not, swap it for something else. Men who try a few things and still get nothing are the ones a coach can help fastest, by reading the set and saying which photo is costing them.