Common Bumble Profile Mistakes Men Make

Most of what costs a man on Bumble is not his looks. It is a caption on his best photo, a single prompt filled in out of three, a line that sounds bitter, and a group photo where he is third from the left. Matthew and his team of coaches go through these on live profile reviews every week, and the same handful of problems shows up again and again. Here they are, with what the coach has students do instead.

In one breakdown, a student's first photo was strong. It was flattering, with a blurred background that gave it a professional look, and the coach liked it. The trouble was a "caption this photo" tag sitting on top of it.

A headshot is a picture of you looking your best. A caption turns it into a gimmick and takes the emphasis off the one thing the photo is there to show. Leave the lead photo clean.

The same profile had only one prompt filled in. The coach's rule is blunt: every single prompt is an opportunity, and not using one is wasteful.

Using them is not enough, either. In a live review, the coach called a set of safe answers wasted prompts because they took no risk. His comment on one answer was that it was too obvious and showed no standards, and on another that it only made the writer sound boring. A prompt that could sit on any man's profile is not doing a job.

In that breakdown, a line used "won't" where "don't" was meant. The coach knew English was not the student's first language and said it did not matter: make the grammar in your profile correct, because people judge it.

It is one of the cheapest fixes on the list, and it takes a minute to check before the profile goes live.

The same student had written that he is super selective and a woman should not feel bad if he does not reply. The coach explained why men write this: it shows you understand that women are flaky and often do not answer. Then he explained the cost. It can come off a little butthurt and a little negative about women, and the reader cannot tell if it is lighthearted or angry.

He would leave it out, or he would put it in a context where the rest of the profile makes clear you are not taking it personally. He also said that selectivity cannot be your entire self-description. It is limited and one-dimensional.

Another photo in that profile showed the student with friends, labeled as how his friends see him. He was third from the left, in the back, and the face in front of him drew the eye. The coach said he looked like he blended into the crowd, and no woman is looking for the man who blends in.

A social proof photo only works if you are where the eye lands. The coach told him to use a photo where the eye is drawn to him, because the lesson is to be the man who stands out in the picture. The captions on his other photos did not match the pictures either, which made him look out of touch with the way people joke online.

On another live review, the student's intro said he was the bad boy a woman could not help being attracted to. The coach's first note was to show it instead of saying it. His second was that the claim was incongruent with every prompt below it, since they all described a pleasant guy with a few quirky habits.

The same review caught "kind but edgy," which the coach said should be broken into what you do that is kind and what you do that is edgy. Without those, the words are just labels.

A student on a live call said he gets noticeably fewer matches on Bumble when his profile says he is looking for something casual. The coach was strongly against putting that in a profile in most contexts.

His reasoning was about women. Many of the highest-quality women think of themselves as looking for something serious, or at least want the option of it. Some are fine starting casually on the way to something more. Stating "just casual" can filter out those women. Let the rest of your profile imply it, and keep the option to end things whenever you want.