How Do You Change the Order of Your Tinder Interests?

You cannot drag them into a new order. Tinder says Interests appear in the order you selected them, so the first one you tap is the first one people see. To change the order, deselect all of your Interests, then select them again one at a time, starting with the one you want in front.

1. Tap the profile icon.
2. Tap the pencil icon next to your profile photo.
3. Scroll down to Interests.
4. Tap each highlighted Interest to deselect it, until none are left.
5. Tap them again in the order you want them shown, starting with the one you want first.
6. Tap Done.

Tinder asks for a minimum of three Interests, so make sure at least three are selected before you finish. A highlighted Interest is chosen and a grey one is not.

It feels clumsy to wipe the list just to move one tag, but it is quick. Before you start, write your chosen order down so you do not lose one halfway through.

People read a list from the top. The first Interest is the one her eye lands on, and often the only one she really takes in before she moves on to your photos or your bio.

That makes it more than a tag. It is the most likely thing she will mention if she writes to you, and the most likely thing you will be asked about when a conversation starts. If you get to choose one topic for her to open with, the first Interest is where you choose it.

Put first the Interest you could talk about for an hour. When she asks about it, you want real stories, strong opinions and small details, not a one-line answer.

It helps if that Interest is a little unusual. Common picks are fine further down the list, but the odd one is the one women comment on. It also helps if your photos can prove it. An Interest that shows up again in a photo is twice as believable as one that stands alone.

A quick test: if a woman opened with nothing but that Interest, would you know exactly what to say back? If yes, it belongs in front.

The rest of the list can do quieter work. Put the common Interests there, the ones many men share, and the ones that round you out without being your best subject.

Order them by how much you would enjoy being asked about them. By the time she reaches the fourth or fifth, she has already formed her view. They add detail rather than deciding anything.

Here is how that looks in practice. Say your list is Gym, Coffee, Travel, Sailing and Cooking, picked in that order when you signed up. Gym is the most common of the five and tells her the least, yet it sits in front.

Reorder it so Sailing comes first, because it is unusual and you have a photo on a boat to prove it. Put Cooking second, since a woman can ask what you make. Then add Travel, Coffee and Gym. Same five tags, but now the first thing she reads is the one you are best at talking about.

There is a smart reason to control what she opens with, beyond looking good. Replying well is much easier when you know what is coming.

One well known dating coach builds a single photo on his page to be deliberately easy to comment on, so a large share of the women who write to him mention the same thing. Because their openers are predictable, he can prepare a few good replies in advance instead of improvising a new one every time.

Your first Interest can do a smaller version of the same job. If most of the messages you get are about one subject, you will soon notice the two or three things women say about it. Work out a good answer to each, and your first replies stop being a scramble.

Once you have reordered the list, look at your page top to bottom as if you had never seen it. Ask whether the first Interest fits the man in the photos. If your photos are all dinners and city streets and your first Interest is camping, one of them will look borrowed.

Then give the new order time before judging it. Change one thing, see whether the messages you get feel different, and adjust from there. The goal is a page where the first thing she notices is also the thing you are best at talking about.