When she comes up on Bumble, open her page and tap the heart in a speech bubble, or the Send a Note button. Choose what you want to respond to or write your own short message, read it over, and send it. Notes come with a Premium+ subscription, and you can also buy them separately.

The steps, from Bumble's help page

Bumble's support page on Notes lays out the process:

  1. Open the member's profile.
  2. Tap the heart in a speech bubble icon, or "Send a Note." It may appear right on her profile, or when you interact with a particular photo or prompt.
  3. Choose what you want to compliment. You can respond directly to one of her prompts or photos, or write your own short message.
  4. Review the message to make sure it says what you mean.
  5. Send it.

Notes are included with Premium+. Without it, Bumble lets you buy Notes on their own.

Step three is where Notes are won or lost

The mechanics take ten seconds. Choosing what to respond to is the part worth thinking about.

Look through her page for the thing that is most specific to her. An answer that shows an opinion. A hobby with a strange detail. Something in the background of a picture that tells you where she spends her time. These are choices she made, and responding to a choice feels personal in a way that praising her looks never does.

If you have the choice, respond to something she wrote rather than a picture. It comes across as more genuine and less superficial, because it shows you read rather than just looked.

Writing the Note itself

Bumble recommends keeping it to a sentence or two, and there is a character limit, so you have room for one idea. Use it like this:

  • React to the detail you picked. Agree, disagree, or tease her a little about it.
  • Give her something to answer. A question, or a line she will want to push back on.
  • Leave yourself out. Your page introduces you. The Note is about her.

Say she wrote that her ideal Sunday is a farmers market and a nap. You might send: "Farmers market then a nap is a perfect Sunday. Be honest, is the nap the real reason you go?" That is one detail, one tease, and one easy reply.

A worked example, start to finish

Here is the whole process on one imaginary woman.

She comes up on Bumble. Her pictures are fine but ordinary. One of her answers says her most controversial opinion is that brunch is overrated. You stop, because that is a real opinion, and you have one too.

You open her page and tap the heart in a speech bubble. You choose her brunch answer to respond to, since it is the most specific thing on her page and it is something she wrote rather than something she looks like.

You draft: "I think you're really pretty and I also hate brunch, we should get dinner sometime." Then you review it. It opens with her looks, it is mostly about you, and it asks for a date before she has said a word. You cut it down to: "Brunch is just lunch with a waiting list. Glad someone finally said it. What do you do instead on a Sunday?"

That version is about her answer, it agrees with a small edge, and it ends with a question she can answer easily. You send it.

Step four is the one men skip

Bumble's help page lists reviewing your Note as its own step, and it deserves one. Read it once before you send it, and ask yourself three things:

  • Could this only have gone to her, or could I have sent it to anyone?
  • Is it about her, or about me?
  • Would I know how to reply if a woman sent this to me?

If the answer to the first question is "anyone," rewrite it. A generic compliment is the most common Note there is, which is exactly why it does nothing.

What happens after you send it

She sees your Note when your page comes up in her People tab. A Note does not start a chat on its own, and you still need to match before either of you can send messages.

If she likes you back, your Note counts as your opening message. Wait for her reply rather than sending another line. When she answers, the chat opens and you carry on as normal: short messages, some back-and-forth, then a step toward a call or a date.

When to send one

Not to everyone. A Note works because it is specific and a little rare, and it tells her you noticed her in particular. Save them for women you would genuinely like to meet. If you spend them on every woman who comes up, they stop meaning anything, and if you are buying them separately, you are paying for nothing.