How Does Swiping Work on OkCupid?

On OkCupid you swipe in Discover, which shows one person at a time. In the app you drag the card to the right to Like her and to the left to Pass. On the web you click the heart to Like and the x to Pass. If you both Like each other, OkCupid tells both of you for free.

Discover puts the information of a single potential match on the screen, and you decide before you see the next. There is no grid of faces to compare.

That changes how you should swipe. You are not choosing among options. You are answering a question about each woman as she appears: do I want to talk to her. A single card holds her photos and some of what she wrote, so a quick scroll down is worth doing before you decide.

A Like is a yes. If she has already Liked you, it becomes a match immediately, and OkCupid tells both of you without charging for it. The conversation then sits on your Messages page.

If she has not Liked you, nothing visible happens. She may see you in her own Discover, or she may never come across you. A Like is not a message, and she is not told about it unless it turns mutual.

A Pass removes her from your Who You Like list. You will not see her again for 30 days.

The word to notice there is "again". A passed card is not gone for good. OkCupid says a passed card may recycle if you run out of people to show you, and you can also reset your passes from the privacy settings. So a Pass is a delay, not a deletion.

The practical result is that a hasty Pass costs you less than it feels like. You are not necessarily gambling away your only chance at her.

Rewind takes you back to the last card you passed on. It exists for the moment you swipe left by accident and realize a second later.

It has a limit. Once you have passed on a card more than once, you cannot bring it back with Rewind. So if you find yourself passing twice on the same woman, the second pass is final as far as that tool goes.

If you pass often in a rush, slow your thumb down rather than relying on Rewind. A good habit is to look at the second photo and one written answer before every pass.

Most men treat swiping as volume. coach, who teaches online dating, treats the process as a series of ratios: matches per hour, conversations per match, and dates per conversation. His point is that a man who improves one number often does more than a man who just pushes harder on the first.

On OkCupid that argument is stronger than usual. The app is built around written answers and compatibility, so a Like carries more weight when you have read something about her. A Like you sent after reading a line of her essay is a Like you can follow with a message that refers to it.

So the sensible way to swipe is to read for a few seconds, Like only the women you would meet, and then actually message the ones who Like you back. A hundred careless Likes produce a pile of matches you have no reason to open. Twenty careful ones produce conversations.

You do not have to message every match the moment it appears. But the first message does the real work, and a woman who just matched with you is most likely to answer today.

Write the first message while you are still on her page. Pick one detail, ask one question about it, and send it. Keep it short enough that she can answer in a sentence.

Swiping is a way to find conversations, and the conversations are a way to find dates. An evening of Liking feels productive and produces nothing until somebody replies.

Set a number for what counts as done: a few good Likes, a few messages sent, then stop. The man who closes the app after sending three real messages is further along than the man who is still tapping at midnight.