How Facebook Dating Differs From Your Normal Facebook Profile

Facebook Dating gives you a second, separate profile that exists only inside Dating. Your current Facebook friends cannot see it, nobody outside Dating can see it, and nothing you do in Dating shows up in your Facebook Feed. You can delete the Dating profile and keep your Facebook account, but deleting your Facebook account takes the Dating profile with it.

The main worry men have is simple: will my friends, my coworkers, or my aunt find out I am on Dating? From your own Facebook friends, the answer is no. Facebook says they cannot see your Dating profile, and your likes and conversations never appear in the Feed.

There is one clear exception, and you control it. If you send a crush to a Facebook friend, she can see that you liked her, and your Dating profile shows up in her Liked You tab.

The Feed point matters more than men expect. Nothing announces that you joined Dating, and editing your Dating photos or chatting with someone never becomes a post your friends scroll past. Your main Facebook page looks exactly the same the day after you sign up as it did the day before.

Private from your friends is not the same as private from their friends. Dating can suggest friends of friends as matches unless you switch that setting off. So the people one step out from your friends are part of the pool, and some of them will know your name.

The two profiles are separate on screen, but they are not strangers behind it. Dating uses things you and others do on Facebook to decide who to suggest. That includes details such as your hometown and the schools you list, plus Facebook Groups and Events you have in common with someone.

The account link runs one way when you leave. You can delete your Dating profile and your Facebook account carries on untouched. Delete your Facebook account, though, and your Dating profile goes with it.

Your Facebook photos were chosen for a different audience. They are for your cousins, your old teammates, and the people you went to school with. That is why they are full of group shots, a wedding from years ago, your nephew on your shoulders, and a profile picture nobody has changed in a while.

A woman on Dating is making a quick decision about a stranger. She wants to see your face clearly, get a sense of your week, and picture a drink with you. Photos picked for family do none of that on purpose.

So build the Dating profile from scratch. Pick photos for her, not for your relatives.

Lead with a photo of just you, face clearly shown. Facebook's own tips say the same thing, and at least one photo has to show your face anyway.

After that, show your life rather than tell it. A photo of you cooking for friends, one from a hike, one in clothes you would actually wear on a date. Candid shots that look like a friend took them beat staged, polished ones, because they look like a real man's real week.

Keep the flexing soft. A good watch in a relaxed photo reads as a man doing fine. A close-up of the watch reads as a man who needs you to know.

Because your friends cannot see your Dating profile, you can be a bit more yourself there than you would be on your main page. You can write a playful prompt answer your boss will never read. You can use a photo that is more about your social life than your job.

Just remember who can see it: women on Dating, including some who share friends with you. Write every line as if your best friend's girlfriend might read it one day, because she might know someone who does. That standard keeps you charming and keeps you out of trouble.

If you meet someone and want to stop, delete the Dating profile and keep everything else. Your Facebook life goes on as normal and nobody on your friends list sees a thing change.

If you plan to leave Facebook entirely, know that your Dating profile ends with it. Save the numbers of anyone you are still talking to before you go, because those conversations live only in Dating.