Tap Menu, then Dating, tap the icon at the top right, then Dating preferences, then Dating location, and tap Update. Your Primary Dating location is the place where you first signed up for Facebook Dating, and Facebook only changes it when you choose to. Moving house does not move it for you.
The steps
- Open the Facebook app, tap Menu, then tap Dating.
- Tap Profile in the top right.
- Tap Dating preferences.
- Tap Dating location.
- Tap Update.
The same screen is also the quickest way to check where Dating thinks you live. If you are not sure whether your location is right, look here first.
Why moving does not change it
Men are often surprised by this. Their phone knows they moved, Facebook knows they moved, and Dating carries on as if nothing happened.
That is by design. Facebook says your Primary Dating location is where you initially signed up and it only updates when you choose to change it. So a man who joined Dating in Chicago and moved to Denver keeps seeing women in Chicago until he opens this screen and taps Update.
If Dating has felt dead since a move, this is the first thing to check. Suggestions from a city you no longer live in cannot become dates, however good your photos are.
Make it a habit. Any time you move, open Dating preferences within the first day or two and look at your Dating location. It takes seconds, and it saves weeks of wondering why nothing is happening.
When to update
Update it when your base really changes. You signed a lease, you started a job in the new city, you now spend most nights there.
Do not update it for a long weekend. A Dating location that jumps around every few days gives you a scattering of women in places you have already left. A short trip calls for a different approach, covered below.
Before a move
A move is one of the best chances a man gets to start fresh, and most men waste the first month of it.
Experienced coaches who move often describe the same habit. A week or two before they arrive, they start using the apps in the new city, so they land with conversations already running and a date or two on the calendar. Compare that with arriving, unpacking for a fortnight, and only then opening an app.
On Facebook Dating, the tool for that is Match Anywhere. It lets you browse suggested matches outside your primary Dating location, and Facebook says it is only available to some people. If you have it, add the new city before you go. If you do not, update your Dating location the day you arrive and start that week.
In those early conversations, be open about the move. "I'm moving there at the end of the month, so I'm lining up a few locals to show me around" is honest, a little playful, and it tells her exactly when a date could happen.
After a trip
If you travelled and came home, your Dating location has probably not changed at all, because Facebook does not move it on its own. Your main Facebook account is a different story. Its Primary Location updates as you use Facebook, and if the two drift apart, Dating may ask you to update.
If you see that request after a trip, and you are home again, you usually do not need to change anything here. Keep using Facebook normally and let it catch up.
Use being new in town
Once you are in the new city with the right location, you have one of the easiest conversation openings there is. You are new, and she is not.
Ask her for something only a local would know. The best coffee near your new place. Where people actually go on a Friday. Which neighborhood is overrated. Women like being the expert, and her answer hands you a natural plan: "You clearly know the good spots. Show me one on Thursday?"
That is a far easier ask than a cold "want to get a drink sometime," and a much easier one for her to say yes to.
Being new also gives you an honest reason to suggest meeting soon. You want to learn the city, and she can help. Few men get an opening that natural, so use it while it lasts.
Do not set it somewhere you are not
Your Dating location should be where you actually live. Setting it to a city you have no plans to be in, just to see different women, wastes their evenings and yours. Nobody can meet up with a man who is not there.
Keep the setting honest, update it when your life moves, and let the conversations take care of the rest.
Written by Matthew Stevens, Co-Founder & Head Coach. More than half a decade coaching men across the US and worldwide.
Everything here comes out of real coaching work: the approaches, dates, texts and profiles we go through with the men we coach.