Because your Dating location is its own setting, and Facebook doesn't move it when you do. Dating suggests people based on your distance preferences, measured from that saved location. If you moved, or you set it once and forgot it, you keep getting women from the old city until you update it yourself.

Fix it in four steps

  1. Open the Facebook app on your phone. Dating only works in the Android and iPhone apps, not on a computer.
  2. Tap Menu, then Dating, then the profile icon at the top right.
  3. Tap Dating preferences, then Dating location, then Update.
  4. Check your distance and age settings while you're there.

Menus move around between app versions. If you don't see Dating preferences, try Profile, then Edit, then Dating location. It's the same setting.

If you see a "Location mismatch" message

Facebook's help page says this message means your Dating location doesn't match your Primary location. Your Primary location is the one tied to your main Facebook account, and it should update on its own as you use Facebook, though that can take some time.

While the mismatch lasts, you can keep messaging women you've already matched with, but you can't make new matches. So a mismatch is worse than a stale city. It stops the app from giving you anyone new.

The fix Facebook lists is to update your Dating location so it matches your Primary location.

The three other causes

A VPN. Facebook's help page warns that a VPN may cause your Dating and Primary locations to mismatch. Turn it off, then update your Dating location.

Location permission is off. On Android, go to Settings, then Apps, then Facebook, then Permissions, then Location. Facebook's page gives three choices there: Allow only while using app, Ask every time, or Don't allow. On iPhone, open Location Services, make sure the toggle is on, then tap Facebook in the list and pick While Using the App, Ask Next Time, or Never. If you picked Don't allow or Never, Facebook can't read where you are.

You're traveling. Facebook's advice for travel is to wait for your Primary location to update on its own. Don't keep rewriting your Dating location every few days. You'll end up with a scattering of women in places you've already left.

If you can't update it

Facebook's help page gives one last option for a man who can't update his Dating location, or doesn't want location services on: delete your Dating profile. That's a big step, so try the permission and VPN fixes first.

When you're moving to a new city

If you want matches in both places, Facebook lists a feature called Match Anywhere in its Dating help topics. Bustle describes it as letting you add up to two extra locations, so you can see matches where you spend time. It may not appear for everyone, so check your Dating location screen.

If you don't have it, update your Dating location the day you arrive and start that week. Suggestions from a city you no longer live in can't turn into dates, however good your photos are.

In 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.

Use being new in town

Once your location is right, being new gives you one of the easiest openings there is. You're new, and she isn't.

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's a far easier ask than a cold "want to get a drink sometime," and a much easier one for her to say yes to.

Keep it honest

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 isn't there.