How to Change Your Name or Age on Coffee Meets Bagel

You cannot change your name or age yourself on Coffee Meets Bagel. To protect members against scammers, your name, date of birth and gender cannot be edited in the app, so a change needs a request to the support team. If you mistyped your age when you signed up, the Community Guidelines say Coffee Meets Bagel can change it for you just once.

Most of what you show on the app you can edit yourself. Your name, date of birth and gender are the exceptions, and Coffee Meets Bagel keeps them fixed for a stated reason: protection against scammers.

Think about it from her side. A fake account that could rename itself and change its age at will would be much harder to spot. Locking those details makes every account a little more trustworthy, yours included.

Because the app will not let you edit these details, the change has to come from Coffee Meets Bagel's support team. Contact them and keep the request simple:

• The detail that is wrong.
• What it should say instead.
• One line on how the mistake happened, such as a typo at sign-up.

Be clear and polite. The team is guarding other members against exactly the kind of account that changes its details, so an honest, specific request is much easier to deal with than a vague one.

The Community Guidelines allow a correction for a man who mistyped his age at sign-up, and Coffee Meets Bagel will make that change just once.

That makes the request worth getting right. Check your date of birth carefully before you send it, because there is no promise of a second correction.

The rule also tells you what the fix is for. A one-time correction exists for honest typos. It is not a way to adjust your age for strategy.

If the problem is that everyone knows you by a different name, you may not need support at all. Tell her early in the conversation: "Everyone calls me Rob."

Once you swap numbers, text her with the name you actually use. Nobody minds a nickname. What bothers people is a name that turns out to be different with no explanation.

Some men are tempted to knock a few years off to slip under women's age filters. It is a bad trade.

a dating coach is honest that age filters cost older men chances. A woman who caps her range below your age may never see you, even if the two of you would get on well in person. But the answer to that is not a fake birthday. A woman who agrees to meet a man of 34 and finds a man of 39 feels misled before she sits down, and the evening starts on distrust.

Lying about your age also runs straight into what these locks are for. The details are fixed to protect people from accounts that are not what they claim to be, and a false age puts you in that group.

Every age has advantages and drawbacks, the same as your height, your job, or where you grew up. The men who handle it well are the ones who are not strange about it. When she asks, answer plainly and carry on with the conversation.

Older men tend to bring a settled life, a clear sense of what they want, and some ease with themselves. Younger men bring energy and spontaneity. Show whichever you have in your photos and your messages rather than hiding the number.

Then put your effort into the women whose settings include you, and let the number be what it is. An accurate age means the woman who says yes to a date already knows exactly who is coming.