How to Set Must-Have Preferences on Match.com

To set Must-Have preferences on Match.com, click your primary photo thumbnail, scroll down to What I'm Looking For, and click the pencil next to the section you want to change. Update it, mark each item as Nice to Have or Must Have, and click Apply. Setting most preferences, and marking any of them Must Have, requires a subscription on the dating site.

1. Click your primary photo thumbnail.
2. Scroll down to What I'm Looking For.
3. Click the pencil next to the section you want to edit.
4. Update the preference and mark it Nice to Have or Must Have.
5. Click Apply.

Repeat that for each section you care about.

The two labels ask Match to treat a preference in very different ways.

A Nice to Have is a lean. You are telling Match what you would prefer, while leaving room for women who miss on that point but fit in other ways.

A Must Have is a rule. You are telling Match that this point matters enough to be a requirement.

That difference is the whole decision. Every Must Have you add says you would rather not see a woman who misses it, however well she fits everything else.

A useful test is to picture a woman who misses on this one point but is exactly your type on everything else. If you would still want to meet her, it is a Nice to Have.

Most preferences, and every Must Have, need a paid subscription. Without one, you cannot set most of these at all.

If you are paying already, the feature is there to use. If you are still deciding whether to pay, do not upgrade just to add Must Haves. As the rest of this article explains, most men are better off with fewer of them.

Hard rules feel efficient. In practice they mostly remove good women you never get to see.

The numbers men set in a hurry do the most damage. An age range that stops at an exact birthday. A distance that ends a few miles short of the next town. A height floor chosen on a whim. Each one looks harmless, and together they can quietly empty out the women who would have enjoyed meeting you.

It works the other way too. A woman who caps her age range a year below yours never sees you, however well you would have got on in person. You cannot fix her settings, but you can stop doing the same thing with yours.

Save Must Have for the things that would end it between you, however good the first few dates were.

Wanting kids or not is a good example. So is smoking, if you really cannot date a smoker, or faith, if sharing it is central to how you want to live. A mismatch on points like these would end things after a few dates anyway, so ruling them out early saves both of you time.

Keep everything else as Nice to Have. Body type, education, height and the exact edges of age and distance all tend to matter less in person than they do on a settings screen.

Two or three Must Haves is plenty for most men. If your list is longer, go through it again and ask which points you would really walk away over.

Treat your preferences as a first draft.

Set them, use the site for a couple of weeks, and look honestly at what comes back. If your searches feel thin and the same faces keep appearing, loosen something. Move one Must Have back to Nice to Have, or widen one number, and see what changes.

Give each change time to show up. A single slow evening tells you nothing, while two weeks of searches and replies tells you a lot. Change one thing at a time so you can tell what made the difference. You want a pool big enough to keep you busy and focused enough that you would happily write to most of the women in it.

Good preferences put the right women in front of you. They do not start a single conversation.

Once your list looks right, write to the women on it. Read her page, pick one specific detail, and send a short first message with a question she can answer in a line. The best-tuned preferences on the site are wasted on a man who scrolls and never writes.

Your own details matter here too, because women on Match set preferences of their own. Fill yours in honestly and completely, and you will turn up in more of the searches that suit you.