How Do You Start Online Dating as a Man?

Pick two dating apps and get a few clear photos of yourself. Write two or three plain lines. Then send short messages about the woman in front of you, and suggest a place and a day within a few exchanges. Do it in that order, in about a week. Most men do it backwards: they sign up, swipe on everyone and write the same "hey" to all of them.

Do not start on six apps. You will not have time to message properly on any of them.

a dating coach says Tinder carries a hookup reputation, while Hinge and Bumble lean toward relationships. In the US, he adds, Hinge tends to do better than Tinder, especially in major cities. He also says a man should test more than one app, because the algorithm and the people differ, and some men do well on one and poorly on another.

So choose two that match what you want, and decide that first. His biggest point on choosing is not about the app. A page written like a man after a hookup gets hookups, and a page that says you want something long-term gets that. Settle the question before you write a word.

Photos decide almost everything at the start, so spend most of your effort here.

Lead with a clear, well-lit shot of your face, outside in daylight, with nobody else in the frame. No sunglasses, no cap, no friend's arm. Add one full-length photo, then two or three that show where you actually spend your time, taken on different days, with other people in at least one. A hobby, a dinner, a trip.

If nobody has taken a decent photo of you in two years, ask a friend to take thirty shots while you talk instead of posing. One of them will catch you relaxed.

Write two or three lines, not a page. One should say what you are looking for in relaxed language. The other should be a specific detail she could ask about.

"Fun, outgoing, loves to travel" gives her nothing. "Lost a bet and now run a pickup basketball game every Thursday" gives her a question. My most common criticism of men's pages is that they are boring, so one real detail does more than five adjectives.

Now you begin matching and writing. Keep your first messages short, specific and about her.

Read her page and pull out one real detail: a place, a pet, a hobby, an odd answer. Then ask a question only she could answer. "That trail in your third photo looks brutal, did you make it to the top?" beats "hey, how's your week" because she does not have to invent the conversation.

You will not get a reply from everyone, and that is normal. Plenty of matches never answer. Send to the women you genuinely like and move on from the silence without taking it personally.

When she answers, reply the same day if you can. A woman remembers a conversation from this evening. She has to work to place one from three days ago.

Match her energy. A short, playful line deserves a short, playful answer, not three paragraphs. a dating coach's warnings about neediness are practical. Do not reply the instant each text arrives, all night. Do not answer one line with an essay. Do not try to win her with flattery instead of being fun.

The messages exist to get to a date. A conversation that drifts for weeks usually ends in nothing.

Within a few exchanges, once she is clearly enjoying the conversation, suggest something specific: a place and a day. A coffee or a drink near her, short and easy to leave. "There is a good wine bar near you, are you free Thursday?" is a plan she can say yes to. "We should meet sometime" is not.

Plan for it to be slower than you hoped. a dating coach's numbers talk makes the funnel plain. Swipes become matches, matches become conversations, and conversations become dates. Each step loses most of the people. A man who treats a low match rate as a verdict quits early, and the man who treats it as a number to improve keeps going.

Keep sessions short and regular, fifteen minutes or so a day, rather than one huge burst and then nothing for two weeks. Check your results once a week, not every night. After two or three weeks, change one thing at a time, starting with the photos.

Everything above is something you can do yourself. The common failure is not knowing which step is weak. If you are getting matches and no dates, the fix is in the messages. If you are getting no matches, the fix is in the photos. Find the weakest step first and work on that one.