Lox Club's Rules on Screenshots and Off-App Messages

Lox Club's community guidelines set two etiquette rules. First, no screenshots or screen recordings inside the app, except to report a bug, and a member who breaks confidentiality can be suspended or expelled. Second, keep all communication inside the app until after you match. That means no DMs and no LinkedIn requests to someone you have not matched with. Both rules protect the same thing: a member's privacy until she chooses to share more.

The rule is broad. It covers screenshots and screen recordings of anything in the app, not only conversations. Her photos, her answers, and the list of members you see are all covered.

There is one exception, and it is narrow. You may capture the screen to report a bug. A glitch in the app is a reason to take a screenshot. Showing a friend a woman you matched with is not.

The penalty is real. Lox Club says members who break confidentiality can be suspended or expelled. For a man who applied and waited to get in, losing the membership over one screenshot is a poor trade.

A members-only app works because the people on it trust each other to keep what they see private.

A woman who puts her real photos, her job and her city in front of other members does it on that understanding. A screenshot breaks it in a second. It can land in a group chat, travel further than anyone intended, and reach people she never agreed to be seen by.

Close communities make this worse. When members share cities and friends, a screenshot passed around a group chat has a real chance of reaching someone she actually knows.

The second rule asks you to keep contact inside the app until after you match. Lox Club names the two things men are tempted to do: sending a DM on another platform, or sending a LinkedIn request, to someone they have not matched with.

It is good advice on its own merits. A woman who gets a LinkedIn request from a stranger she saw on a dating app feels looked up, not flattered. It tells her you went searching for her outside the place where she chose to be seen. Even if your intentions are good, it reads as pushy.

And if she has not matched with you, that is her answer for now. Finding another way to reach her does not change it. It only makes the answer firmer.

The rule is about the time before a match. After you match, moving the conversation somewhere else is normal.

The best reason to move off the app is to set up a date. When the chat is easy and she is asking you questions too, suggest a place and an evening, and ask for her number to confirm it. A number beats an Instagram follow for this. It is a direct line for arranging an evening, while a follow tends to turn into watching each other's stories instead of meeting.

Do not rush to move her before there is a reason. Asking for her number in your second message can feel like a grab. Asking once you are making a plan feels natural.

Plenty of men like to send a friend a screenshot and ask what to say. On Lox Club, that breaks the rule.

You can still get help. Describe your side of it. "We've been chatting for a few days about restaurants and I want to suggest a drink. How should I put it?" gives a friend everything he needs. None of it identifies her.

Most of the time the answer is simpler than you expect anyway. a dating coach's advice on messages is to trim them, since most can say the same thing in fewer words. Keep yours short, ask about something she actually wrote, and move toward a plan.

The rules are about protecting members, but they point at something that helps you with women everywhere.

dating advice has written about communicating discretion to women, on the view that a woman relaxes around a man she trusts to keep things private. The reverse is just as true. A man who shows off other women's messages tells the woman in front of him exactly what he will do with hers.

So the man who never screenshots, never passes a conversation around, and never names names is showing every woman he dates that she is safe with him. On Lox Club that keeps your membership intact. Everywhere else, it simply makes you better company.