The Best Time of Year to Use Dating Apps

Plan for a busier first month. Many people open the dating apps again after the holidays, and that includes women who were not looking in December and men who will compete with you. Spend the last week of the old year fixing your photos and your opening lines, then spend January sending messages and booking dates.

The holidays pull people away from the apps. They are traveling, hosting, or sitting through dinners with relatives who ask why they are single.

When the new year starts, that last part gets worse. A relative's comment turns into a resolution, and a resolution turns into a downloaded app. If you open yours in the second week of January and the profiles look new, that is why.

What a man can count on is simple: more new faces to see, and more men sending messages to those faces.

Do the work in the quiet days, not after the rush starts.

Your photos. If the lead photo is old, cropped from a group, or taken at night, replace it. One clear picture of your face in daylight beats five average ones. Add a photo that shows something you do outside the house.

Your first lines. If you have been sending "Hey" or "How's your week?", stop. Plan three openers you can adjust: a comment on one thing in her photos, a question that needs a small story to answer, and a light tease.

Your plan for a date. Choose two or three places close to home. When a conversation works, you will need somewhere to suggest, and you do not want to be searching for it with her waiting on your reply.

Move faster than usual. Women who just reopened the app get many messages in the first days, so the man who is clear and quick gets the reply.

Message early in the week while a profile is new. Say one specific thing about her photos, ask one question, and stop. Do not write three paragraphs. Do not copy and paste the same line to everyone, because women compare notes and the copy shows.

There are three simple things you need to establish before closing: attraction, comfort, and commitment. Attract her by teasing and creating an interesting frame. Build comfort by telling her details about your life. Earn commitment by seeding the close throughout, so when you bring up plans it doesn't seem sudden.

Guys think they really need to get to know a girl before getting her out on the date. On the contrary.

The first rush is exactly when she is most open to meeting a new man. If you chat for three weeks, she will drift to someone who asked her out in the first week. After a short, fun back and forth, suggest a day.

A good text is short: "You seem like trouble in a good way. Drinks Thursday or Friday?" She either picks one or says she is busy, and you learn where you stand.

More matches does not mean more dates. If you answer all of them with the same energy, you will end up with ten conversations and no meetings.

Pick the three you like best and put your effort there. Ask each one out within a few days. If someone is slow to reply, send one friendly follow-up and move on.

You're getting a number, but you're not getting a solid number. A solid number is when the girl actually wants to see you again, so the texting becomes easy. The same holds on an app. A match that wants to meet makes the planning easy, and a match you have to convince wastes your January.

Interest drops after a few weeks, like it does with any wave. People who did not get what they wanted delete the app again, and the pool shrinks.

That is fine. By then you should have met a few women and learned what works for you. The men who treated January as a sprint have a month of practice. The men who waited for the perfect profile have a profile.

Some men do all of this and still feel flat. They send the messages, get few replies, and feel worse than they did in December.

If that is you, it usually comes down to photos, the first message, or the move to a date. Any of the three can be fixed, and a second pair of eyes helps because you cannot see your own profile the way a stranger does.