What Is the Best Dating App in Canada for Men?

No single app is best for every man in Canada, and anyone who names one without knowing your city is guessing. The sensible way to choose is to test two or three of the mainstream apps for a couple of weeks and keep the one that gives you the most conversations and dates. Tinder, Hinge and Bumble are the three a dating coach talks about most, so start there.

An app being offered in Canada tells you it exists. It does not tell you how many women in your city open it this week.

Canada is big and thinly spread outside a few cities. An app that is busy in Toronto can be quiet in a small town, and the reverse can happen too. None of the apps we read gives a user count or an age breakdown for Canada, so any ranking you find online that claims to know is either invented or old.

a dating coach makes the same point about regions in general. Poor app selection for your area, or for you personally, is one of the reasons men fail on apps. In Europe, he says, Tinder is often quite good. In the US, he says, Hinge tends to be better in a lot of the major cities. His advice is not to trust the reputation. Test.

Tinder. a dating coach says Tinder has a hookup reputation. It suits a man who is open to casual dating, and a man who wants something steady should say so plainly in his page.

Hinge. a dating coach says Hinge and Bumble have more of a relationship vibe. Hinge shows a man a woman's prompt answers, which gives you something specific to reply to.

Bumble. A Bumble match can expire if nobody writes in time, so it rewards the man who answers the same day and sends a first line worth reading.

Which of the three works in your city depends on who lives there. Install two of them, give them identical photos and written lines, and watch which one answers.

Two other apps name Canada in their own pages.

Facebook's help page lists Canada among the countries where Dating is available. It is part of Facebook, it uses your location to suggest people, and you need to switch it on inside the Facebook app.

The League names Canada, alongside the UK, Western Europe and Dubai, as a place where it has an established presence. It is a gated app. You apply, wait for a review, and then see a small batch of people each day. It suits a man who likes a filtered room and can wait. It does not suit a man who wants to be messaging someone this weekend.

If you want to try either, add it as a second or third app after you have tested an open one.

a dating coach's standing advice on all of this is to test, tweak and test again. A dating page works like a small piece of marketing. You change one thing, watch the result and keep whatever works.

Run each app for two weeks. Count the conversations you started and the plans you made. Change your lead photo and count again. The app that gives you more dates for the same effort is your best app, and it can be different from the best app for a friend in another city.

You do not need loyalty to one app. a dating coach says it is fine to be on several, and that a man can fail on one app and do well on another because of how its algorithm and its members differ.

In a large city you have many women within a short trip, so swiping selectively is easy. Be picky, because a dating coach says an app reads how selective you are. A man who swipes right on nearly everyone looks less attractive to the sorting, and gets shown fewer of the women he actually wants.

In a smaller town the pool runs dry faster. If you see the same faces within two evenings, that app is thin where you live. Try another app, or widen your distance setting a little and plan to travel for a date.

Cold weather changes what you suggest, not whether you ask. A coffee, a drink or a meal somewhere warm is an easy yes, and an outdoor plan in the middle of winter is a hard one.

Photos come first. Good light, a clear view of your face and a few shots that show your real life matter more than which app they sit on.

After that, the first message. A short, specific line about something she wrote beats a greeting. Then move toward a plan within a handful of texts.

Paying can multiply what you already get, as a dating coach puts it, but it multiplies zero as readily as anything else. Get some matches without paying first. Then decide if a paid tier is worth it.

The app only introduces you, so you still have to ask for the date.