Why Am I Not Getting Any Likes on Christian Mingle?

There are two possible answers on this dating site, and the first one is easy to miss. You may be getting likes that you cannot see, because seeing who liked you before a match is a Premium feature. If your count really is zero, the cause is almost always one of four things: your pictures, your onboarding answers, how many Christian women are active near you, or how you like women yourself. Christian Mingle publishes no figure for how many likes a man should expect, so measure yourself against your own last two weeks.

According to the site, seeing who liked you before you match is something Premium adds. On the free Basic membership, a woman can like you and you will hear nothing until you like her back and it becomes a match.

So the honest count on Basic is your match list and your chats, not your likes. If you have a handful of matches, women are responding to you, and your problem is turning matches into conversations. If you have no matches after you have liked a fair number of women, keep reading.

Do not buy Premium just to see the number. Use it only if you have a few weeks of results and want to test it.

A woman decides in a couple of seconds, and a dating coach's rule is that she judges you by your worst photo, not your best. One dark, blurry or group picture can sink a good set.

Lead with a clear, recent photo of your face in daylight, with nobody else in it. Add a few more from different days that show a real week: time with family, a hobby, a place you like, a full-length shot. Take out anything that is only all right.

On a faith-based site, men often include church photos and nothing else. That tells her your faith, which she already knew from the site, and nothing about the man she would be having coffee with. Show your life as well.

Christian Mingle has no member search. It recommends women based on the answers you gave when you joined and the preferences you set. The same system decides who gets shown your page.

If you rushed those questions, you are being shown to the wrong women, and the right women are not seeing you. Go back and answer them the way you would answer a friend who is setting you up. Be specific about how often faith shapes your week, what you want in the next few years and where you live.

The site also says it filters out inactive members. That is good for you as a buyer and a warning for you as a seller: an account you rarely open is shown less than one you use.

coach says the same app can be busy in one city and quiet in the next, and good photos on a site with few active women near you will still produce little.

Spend ten minutes going through the women the site recommends. Are the photos recent and the pages filled in? Or do most look abandoned? If you live in a small town or far from a city, the pool may simply be thin. A subscription cannot change who lives near you.

Check your filters as well. A tight age range and a short distance can leave you almost no one to like and almost no one who sees you. Pick a distance you would really drive for a weeknight coffee, and widen the age range to women you would honestly take out.

My warning applies on every app: when a site sees you like nearly everybody, it treats you as less attractive and has less reason to show you to the women you want.

Basic members get a daily cap on likes, so you cannot like everyone anyway. Spend that cap on women you would be glad to hear from. Give each page a few honest seconds before you decide.

When you do like someone, use an Intro Message if you have one left. Basic members get a small weekly allowance, so make it specific. Mention one real detail from her page and ask one question she can answer in a sentence. A line like that is read far more often than a greeting.

Everyone on the site has signed up to meet a Christian partner, so a shared faith is the starting line and not a reason for her to pick you. A line such as "God first, family second" is a label, and a woman reading page after page of labels has nothing to like.

What she does not have is a picture of your week. A short answer about the small group you help lead, the trail you hike on Saturday mornings or the dinner you cook for your parents gives her something to like and something to ask about.

Week one: replace your lead photo, redo the onboarding answers, set honest filters and write down your matches each morning. Change nothing else.

Week two: use your daily likes on women you would take to coffee, send an Intro Message with each, and count again.

If you have matches but few conversations, fix your first line. If you have none, and the women the site shows you look inactive, the site may be wrong for where you live. My advice in that case is to run a second app alongside it and keep whichever one produces conversations and dates.

A like is only the first step. Once a woman answers, suggest a simple plan within a handful of messages, such as coffee near her. A conversation that stays inside an app fades.