Why Am I Not Getting Likes on eHarmony?

Usually it is one of five things. They are your lead photo, your written answers, whether the site shows you to the right women, how many likes you send yourself, and how long you have given it. eHarmony publishes no figure for how many likes a man should expect, so you cannot compare yourself with an average. You can find your own weak spot by checking each one in order.

A free member cannot see every photo on your page. According to eHarmony, seeing all member photos is something the paid tier adds. So a woman on a free account may see only one picture of you before she decides.

That makes your first photo the whole audition. Use a clear, recent shot of your face in daylight, with no sunglasses and no one else in it. a dating coach's warning applies on every app: she judges you by your worst photo. If one photo in the set is much weaker than the others, take it out.

The site also runs an authenticity check that compares a short video with your pictures. Old or heavily filtered photos cause trouble there too.

eHarmony says many members skip pages that are empty or half finished. A one-line answer to every question tells her you did the minimum, on a site built for people who want something serious.

Write two or three sentences for each question, and make each one specific. "I like to travel" gives her nothing. "I drove the length of Portugal in a rented car with no plan and ate a custard tart in every town" gives her a picture and a question.

Matching is mutual. The women you see come from your search settings, and you appear to women whose own settings and answers fit you.

So a few things can quietly shrink who sees you. A narrow age range, a short distance, strict settings on religion, smoking or drinking, and quiz answers shaped to impress all change the list. If you answered the quiz the way you think women want, the site matches you with women who suit a man you are not, and they will not like the real one.

Check your Member Preferences, widen what is not a true dealbreaker, and look at your quiz answers again with a clear head. Answer as you actually are.

Likes are not only something you receive. A woman who hears from a man who clearly read her page is far more likely to look at his than one who never hears from him at all.

Read her answers, find one detail with a story in it, Like that, and add a short note. My advice for any app is to be selective. A man who likes nearly everyone teaches the app to treat him as less selective, and he tends to be shown fewer of the women he would pick.

The other extreme costs you too. If you send three likes a month, you will get close to nothing back.

One slow week tells you very little. New members join every day and the list you see changes, so a woman who was not there last week may be there now.

Give it three weeks with the same photos and the same answers. Then compare.

Write down four numbers each week. Count the women you liked, the likes that came back as matches, the matches who replied, and the replies that turned into a plan.

The weak step tells you what to fix. If few of your likes come back, work on your photos and your answers. If matches arrive but nobody replies, work on your first line. If replies come and plans do not, you are waiting too long to suggest a drink.

Change one thing at a time. Swap the lead photo, wait a few days, and see if more women respond. Then change the answers. If you change everything at once, you will never know what worked.

If your photos are clear, your answers are specific, your settings are sensible and three weeks of numbers are still flat, the pool near you may be thin. That is a reason to test another app next to eHarmony, not a reason to question yourself.

coach sees men do badly on one app and well on another because of who is on each. And if the likes stay low everywhere you try, a coach who reads your page can usually spot the cause in one look.