Why Can You Not Make a Tinder Account in Texas?

Because Texas law requires Tinder to keep people under 18 out, and Tinder does it using the age information from your Apple App Store or Google Play account. If you are over 18 and still cannot sign up, Tinder says to check three things in your app store settings. Your date of birth should be correct, your account should not be under parental supervision, and age information sharing should be turned on. Then go back to Tinder and try again.

Most men assume Tinder decides their age from the birthday they type in. In Texas, that is not the whole story.

To comply with Texas law, Tinder uses age information provided by the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. So the account that matters is the one your phone signs into for apps, not your Tinder details. If that account says you are under 18, or is not passing an age along, Tinder cannot let you in, whatever you enter on the sign-up screen.

That is why the problem can feel so strange. You are thirty, you typed your real birthday, and the app still refuses you.

Tinder's instructions for an adult who cannot create an account come down to three settings in your app store account.

1. Your date of birth. Make sure the birthday on your Apple or Google account is correct.
2. Parental supervision. Make sure your account is not set up as a supervised account under a parent or family organizer.
3. Age information sharing. Make sure sharing of your age information is turned on.

Fix whichever one is wrong, return to Tinder, and try again.

All three live in your Apple or Google account on the phone, not in Tinder, so that is where to look. The parental supervision one is easy to miss. It is the kind of setting that comes with a family group or family plan, and it can stay on long after anyone remembers setting it up. If you are part of a family group, ask whoever runs it to check how your account is listed.

One way it happens is a phone account set up years ago.

Maybe a parent created your first Apple ID or Google account when you were fourteen, as part of a family plan. Maybe you typed a random birthday into it back then because you did not care. You grew up, got your own phone, and kept signing in with the same account. As far as the app store is concerned, you might still be a supervised teenager, or someone with the wrong birthday on file.

Nothing about that is visible day to day. It only shows up when an app like Tinder asks the store how old you are.

The law and Tinder's rules are clear about who can join, so the only route in is the honest one. Do not borrow a friend's phone or account, and do not try to make your phone appear to be somewhere else. Fix the settings on your own account and sign up as yourself.

If the settings all look right and it still fails, Tinder's help center is the place to raise it.

Getting past the sign-up screen is the easy part. What happens next decides how your first weeks go.

The first impression matters most, so do not rush it. Lead with a recent, clear picture of your face in daylight. Add a few more that show what your week actually looks like, and leave out anything dark, blurry or hidden behind sunglasses. Write a line or two with one concrete detail about your life, the kind of thing a woman can picture and ask about.

When the matches start coming, answer them the same day. Open with a question about something real in her pictures rather than a plain hello. "Okay, which one of you in that group picture is actually the best cook?" gives her something to play with. Keep it light, and once she is clearly enjoying the chat, suggest a place and a day.

a dating coach's advice on online dating is to test, adjust and test again. Give the account a couple of weeks. See how many matches turn into conversations and how many conversations turn into dates, then change the weakest part first.