Why Can't I Like Anyone Else on OkCupid Today?

You have hit OkCupid's daily limit on Likes. Free members can only Like so many people in a day, and once you reach that point the app will not let you send more until the next day. Paid plans include unlimited Likes, and in the meantime OkCupid suggests writing good messages to the women you have already Liked.

Nothing is broken, and your account is not being punished. The limit is simply part of the free plan.

OkCupid does not hand free members an endless supply of Likes. It gives you a set number each day, and when they are gone, the Like button stops working until they come back. It tends to run out halfway through a long scroll through Discover, which is exactly when it feels most annoying.

Come back the next day. Your Likes return and you can carry on where you left off.

There is no setting to change and no trick to it. If you want to keep going tonight, the only route OkCupid offers is a paid plan.

The paid plans include unlimited Likes, so the daily limit disappears the moment you upgrade.

Whether that is worth it depends on what your Likes are already doing for you. Unlimited Likes help a man who is getting results and wants more of them. They do very little for a man whose Likes are not turning into anything.

a dating coach singles out this kind of feature as one of the few paid extras worth having in almost every case. His reasoning is about control. When you can Like and write to as many women as you want, you choose who you talk to. When you cannot, you wait for the app to decide how many chances you get.

He is not against paying in general. His view is that dating sites are businesses that want their paying members to stay, so the paid features are usually built to be worth the money. Being able to reach whoever you want, instead of waiting for the app to ration it, is the clearest example.

My warning about every paid feature applies here too. A paid plan multiplies what you already get. If you are getting nothing, it multiplies nothing.

So before you upgrade, look honestly at the last week or two:

• Are some of the women you Like actually Liking you back?
• Are those mutual Likes turning into conversations?
• Are any of the conversations getting to a number or a date?

If the answers are yes, more Likes will mean more of all three, and a month of a paid plan is a fair test. If the answers are no, the limit is not your real problem. Your photos, your written sections or your first messages are, and a bigger supply of Likes will just spread the same result wider.

OkCupid's own suggestion for the rest of the evening is a good one. Go back to the women you already Liked and write to them.

On OkCupid you can message a woman once you have Liked her, even before she Likes you back. So the women you Liked today are not finished business. Each one is a chance to send a short, specific first message.

Keep each one brief. Pick one real detail from her page, react to it with a bit of personality, and leave her an easy way to answer. If she writes that she is training for a half marathon and lives on pastries, try "Half marathon training and a pastry habit. Is that a plan, or a conflict of interest?" It is about her, it is a little playful, and she can answer it in one line.

A plain "hey" wastes the Like you already spent on her. A line that shows you actually read her page gives her a reason to look at you properly.

A limit on Likes is annoying, but it pushes you toward something that helps anyway: being choosier.

Before you Like someone, look at all her photos and read what she wrote. Ask yourself whether you would really be glad to take her for a drink, and whether her page gives you something to say. If the honest answer is no, skip her and keep the Like.

coach has also made the point that spending ten minutes crafting a message for a woman who may never open the app is a waste of your evening. The same goes for Likes. Spend them on women who look active and interesting, write to them quickly and well, and move the good conversations toward a date in a handful of messages. Do that, and the daily limit stops feeling like a wall. It just becomes the number of good choices you make each day.