Why You Are Not Getting Matches on Facebook Dating

Usually it is one of five things: the photos, the preferences you set, your first message, how many women are active near you, or how long you have given it. Facebook publishes no figure for how many men get matches, so you cannot compare yourself with a national average. You can find your own weak point by checking each of the five in order, and the first two cost nothing.

A woman decides on your photos before she reads anything else. Facebook's own advice is to make your primary photo just you with your face clearly shown, and to use clear photos taken in well-lit places. It also suggests shots of you doing things you love, taken by someone else.

Most men who get few matches have one of three problems. The lead photo is a group shot or has sunglasses on. The set is old photos from your Facebook page, picked for cousins and old teammates. Or one photo in the set is far weaker than the others. a dating coach's warning applies on every app: a woman judges you by your worst photo, so if you have three good photos and one mediocre one, take the mediocre one out.

Do not copy your regular Facebook photos. Build the Dating set for a woman who has never met you.

The women you are shown come from three sources. One is the preferences you set. Another is the details you add, such as height, age and education. The third is what you do on Facebook, such as shared Groups and Events, your hometown and your schools.

Two settings shrink the pool. If you switched on This is a strong preference, Facebook gives you fewer, tighter suggestions. Every strong preference removes more women. Turning off Suggest friends of friends removes the people one step beyond your own friends. Both are fair choices, but together they can leave you with a very small list.

Look at your distance too. A very short distance in a small town leaves very few women to be shown. Set it to a distance you would really travel for a drink, and keep strong preferences for real dealbreakers.

Before a match, you can send one message to a suggested woman by tapping one of her photos. After that, Facebook says you can keep writing only once she replies or sends a like back. So you get one shot.

A like with no message tells her little, and a lazy "hey" uses your only message on nothing. Mention one specific thing in her photos, add a line about yourself, and end on a question she can answer in a sentence. My openers are short, specific and built on something unusual in her profile.

You cannot send a second one, and you should not look for a way around that. If she does not answer, treat it as a no and spend your time on the next woman.

Facebook Dating is only in certain countries, and the pool in your area depends on how many women there use it. A man in a large city sees a bigger list than a man in a small town, and no setting changes that.

My rule for choosing any app is that your results depend on whether the people on it are really looking to date. Look at the women you are shown. If most have clear photos and filled-in details, the pool is alive. If few do, a quiet area is part of your answer.

One slow evening tells you nothing. Use the app for two weeks with a proper set of photos, and write down four numbers: women you liked or wrote to, matches, conversations that started and dates you set.

Read the numbers by stage. If almost nobody answers your first message, look at the photos and the opening line. If matches arrive but the chats stall, you are asking too many questions or waiting too long to suggest a drink. If you get dates and no second dates, Facebook Dating is not the problem.

My rule is to test, tweak and test again, and not to keep doing what is not working. Change one thing at a time. Swap the lead photo, wait a few days, and see whether more women like you. Then change the details or the first line.

Do not rely on one app. Keep Facebook Dating beside another app, so a quiet month on one does not become your whole dating life. coach has seen men do badly on one app and well on another because of who is on each one.

If you have strong photos, honest details, a sensible distance, a specific first message and two weeks of numbers, and the results are still flat, the gap may be the pool near you. That is a reason to put your effort somewhere with more women, such as a larger app or an in-person plan, not a reason to question yourself.

The reverse is just as true. A man with weak photos on a busy app and a man with strong photos on a quiet one both get few matches, for opposite reasons. Counting by stage tells you which one you are.