Proper preparation prevents poor performance. — Stephen Keague
The variable that most impacts the number of matches you get on Tinder, Hinge, Bumble, etc, is how you look. People generally don't care how smooth your pick-up lines are if you look like garbage.
Before getting into the minor details—selfie lighting, taglines, etc.—ensure you have maxed out your attractiveness score.
You can mold your body to your liking for the most part. If you already have your nutrition, fitness, weightlifting, cardio, and everything else down—fantastic.
In case you don't know where to start (or want to get sexy as soon as possible), we've written guides that change your average physique to the ideal physique in about 24 weeks.
Before you get started
If you're a guy with a not-so-great body, learn how to reach the ideal male body here:
If you're a girl without much physical charm, learn how to reach the ideal female body here:
As for whitening and straightening your teeth, we've also written a guide about that:
We can't stress enough how much of an impact your physique and your smile have on your love life. The guides above have dozens of research papers that detail how your physique impacts how others characterize you.
Again, life isn't fair. People will judge you—and continue to judge you—based on how you look. Start working towards your ideal body before complaining to us about your results on your online dating service of choice.
Your dating service of choice
That was a nice segue, wasn't it? It's time to make a decision that may or may not greatly impact your future: The dating service you use.
As for the one to pick, we suggest you use the dating app or website with the most users in your area. Oftentimes people in the United States default to using Tinder since it has the most people using it:
This isn't a good idea for a simple reason: Just because Tinder has the most users doesn't mean that it has the most users near you.
Where ya at?
Dating apps and websites (in large part) match individuals based on how close they are to each other before anything else [1, 2]. If you choose Tinder as your primary dating service but no one around you uses it, you'll get fewer matches. And fewer matches mean fewer opportunities to hook up and find love.
If you live in the United States, here's a handy infographic of the most popular dating services in each state:
What are ya into?
Furthermore, you should also consider your target age demographic. If you're a guy that is into older women—more power to you. Just make sure that you use the infographic below to weigh out your options:
Create your accounts
Once you have chosen the dating service right for you, create an account if you haven't already. Down below, you'll find the most common dating app symbols linked to their respective websites:
If you don't see your chosen dating service above, look up its name online to sign up for it or download it from your phone's app store.
Since John lives in California, he chose to use Tinder. However, since many in his social group use Bumble, he created a second account there. This is important! You don't need to limit yourself to one dating app or website.
The more online dating services you use, the better your chances of matching with more people are. More matches mean more options to pick from and more dating apps to keep track of. Start with two dating services and then add more as you need them.
Since most of our readers are from the United States, we skipped over the popular dating apps in other parts of the world. If you live outside the United States, you'll have to research which dating app or website is most popular where you live.
1. What to Expect
3. Your Profile