After asking a few of my female friends to work on my profile, I was getting next to no matches. I'm fairly good looking, 6ft, and in great shape. They swore up and down that I shouldnt post a shirtless pic, that it would alienate 90% of women. I listened to them, and had very little luck on the apps. After a few weeks of little to no luck, I went with my gut and decided to put my 1st pic as me at the beach with a 5ft iguana. The matches came pouring in. So fellas, if you're hesitating about using that post workout pump photo because you think it might make you look douchey, or your girlfriends have advised you not to, know that although they probably mean well, a match based on initial attraction atleast gets your foot in the door and you can finally initiate a conversation.

Does my account have the best ratio on here or what?

One picture of herself, and the rest of the profile was the collection of these (poorly-cropped)... memes? Demands? Not quite sure what to call 'em 🤷‍♂️

Another love story that ended in less than 10 texts! At this point I am not even mad, just amused!

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Thankfully the swiping paid off across the apps and I have a great girl but man it's been tough. Glad I don't have to do it anymore.

If she wanted to go on a date with you, she would.

She wouldnt say she has no time, she would take time to see you. And if she really couldnt then she would come up with a different time.

She wouldnt dry text you and you could literally see that shes into you just by her text messages. You wouldnt have to think or ask yourself if she likes you or not.

Now this also applies to men, but in my observation its mostly men asking if a women is interested or not. Well, if they are they will show it.

They will even travel 1 hour to your town just to see you. Trust me, there is no need to overthink it.

If theres any friction before the first date, you can safely assume shes not interested in you but your attention is welcome.

This doesn’t seem..right? I’m not a model, but I would have thought even if I didn’t have a match, like 55 seems insanely low

I live in a small beach town, so there’s definitely less people here, but still! Is it my photos? Prompts? Or am I ugly?

I have been trying to take more pictures to replace the ones I have. The first pic is the most recent from this week, which I tried to take with online dating in mind.

Have been separated for half a year, still going through the divorce. Getting 1-2 matches per week (with Bumble Boost) but zero messages.

All photos are genuine, only the last one I photoshopped my future ex wife out of the photo.

These are kinda in order of preference - images 2-4 are from the same photoshoot and I'm not sure which to go for. The first photo is well shot but kinda gives me Linkedin vibes so I'm not sure I should use it as my main! The last few I don't think I'd use but putting them in just in case

Bumble is absolutely dead in Sweden so Hinge will have to do. Translated with MS Paint so the wording isn't exact. I realize my profile is far from optimal in the sense that it won't maximize matches by trying to appeal to the maximum amount of people, but looking for suggestions to improve nonetheless.

Edit from a reply:

I guess I didn't really see the date suggestions as strictly for first dates, just date ideas I appreciate as going to bars/drinking isn't really my cup of tea, while also mentioning somewhere that I do indeed cook. Relevant context for the Stockholm archipelago is that it's accessible by public transportation boats and has shops, cafés, restaurants, etc, other than just trees and coastlines depending on the island.

I do absolutely struggle to describe myself without ending up with either a stereotypical Italian rant that risks coming off as negative or even more scandi-boring bullet points. My two halves at war.

For those who've used Bumble for a while, what's a small thing someone did that made you think, "Okay, this person might actually be worth meeting"? And was it something they said in their profile or something they did while chatting?

I started talking to a guy about a week ago. I’m 42F, he is 32M. Got on well enough chatting. He had told me he was on spectrum for autism so sometimes gets nervous and didn’t want to rush into anything but did want to date. We said we would meet and would think about when soon but last night he was silent all night apart from one txt about 11ish saying I am with a friend.

I wouldn’t text someone loads with a friend but I would have checked in more than that one short message so I said you can just say if you’re on a date. I approach dating talking to one person at a time but I know a lot of people tend to talk to a few and maybe go on a first date with a couple at a time and that’s fine. He came back to me tonight and said well I’m not sure what it was last night but I’ve had drinks with her a few times and last night she came to mine for the first time, we didn’t do anything but it was nice to hang.

My txt last night had been suggesting days to meet and he said after that text telling me about the girl he had seen a few times plus last night (so I’m guessing about 4 times), that it would be really great to meet. I responded that I had suggested the days to meet before I knew he had been on 3 or 4 dates with someone already and that he must be planning to see her again. He confirmed he was but that he doesn’t count himself as seeing her and it takes him a long time to see if he has chemistry with someone and wants to be exclusive. If I’d been on 4 dates with someone I’d think things were going well and wouldn’t have thought the person was still seeing others so am surprised he was looking to see me.

I said we should probs just leave meeting as it seems crazy to meet someone already 4 dates in with someone else who is at stage of being comfortable alone at his house. He thinks I’m being silly. Am I wrong to not want to meet now given he is 4 dates in already with someone? I can get his autism might make it harder to figure out how he feels but I already feel like I’d be on the back foot with him already him having had 4 good dates with someone else. Plus I want to date and although not looking to rush, if dates kept going well I’d want to define things and although 4 dates is still early days it would feel like things were heading that way and I don’t know when this guy would define things… but maybe I don’t appreciate how dating really is…u

I think one of the most underrated things on a dating profile is giving someone an easy way to imagine what spending time with you would actually be like.

A profile full of travel photos, gym pictures, fancy restaurants, and impressive achievements might look great, but sometimes it tells you more about what someone has done than what dating them would feel like.

Meanwhile, someone mentioning their very specific coffee order, their irrational hatred of folding laundry, or their ideal Sunday afternoon can feel much more approachable.

There's a difference between looking attractive on an app and coming across as someone you'd genuinely enjoy getting to know.

Personally, I think profiles become much more interesting when they show a little personality instead of trying to look universally appealing.

What's one small detail you've seen on a Bumble profile that made someone seem genuinely more interesting to you?

I keep getting asked the same questions by women I match with (I'm sure men do this too), like where I'm originally from, when it's literally the FIRST thing in my bio.

At first, I thought maybe they just missed it or were using it to start a conversation. But nah, I'm convinced some people just don't read bios at all.

The one that really got me was talking to someone for DAYS before she asked if I had a dog. She has a cat and doesn't want to date a dog parent. Two of my pictures literally have my dog in them, and I mention having a dog in my bio. 💀

Like, am I wrong for finding this annoying?

I recently read some rumors that the tennis players Elina Svitolina told her husband Mongils about her wanting to get divorced over the phone, she cited reasons like wanting to find herself and the war in Ukraine.

Now this is a bit irrelevant to this sub, but these news brought bag unpleasant memories from a break up, my(24M) ex(30F) (who I met through bumble) also cited very confusing reasons and did it over a phone call a day after we went on a weekend trip. The girl before her also broke up with me through an Instagram message.

While they were short relationships we have been committed to each other for at least a couple months by then, and both of them were older(30&25) respectively and I was 23-24.

Thinking back there has been many signs some not really obvious to me at the time, but they were still there and if I was paying attention to them I wouldn’t have been completely blind sided. They had no desire to work through things, or voice any of their concerns that may have lead to the break up. I on the other hand tried my best to check on them and voice my concerns or ask questions to better understand them and their needs.

I have dated women of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, very few showed any remarkable communication skills but I only mentioned those two because we have been already committed at that point.

This isn’t even to mention the ghosting or inconsistent texting I’ve dealt with on dating apps before getting to the commitment stage.

Needless to say I have serious trust issues now.

I’ve gone on a lot of dates from Hinge. But only 5 dates this year from Bumble.

Just be curious, is it a common thing for a guy to check that one match’s location from time to time.

After 5 months, I am deleting Bumble. I am late 30s man in California. The numbers looked pretty good, but that doesn't mean anything concrete. The whole experience felt like a videogame. I had a lower rate of sent likes to women (5.6%) than received likes (6.2%). I didn't play clearly the number game, since I am pretty selective and I find few people intereting. In fact, I read profiles, I just don't swipe based on looks. Despite this strategy, I only had two in-person dates. Two...Many conversations just died after one single reply or were never initiated. The paradox of choice is real.

Hi! I'm new to dating apps, and I'm wondering if these numbers are reasonable? I live in a fairly small city by a large metro area that's only an hour away.