Love is in the air! And with Valentine’s Day soon approaching, I’m emotionally preparing for my social media timelines to be flooded with manicured dates, and several rose petal engagement announcements.

Don’t get me wrong, I do love love but at this particular time of year, for those of us single and still searching, it can be quite raw. Almost like a scar that only hurts when prodded.

That being said, I am a romantic at heart, so I do use dating apps, hoping to one day match with the dream person (because, who knows – it could happen). As someone who is a well-seasoned navigator of dating apps (on and off), I’m writing this to men who also use these apps. I’ve had enough of men who are unserious and half-heartedly using these apps.

Here’s five things you need to stop doing on apps this year, please!

1. Boring conversation

Nothing irritates me more than this.  If you’re just going to waste someone’s time with one worded answers then leave them alone. Every day it’s ‘hi’, ‘how are you?’ on repeat but nothing much seems to happen beyond that and I’M TIRED. Sometimes I think maybe I’m not asking good enough questions, but lately I’ve started to notice that even with questions I’ve intentionally asked to get longer answers some people stubbornly refuse to give them. I did confront someone once when I believed I was asking all the questions and he wasn’t. He immediately got defensive and refused to believe that was true. As you can imagine, that match didn’t last long.

All I’ll say on this is that don’t have half hearted conversations and then wonder why you’ve been ghosted! If you have to copy and paste conversation starters from Google, so be it. Just so some effort because the person you match with cannot get a sense of your interest if you don’t.

2. Not reading people’s profiles

It’s been long said that men are visual creatures. And even if you aren’t necessarily one, dating app interfaces are undeniably created to favour visuals. Photos take up more space on a profile and there’s generally more of them in the ratio of photos to words. What this therefore means is that people that match with you may not read your profile properly before doing so. They’ll just see a photo or two and like your profile.

They’ll likely only read it after matching and realise ‘oh wait – she lives too far’ or ‘oh goodness, she’s looking for something long term and I’m not’. That’s when ghosting may happen, or they may not reply to even begin with. Save yourself the stress and just read the profile in advance before swiping right.

On the flips side, one of my favourite things is when a man matches with me and during the conversation refers to my profile in our chat i.e. – ‘I see you’re a big bookworm – I read this awesome book recently…’ because it shows thoughtfulness and attention to detail. Gold stars all around.

3. Minimal effort profiles

Minimal effort, will get you minimal returns. Yes, say it with me again so it marinates. Put some more effort into your profile, take some decent photos that represent your personality and how you spend your life (i.e. hobbies, outings, friends etcs). Too many profiles from men have one word answers, copy and pasted jokes (God forbid I read another line about pineapple on pizza) and voicenotes that make no sense to any logical human being. It’s gotten to the point where it’s even made great fodder for a social media page (check out @hingeboiz on Instagram).

4. Questionable photos

Many men will use the standard photos of themselves with a dog or baby, to unlock the ‘awwws’ in a woman’s heart. Nothing wrong with that – in fact, I often enjoy these photos. The photos I don’t understand are shots with women that look awfully close for comfort. Yes, men and women can indeed be friends but out of all shots you chose that one?

Other photo choices I find questionable – memes, using the same photo twice or more and gym selfies (can’t explain it but they give me a major ick.)

Also contrary to popular belief – you can SMILE in photos! Whoever told you that not doing so, as man, looks sexier, is lying. You aren’t applying for a post in the navy and we need to see you have a happy side somehow.

5. Not using your real name

Obviously, it’s within your right to choose what name you put on your profile. But may I suggest your actual government name being a good place to start? More and more these days I see people using names that clearly aren’t their real ones. ‘Mr Nice Guy’, ‘Tee’ and other random names. The question therefore becomes, why are you doing this? What are you so keen to hide? If it’s your presence on the app then people will likely figure that out from your photos alone – which are an easier identifier than your first name, by the way. It’s giving, dishonesty; so, a very light red (and unavoidable) flag, if you ask me.

It’s really a miracle I’ve been able to condense it to five points but there we are. If you are using dating apps and feeling a similar way, why not send this article in the direction of someone who you’re talking to, who is wasting your time. Maybe they’ll read between the lines (or the actually lines of this post) and get the message.

Photo by Alexander Sinn on Unsplash