Relationships Talk

“When it comes to photos, less is more,” she says of my five.

“The first photo with the sunnies on doesn’t show you off – a single shot of you, just smiling would probably work better, and pairing down the amount of shots to your favourite three – ideally two of those should just be you alone.”

Holly adds that studies back her photo suggestions up.

“There was one that took about 1000 app users to talk about their profile photos, and the features that stand out for men and women. They vary in terms of what photos actually work best, but a formula that they’ve come up with is that solo shots are winners for both guys and girls.

“I think people think group shots look fun and social, but keeping the focus on yourself is best. For women it was smiling with teeth and looking slightly off camera, and for men it was closed mouths looking directly at the camera, and beach shots are a bit of a thumbs down.”

Noted.

Moving on to my bio, which is: “My hobbies include spying on my neighbours and putting tomato sauce on everything”, she said this:

“It’s always good to keep it light-hearted with a joke, humour works well because it shows that you’re not taking yourself or the app too seriously, but the only thing I worry is that we miss a bit more of a personal touch from you. I’d probably counter a joke opening with something else about yourself, something like ‘I’m very passionate about XYZ’.

“If you were my client I’d get more of  sense of your personality and interests – so just balancing something funny, then something else about you.”

Holly added that the icons available for selection on Bumble (whether you’re a smoker, your height, etc) should also be reviewed in my case.

Currently, I have “what I’m looking for” set to “I don’t know”, because: ¯_(ツ)_/¯.

“If someone says I’m really not that interested in dating, it might result in meeting the wrong type of person,” says Holly.

“If you do want to meet someone, you want to take a bit of time to put the effort in. Just like if you’re going for a promotion at work, you work harder to show you are capable of it.

“There’s a bit of shyness for people in 20s when putting any effort into apps – because they feel embarrassed to say they met someone on Tinder. But we all know it’s just a filter. I met my partner on Bumble so there’s absolutely the chance to find someone using an app.”

Her advice for those navigating dating apps solo (who might not have the cash to splurge on someone to manage them), was this:

“Maintain a bit of mystery.

“I never suggest linking to your Instagram or having a large gallery, you want them to want to find out more.”

Got it.

“And when you’re messaging for the first time, try not to just say “hi”. You know, if you get the wave, or a hey, or a smiley face – it just gets a bit lost. You want it to look like they’ve taken a bit of time to actually look through your profile and come up with something about you or your hobbies or your personality, so you should do the same for them.”

She didn’t say anything about dad jokes, so maybe Stu just deleted his account?