How to Befriend the Dating Apps

You want love more than anything, but you hate dating apps …

This is a story I’ve heard countless times as a heartbreak/finding-love coach and one I told myself as a frustrated, single woman throughout my 30s before I readjusted my approach to the apps, which led to finding my fiancé on Bumble, of all places.

Look, I get it.

People lie about age and height on their profile. They don’t look like their dreamy pictures when you meet them in real life. They don’t ask you thought-provoking questions, or any at all.

They ghost.

Unmatch.

Aren’t looking for anything serious, even though they said they were on their profile.

This kind of lame behavior ultimately triggers a desperate inner spiral, where you fear you’ll never find love, at least not online. And perhaps, you start to question if there’s something wrong with you because you’ve heard plenty of dating app success stories, and yet, you seem to have no luck.

So here’s the sad truth:

The plethora of people who aren’t being authentic, thoughtful, considerate, or truthful, aren’t going away, but the fabulous truth is this: Neither are you and those lame-o’s don’t ever have to be your problem anymore!

Follow these steps to make online dating a much more enjoyable process because the reality is, it really can be, and it is the most common way for people to find love today—literally at their fingertips. So why not you?

1. Drown out the noise.

Please, for the love of God or whoever your higher power might be, stop giving energy to those who aren’t worthy of your time and energy on the apps. Did you have a sibling who constantly taunted you as a kid? If so, your parent figure most likely told you to ignore them. Pull up your big-kid pants, and swat those unavailable losers away like a fly you wouldn’t think twice about, and move on.

2. Focus on who you want to attract.

They’re kind, emotionally available, financially stable, hilarious, charming, reliable, sexy, and looking for the same thing you are. When you think about this person, how do you feel? Pause. Go there in your body and your mind. How do you behave with this person? What things do you do with them? If you could guess what they might be doing right now, what is it?

Every day, practice focusing on and feeling the energy of who you want to attract. Then, with this cultivated, giddy, intriguing energy, intentionally swipe in search of this dreamy human instead of just reacting off of who you don’t like. Be patient and consistent with this practice.

3. Make an amazing profile.

I’ve noticed that many of my clients tend to unconsciously dim their shine on their profiles. They choose pics where you can barely see their face. They don’t confidently state the qualities they are looking for in a relationship. They pick generic prompts that don’t really give a strong sense of their dazzling personalities.

Show who you are as much as possible to your ideal person. Write it for them, not for the people you think are going to judge and write you off for being who you are.

4. Don’t commiserate with people who hate the apps.

Stop engaging with your Sad-Sammy friends who hate the apps and have one victimized sob story after the next. We all have those stories, but in reality, those stories could happen with someone who you were set up with by a trusted friend.

The apps are not the reason you’re having a terrible dating experience.

5. Remember that you’re looking for your ideal person, not persons.

I want you to think about the math of your situation. Let’s say you’ve had 10 bad experiences in the last year with people you met on apps. (If it isn’t 10, take the time to count how many, so you can make an accurate assessment of how horrible you think the apps are.)

How do you figure that 10 bad dates on apps means that your person isn’t on the apps? What do those 10 people who aren’t right for you have to do with potentially finding the right one on there? Again, we’re not denying or pretending that bad behavior doesn’t happen on dating apps. But just because bad behavior exists, isn’t it logical to believe your person could also be on there?

6. Be willing to experience negative emotions.

After my statement above that apps could be more enjoyable when following these steps, here’s a friendly reminder: Part of life is learning how to manage negative emotions—and not just when it comes to looking for love.

Of course, it hurts when people don’t demonstrate the same level of integrity or when you’re interested in someone who doesn’t reciprocate their feelings. I was unmatched, ghosted, ignored, and rejected by dozens of men throughout my dating journey in my 20s and 30s before I found my fiancé.

The game-changing decision I made when I put myself out there yet again in 2019 was this: I would be willing to experience more heartache and disappointment with the wrong people until I found the right one. I knew that I was equipped to feel pain after doing a lot of healing work on myself. I truly believe that recognizing my ability to experience negative emotions in my dating life (after experiencing gut-wrenching heartbreak multiple times) was one of the main factors that energetically called in the love of my life.

Of course, dating apps are not the only way to find love. I always encourage my clients to get out and about, doing what they love while being open to potentially meet their ideal person.

But as someone who found true love on dating apps after years of frustration, I think it’s downright silly to abandon this tool just because of the unavoidable shenanigans that occur there. The shenanigans are only a problem if you make them your problem.

Claire Byrne is a heartbreak and finding-love coach. Get more of her tips on her podcast, Stop Wanting Him Back & Find Someone Better.