How to Be a Better Dater in 2024: What You Need to Know

Updated: December 3, 2024

Written by

joeoliveto

If you’re like many people, right now, you may be focused on your New Year’s resolutions. However, New Year’s resolutions come in many forms.

For instance, maybe you’re unhappy with your love life. If so, perhaps one of your resolutions involves learning to be a more successful dater in 2024

Keeping reading if that’s the case. Although everyone’s situation is unique, generally, the following tips can help you improve your dating skills this year.

5 Tips for Dating Better in 2024

1. Try Online Dating

Thanks to the Internet, finding a date is easier than ever. The convenience dating sites offer has made them very popular among American singles. In fact, recent surveys indicate approximately 30% of American adults have used an online dating service at some point.

If you haven’t already, give a dating site or app a try. If you have tried online dating, but you haven’t had much success with it, consider trying a different service.

There’s no single dating site that’s ideal for everyone. Different platforms attract different types of people.

For example, maybe you believe it’s important to date someone who shares your Christian values. If so, you might be most likely to find the ideal partner on Christian Mingle. On the other hand, if you want to meet other singles who are as ambitious and successful as yourself, you may instead prefer EliteSingles.

couple on a date

2. Evaluate (and Improve!) Your Online Dating Profile

There are various reasons some people struggle to connect with matches through online dating sites and apps. However, one of the most common is also one of the easiest to fix: they haven’t optimized their profiles.

Take an honest look at your online dating profile. You may very well be an interesting person with plenty to offer. Regardless, that doesn’t mean your dating profile shows that.

Taking the time to improve your profile will pay off in the long run. When revamping your profile, you need to strike a balance. Your pictures should be flattering while still accurately showing what you look like now. If possible, your pictures should also tell someone something worth knowing about you.

For example, perhaps you enjoy hiking and similar outdoor activities. Let potential matches know this by including pictures of you hiking in your profile!

The written section of your profile also needs to strike a balance. You want to describe your attractive qualities without sounding too much like you’re bragging. Keep in mind, the written portion of an online dating profile doesn’t always need to be a “traditional” bio. Some people include jokes in their profiles to show off their sense of humor.

Additionally, you may not want to use your profile solely to talk about yourself. While you do want to highlight the qualities that make you desirable, it’s worth noting that according to research, the most successful online daters use approximately 70% of their profiles to describe themselves and their interests, while using the remaining 30% to describe what they’re looking for in a partner.

man hiking

3. Review Past First Dates

Are you the type of person who’s relatively successful when it comes to getting first dates with online dating matches, but struggles to land a second date? In this case, just as someone might need to honestly evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of their online dating profile, you might benefit from honestly and thoroughly reflecting on your past first dates.

Odds are good some went better than others. True, many factors can influence how well a date does or doesn’t go, but there’s a good chance at least some of those factors are in your control.

Make a list of differences between your good first dates and your not-so-good first dates to determine how you might be able to maximize the chances of a first date being a success. For example, after looking back at past experiences, you may realize your first dates tend to be “better” when you ask more questions. On the other hand, maybe you’ll realize that sometimes you ask too many questions, and your dates are more enjoyable for you and the other party when you’re not treating the occasion like it’s an interview.

The changes you should make will be specific to your own situation. No one else can tell you precisely what you should do differently on first dates. You, on the other hand, can do yourself a major favor by looking back at these experiences and asking yourself why some first dates almost lead to second dates, and why some don’t.

4. Try a New Approach to Messaging

If you struggle to even get a first date with matches, and you’re fairly certain your profile isn’t to blame, it’s likely you need to improve your messaging skills.

Again, online dating has many advantages. That said, the messaging systems most dating sites and apps offer don’t allow for natural conversation right away. Even if you’re extremely charismatic in real life, you may still have difficulty messaging someone through an app without feeling awkward.

Don’t worry if so. Many people can relate. More importantly, many have also discovered that it’s entirely possible to become more comfortable with messaging.

As with your first date habits and behaviors, the improvements you should make to your approach to messaging will depend on your own current approach. For instance, maybe you tend to send generic messages like “Hi” or “What’s up?” when first reaching out to matches. Such messages don’t make a strong impression. If a match is receiving messages from several other people (eharmony, for instance, boasts that 2.3 million messages are exchanged each week!), yours will probably fade into the background. You’ll have a better chance of getting a reply if you send a message that comments (politely and charmingly!) on some aspect of a match’s profile.

5. Strategize

This is a very general dating tip, but it may be the most important one on this list. Quite simply, it’s possible that you haven’t had much success in the dating world for multiple reasons. Perhaps, along with not taking the time to optimize your profile, you also haven’t explored other dating apps, and you could afford to put forth more of an effort on first dates.

Taking stock of what you’ve been doing “wrong” isn’t always the most enjoyable way to spend your time. That said, if becoming a better dater truly is one of your New Year’s resolutions, in the long run, you’ll be happy that you were responsible enough to fully consider the various ways you may be sabotaging your own dating efforts.

When you understand everything you’re doing that’s not giving you the results you want, you can then make a strategy to entirely reinvent your approach to dating. You’ll almost certainly notice positive changes sooner rather than later once you put such a strategy into action.

Most importantly, approach this New Year’s resolution with positivity. Yes, it’s easy to be pessimistic if you’ve had limited dating success up until now, but if you make a genuine effort to improve, you’ll soon remember just how fun dating can be.

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