The Right Matches,
Not Just More Matches.
Why you're getting attention from women you don't want, and not from the ones you do.
Here's a conversation I've had probably two hundred times in ten years of matchmaking:
A guy tells me he's "not getting any matches." I look at his profile. He's getting matches. Plenty of them.
They're just not the right ones. 😅
This is one of the most common things men get wrong about online dating: they think the problem is volume, when it's almost always signal. Your profile isn't broken, it's just attracting the wrong audience, the way a billboard for a steakhouse will absolutely get noticed by vegetarians too, just not the ones who'll ever walk in. 🥩🚫🥦
Let's fix the signal.
You're Optimizing For Attention, Not Compatibility 🎯
Somewhere along the way, online dating convinced a lot of men that the goal is maximum matches. More swipes. More attention. A higher number.
But matches aren't the prize. A good date with someone you actually like is the prize. Those are two very different things to optimize for.
A shirtless gym photo will absolutely get you more right-swipes. It'll also get you matched almost entirely by women responding to a body, not a person, which is a fine thing to want for one night and a pretty unstable foundation for anything else. 💪
I've had clients triple their match quality (not quantity) by removing photos that were getting attention for the wrong reasons. Fewer matches. Better ones. Every time, they preferred it.
Look at your current top photo. Ask honestly: is this attracting someone who'd like me, or someone who'd like this photo? Those aren't always the same answer.
Generic Profiles Attract Generic Interest 📋
If your bio could belong to literally any guy on the app ("love to travel, enjoy good food, looking for my partner in crime" 🥱), here's what happens: you attract people who are fine with literally any guy.
Specificity does something most men don't expect: it doesn't just attract more of the right people, it actively repels the wrong ones, before you ever waste a conversation on them. That's a feature, not a bug. ✨
I worked with a client who changed one prompt answer from "I love trying new restaurants" to a specific, slightly nerdy story about chasing down the best bowl of pho in his city at 11pm on a Tuesday. His matches didn't go up. They got dramatically better.
Take your vaguest bio line and rewrite it as a 2-sentence story instead of a category. "I love music" becomes a specific memory of the last concert that wrecked you in a good way. 🎸
You're Swiping on Photos Instead of People 👀
A lot of men swipe based on a single thumbnail, in about a second and a half, on instinct. That's not a moral failing, it's literally how the apps are designed.
The fix isn't "swipe slower on everyone." Nobody has time for that. It's knowing what you're actually looking for before you open the app, so you're not making a hundred snap decisions with no real criteria behind them. 🤔
Before your next swiping session, write down three specific things (not "kind" or "funny," everyone says that, be specific) that have made past connections feel right. Use that as your actual filter, not the thumbnail.
"You don't need more matches. You need the right four or five." 🎯
Three Things to Remember
Matches aren't the goal. A good date with the right person is. Stop optimizing for the wrong number.
Specific repels the wrong people on purpose. That's exactly what you want it to do.
Decide what you're looking for before you swipe, not photo by photo, on instinct.
Want Your Profile In The Top 1%, Not Just Another Face In The Feed?
This guide covered the mindset. The Dating Reset covers the mechanics: the exact photo, bio, and prompt framework I use with clients to build a profile that filters for the right person instead of the most attention, plus how to read your results and adjust week by week.
Here's a sneak peek inside: