The 5 Worst Ways to Choose a Dating Site

Dating apps are dying. At least, that’s what TIME recently announced. And although I don’t think they’re actually going away, I do think some of them perhaps should. 

Because if you’re looking for a loving, committed relationship, it matters not only who you choose online. It matters where you’re choosing them. And some of the things that make a dating site sound most appealing are exactly the things I’d tell you to avoid.

1. Choose it because it’s free.

Free is wonderful when you’re getting samples at Costco. It’s less useful when you’re trying to screen for people willing to invest something in finding a partner.

Does paying for a dating site prove someone is serious about commitment? Of course not. Married people have credit cards. Players have $39.99. But paying creates a small barrier to entry. Someone had to decide, Yes, finding a partner matters enough to me that I’ll spend something on this. That’s information.

So I prefer sites that charge—or, at minimum, offer a paid membership and make it obvious who has chosen it. You’re looking for intentional people. Choose a site that helps you identify them.

2. Choose one that won’t tell you what people are looking for.

This one makes me nuts. If you want a long-term, committed relationship, why would you spend your time dating people to discover whether they want one too?

Dating intention should not require excavation. A good dating site asks what people are looking for—short-term dating, long-term relationship, marriage, casual connection—and then, importantly, shows you the answer.

Someone who wants casual sex isn’t doing anything wrong. They’re simply the wrong candidate for someone seeking a life partner. You don’t need more candidates. You need better information about the candidates you’ve got.

3. Choose one that lets people skip the photograph.

Yes, I frequently warn people about the dangers of instant chemistry. No, I’m not advocating a passionless existence. But there’s gotta be a baseline.

A photograph can’t tell you everything about whether you’ll be attracted to someone in person. Attraction can grow as you experience someone’s voice, movement, humor, warmth, scent, personality, and the way they look at you. But physical attraction matters in a romantic relationship. You need enough visual information to determine whether someone clears the initial bar of Maybe.

You aren’t asking, Am I wildly attracted to this photograph? You’re asking, Could attraction plausibly grow here? Instant chemistry can mislead you. Zero information isn’t the cure.

4. Choose the site with the most people on it.

People routinely confuse a large dating pool with a good dating pool. They’re not the same thing.

If you want a committed relationship, an enormous site disproportionately populated by people looking for hookups isn’t necessarily an advantage. You could have 10,000 candidates. If 9,950 of them want something fundamentally different from you, that’s not a win.

Choose a site whose culture and clientele lean toward what you actually want. Look at how it markets itself. What does it emphasize? What kind of behavior does its design encourage? What are people going there expecting to find? Don’t choose the biggest pool. Choose one with your fish in it.

5. Choose it because you can swipe through people on your phone while waiting for your latte.

Convenient! Also: This is your life partner we’re talking about.

And the device you use isn’t necessarily neutral. Turns out, people give more weight to pictures and what immediately feels right when they use a touchscreen, but when they use a mouse, they give relatively more weight to other information.  

Swiping on phones is exactly backward from how I want my clients choosing a partner. A photo matters, but so do the things you have to slow down and read: what they want, who they are, how they live, and whether any of that actually fits you.

So I prefer dating sites that are used on a laptop or desktop computer—or at the very least, give you that option. Plus, on a larger screen, you can see more information at once. You can read. Notice. Consider.

Most people wouldn’t research a major investment by flicking photographs of companies left and right while standing in line at Costco. Your life partner is a bigger investment. Treat the decision accordingly.

None of this means a paid, desktop-accessible, relationship-oriented dating site containing photographs and clearly stated intentions will magically deliver your person. It means something much less magical and much more useful: It gives you better information with which to choose.

That’s what I want for my clients: not the site with the most people, the one that’s easiest to use, or the one everyone else is on. I want the one that makes it easiest to answer the question that actually matters: Is this person a good candidate for me?

I don’t think online dating should die. But dating platforms that make it harder to choose well?

Maybe we should stop trying so hard to keep those alive. 

Dating gets a lot easier when you know what to notice—and what to do with the information you’re getting. If you’re 50-plus, I’ve made a free 15-minute training to help you find and choose the right person without settling or falling back into old patterns.

coaching.lovesciencemedia.com/freebie

References: 

Barua, M. (2026). Dating Apps Are Dying. TIME, September 2026. 

Brasel, S. A., & Gips, J. (2015). Interface psychology: Touchscreens change attribute importance, decision criteria, and behavior in online choice. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 18(9), 534–538. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2014.0546 PubMed Central (PMC)

They experimentally compared people making an online choice using direct touch versus a mouse while holding screen size constant. Touchscreen users searched more alternatives and gave greater weight to tangible/visual attributes and their own instinct, while mouse users gave relatively greater weight to intangible attributes and external information such as reviews. The authors’ broader conclusion was that interface can affect how online information is explored, perceived, remembered, and acted upon.

Photo by Devin Avery on Unsplash

They Look Like Bad News. Are They?

Sometimes somebody just looks like bad news. Are they?

He looked..snarly. Like he’d spent his life picking on people. 

I was online with a client, deciding how to reply to someone. And this guy’s photos made me think:  Uh-oh. This guy looks like bad news.  He wasn’t unattractive. But I suspected he was belligerent. 

So we replied to his note. And…yep. By the next reply, he had shown himself to be argumentative, hostile, offensive, contemptuous, and disagreeable. You could practically hear the sneer. Yikes.

And then there are the folks with soft eyes and warm smiles, who turn out to be absolutely delightful. These are the warm-hearted people who expect and bring out the very best in themselves and others. 

This has happened so often that sometimes my clients add this to their list of things they’d like in a partner: “Agreeable; looks like they’ve spent their lives smiling.” 

I’ve wondered: Am I actually seeing something? Or have decades of working with people merely given me the confidence to think I am?

Turns out, science has a surprisingly interesting answer: Sometimes, we really can tell something about personality from appearance.

When researchers show people photographs of strangers and ask them to judge their personalities, their guesses are far from perfect. For some traits, they’re better than chance. But I wouldn’t hang my hat on it. 

But a dating-profile photo isn’t your driver’s-license photo.

You chose it.

On your profile, you picked the expression, the clothes, the posture, the setting. You chose whether to smile warmly, stare moodily into the middle distance, flex in the bathroom mirror, pose lovingly with your dog-or demonstrate that somewhere nearby, a fish has had a very bad day.

Apparently, those choices tell us something.

In one study, researchers photographed people two ways. First, they standardized their appearance and pose. Then they let them present themselves naturally. When researchers stripped away people’s individual choices, strangers could accurately judge only a few characteristics. But when people got to be themselves-expression, posture, clothing and all-observers accurately perceived considerably more about their personalities.

Other research has found that strangers can pick up real personality information from people’s social-media accounts. And recent research on online dating confirms something particularly relevant: people have considerable control over the personality they convey online.

In other words, they’re showing you something.

Now, I am not suggesting you look at someone’s jawline, large forehead, or high cheekbones and announce, “Aha! Emotionally volatile. Swipe left.”

You cannot diagnose someone’s personality from their facial features or the bumps on their skull (and phrenologists of the 1800s certainly tried). But you can pay attention to what people choose to show you.

Three pictures and a big fish aren’t a scientific personality profile. But don’t immediately explain away what you’re noticing, either. These folks are 50-plus; their character may be implied by the way they use their face, body, clothing, and deep-sea gear. 

So treat your first impression as a hypothesis. Then start gathering evidence.

It probably won’t take long. 

What did they write? How do they talk to you? How do they describe their ex? What happens when you disagree with them or say No? 

Because your first impression could be wrong. But sometimes it’s effective pattern recognition.

Most folks today have dozens—sometimes hundreds—of pictures to choose from. And the ones they actually select say: Here. This is how I want you to see me.

So look.

You don’t need to convict them of anything. You don’t even need to be certain. Dating isn’t a court of law, and you don’t need proof beyond a reasonable doubt before deciding who you want to know better. And who you don’t.

Your job is simply to pay attention to the information you’re being given. And usually, you’ll know pretty fast whether that is accurate.

As poet Maya Angelou put it: 

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

Dating gets a lot easier when you know what to notice—and what to do with the information you’re getting. If you’re 50-plus, I’ve made a free 15-minute training to help you find and choose the right person without settling or falling back into old patterns.

You can watch it here:
coaching.lovesciencemedia.com/freebie

References

Naumann, L. P., Vazire, S., Rentfrow, P. J., & Gosling, S. D. (2009). Personality judgments based on physical appearance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35(12), 1661-1671.

Social-media personality research: strangers’ judgments from online self-presentation can correspond with account owners’ personality measures.

Online-dating research: people have meaningful control over the personality they convey in dating profiles.

 

Photo by Andrey K on Unsplash

S*X in Their Profile: Red flag?

In the past week alone, my clients have sent me profiles featuring a man who was about 1% clothed, another whose chosen photo mimics a sex act, a man promising to help women discover their sexual fantasies and provide “fireworks” in bed, and one whose username is a popular sex position.

One gentleman chose a shirtless image of himself reclining while his wiener-dog was positioned in a location I can only describe as unfortunate.

And yes, these were bona fide profiles of men age 50-plus. I am made of questions, but not about compatibility. 

So you might think my advice is simple: If someone mentions S-E-X in a dating profile, R-U-N. Except…no.

Sometimes sex is not only fair to mention in a profile, it’s important.

At midlife and beyond, people can want very different things sexually. Some want a loving relationship with an active sex life. Some want affection and sensuality but little or no sex. And some have hung up their boots entirely, sexually speaking. For some, no sex also means no touching, kissing, or other sensuality. They’re done.

None of those people is wrong. But they may be very wrong for each other.

Sexual compatibility matters in a relationship, and the ability to talk comfortably about sex matters too. In fact, sexual communication is strongly related to sexual satisfaction, and the quality of that communication matters the most. So says an analysis of a whopping 93 studies involving more than 38,000 people.  

And I’ve found that people who can talk comfortably and respectfully about sex often show you that capacity from the beginning. So I’m not alarmed by a profile that acknowledges sexuality. In fact, if someone writes,

“To me, passion is an important part of a committed, loving relationship,”

I think they’ve told you something useful. It’s grounded, polite, non-explicit, and importantly, relational. They’re telling you something about the kind of relationship they hope to create. If that’s important to you too, it’s not a red flag. It may be a green one.

But.

There is a vast difference between talking about sexuality and sexualizing the interaction.

The first person is basically saying, “Let’s figure out whether we’re on the same planet when it comes to whether sex and sexuality are still important.” The second is basically saying, “Let’s get naked.”

That’s where I want you paying attention.

If their profile discusses specific body parts in sexualized ways, tells you what turns them on, specifies what they expect in bed, or reads like erotica, they’re no longer simply giving you useful information about compatibility. They’re introducing a sexual interaction with a stranger who hasn’t agreed to have one.

The same goes for photos: in fact, men looking for something short-term are more likely to use sexualized, body-focused profile photos, while those looking for relationships are more likely to show less body and more face. 

So what they’re showing you is probably showing you something. Of all the photos people have of themselves, they choose a handful to say, “Here. This is how I want you, a total stranger, to see me.” So look. The nearly-naked bedroom selfie, the simulated sex act, and (God help me) the strategically positioned dachshund all matter. As does the photo that shows attractiveness without a triple-X vibe. 

Everyone’s telling you something about their objectives, and that’s okay. No need to decide whether they’re a good human. You just need to decide whether this is a good candidate for you, and whether you want to know them better, or at all.

So don’t automatically reject someone because sex appears in their profile. At 50-plus, knowing whether you’re sexually aligned can save both of you considerable time and heartache. But notice how they talk about it.

Are they talking about sexuality in general—or are they being sexual with you?

Are they showing an LTR mentality—or short-term imagery?  

One is information about compatibility. The other is information too. Choose accordingly.

Dating gets a lot easier when you know what to notice—and what to do with the information you’re getting. If you’re 50-plus, I’ve made a free 15-minute training to help you find and choose the right person without settling or falling back into old patterns.

coaching.lovesciencemedia.com/freebie

References

Mallory, A. B., Stanton, A. M., & Handy, A. B. (2022). Couples’ sexual communication and dimensions of sexual function: A meta-analysis. Journal of Sex Research, 59(7), 894–910. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2021.2014292

One example of photos revealing short- or LTR intentions: 

Anderson, J. R., Holland, E., Koc, Y., & Haslam, N. (2018). iObjectify: Self- and other-objectification on Grindr, a geosocial networking application designed for men who have sex with men. European Journal of Social Psychology, 48(5), 600–613. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2350

The pix we use also affect how valuable others think we are as possible mates. This study shows that people perceive sexualized profiles of men and women as more into casual sex, and thought the profile makers were lower in partner quality, and someone they wouldn’t want to pursue for a long-term relationship: 

Birnbaum, G. E., Zholtack, K., & Reis, H. T. (2026). Selling yourself short: How sexualized online dating profiles affect viewers’ perceptions and relationship intentions. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 20(2), Article 3. https://doi.org/10.5817/CP2026-2-3

 

Photo by Federico Garaffi on Unsplash

Here's Who You Should Not Date

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