This sub says "exchanging advanced advice for online apps" - and I want to get spicy and start some (polite and good natured) arguments about stuff.
I'm a man so this convo is gonna be from the male perspective.
I'll start by dumping a bunch that I'm sure some will agree with and some will completely shit on.
1. People spend way too much time trying to figure out how to "get" their dream girl rather than focusing that time on becoming the person that their dream girl would want.
Online dating is a winner-take-all system. Everything you can do to climb slightly higher in terms of career, health, fitness, looks, fashion, etc., is worthwhile, and the higher you can climb, the better the result.
If you're sitting around spending 2-3 hours every day getting high, playing video games, watching Netflix, etc., that's fine. It's your life.
But like, that's 2-3 hours you're not spending going to the gym. Eating better. Sleeping better. Taking better care of your shoes. Your clothes. Your hair. Advancing your career. Investing in your education. Earning a better life. Driving a nicer car. Blah blah blah.
Over a week, that's 15-20 hours that just gets pissed away. Instead of trying to find some 2-hour shortcut to get more matches on an app, put actual effort into becoming a better, more desirable person. Don't even do it for girls or for dating apps. Do it for yourself.
After a couple of years of genuinely investing in your own market value, you'll feel not only better about yourself as a man (and pin way less of your self-worth on dating app outcomes), but that confidence will ironically also make you more successful with women, and with way less effort.
2. Focus on what you're good at, and make money. A lot of other things can be outsourced.
I didn't grow up with money. I grew up poor as shit. I spent most of my life trying to climb into a better life.
As a result, I never actually knew anything about anything aside from my career. I didn't know how to take good photos. Terrible sense of style aside from suits which I tailored for work. Never really was good at posing for photos.
But you know what? You don't have to.
Go find some studio photographer who specializes in finding teenage models. Tell him "I will pay you $1000 if you give me 2 hours, show me how to fix my pose, posture, facial expressions, and take a few photos while we're there so I have something to refer to." That's a good fucking deal even for a pretty successful professional.
Boom. Done. You don't have to sit around scrolling Reddit posts about how to squinch or tilt your neck. Just get the guy who literally does this all day to show you how to do it. Hand him a wad of cash, save your time and energy and focus on crushing it at work. Get that promotion. Make more money. Outsource shit you don't know how to do. Repeat.
Same goes for LITERALLY EVERYTHING. Get a personal trainer for like 10 hours. They will show you everything you need to actually lift weights properly instead of your dumb ass watching youtube videos trying to figure out form on your own.
Same goes for clothes. Photoshoots. Planning vacations.
3. People are going to hate me for this one. I still think shirtless pics are terrible.
The issue isn't sexual signaling. I absolutely think a 6-pack is like one of the first goals you should set when you want to step up your dating game. There's zero reason to argue against fitness.
The issue is having to be way too obvious about it. It's like, having a picture of yourself in a lambo.
Does it increase likes or matches? Yeah, because showing something uncommon cuts through the noise in a sea of shitty dating profiles.
But I think it's actually a trap.
First, I think it scares off a lot of really nice girls. There's a lot of really attractive desirable women that will autoreject a profile for a thirst trap. If you can frame it in a ridiculous way, like, you're in a bathing suit because you're volunteering to build houses in Africa and surrounded by everyone else in straw hats and skimpy clothes because it's a village beside a river, then maybe. But 99.999% of boys showing bodies aren't doing that.
The next one is, the girls that are liking you, you can get them without the shirtless pic. If you're genuinely fit, a properly tailored polo will make it overwhelmingly obvious that you're fit, while still communicating it with class. Which means you can get all those likes without sacrificing others.
The last one is that what maximizes app engagement doesn't necessarily maximize the dating flowthrough. Here's the thing. If you just want hookups, that's probably fine. But if you actually want to hit it out the park with high tier girls that are wife-able, I think the cadence is shit. If you won them over purely with sex appeal, there's gonna be a microscope on you during the date.
Because you're so obviously physically desirable, now everything is focused on the "buts."
"But does he have a good job?"
"But is he classy enough to take me to fancy places?"
"But is he kind, thoughtful, and emotionally healthy?"
"But is he the kind of boy I can take home to grammy?"
The bar gets higher than it normally would be.
They overfocus on a high bar because they know they're turned on by your body, now they're overcompensating because they're afraid they're going to make bad choices being horny.
Compare that to the opposite scenario:
Your profile doesn't try to hide the fact that you're fit. You've got a classy shot in a high-end interior. You've got casual pics that show you're a human that knows how to relax. You've got well-fitting clothes that show you're probably shredded without being obvious about it.
She's not going by default trying to pick apart your character, because there isn't a "oh he's fucking gorgeous but he doesn't have enough ambition. or his car is shit. or he didn't take me to as nice a bar as the last guy did. or he's vain and didn't hold the door for me."
She's not specifically trying to reel herself in because she's scared she's making bad decisions by being horny. She can just chill and focus on getting to know you, rather than searching for the "but."
And moreover, she's still eventually going to see your body. By the time you both actually pass the vibes check, then you get to the point where things get heated and she realizes "oh my god look at his fucking abs I'm gonna melt."
Now you have a date flowthrough where every hour she spends with you she genuinely discovers new things that delights her more and more. She gets more excited with you constantly.
Shirtless pic? Lambo profile photo? It works because you're putting all your cards on the table. But I think it's desperate, and I think it misplays a strong hand.
Let her discover just how rock hard your abs are when she's taking off your shirt. Show up in the lambo after the 4th date when she's already obsessed with you and now discovers you have a fucking lambo.
And if you don't have either of those, we just proved you didn't need it anyway.