You take a picture of yourself in some exceptional situation - skydiving or whatever. People always post those photos because it works - you're saying something about yourself that begs a conversation and that's what the users are there for.

Even at the person-to-person level, to be universally liked is to be relatively ignored. To be disliked by some is to be loved all the more by others. And, specifically, a woman’s overall sex appeal is enhanced when some men find her ugly.

A great piece of advice for online dating is to stand out from the crowd. So greetings like "hello" and "hi" are very common. They do less well than things that are a little bit quirky or a little bit weird, like "howdy" or "holla." The rarer your salutation, the better it does, in general.

To be universally liked is to be relatively ignored.

I know that shorter messages are better in terms of reply rate. The optimal length is something like 50 characters. Characters, not words.

Text is, in some ways, on the way out, unfortunately. There are dating sites now that are just pictures.

Women are much more discriminating. I think both types of people are equally interested in having an attractive partner. But women essentially give the thumbs up to only half as many guys as guys giving the thumbs up to women.