Should I use dating apps when I’m going through a divorce?

Yes.

Let’s be blunt about the situation; it sucks. 

Divorces are almost invariably messy, tensions run high, and rarely anyone feels like the winner. 

But ya know what, it’s easy to look at divorce and only see the negatives. It’s easy to feel like your life is over, but in reality, this is just a new beginning. 

A divorce grants you an opening. An opening to a new life. Look I’m not going to speculate as to why your relationship ended. The only thing I do know is that for at least one party, it wasn’t working out. Imagine what your life would look like had you stayed with this person for the rest of your life? 

The ending of one relationship opens up the opportunity for others to begin. 

Honestly, you should be excited about your second chance. 

Should I Use Dating Apps When I’m Going Through a Divorce?

Hell yeah. Let me explain why. 

Divorce Takes Time

There are about a billion and a half things to consider when going through a divorce. Who gets what, how the other party feels, how the kids are taking it, where to move, what to tell your friends and family, etc. 

With all this going on, the easy option would be to not add anything else to your plate. 

But look, you’ve already held off on living life long enough. The relationship you’re liberating yourself from has no doubt prevented you from living the life you’ve desired. 

Enough is enough. 

Despite this, you’re probably thinking, well, the divorce process may not take that long, I can wait a few months. 

But what if it takes longer than just a month or two? What if it takes years?

Let’s be realistic. 

The average divorce entails filing divorce papers, mediation, arbitration, and a negotiated settlement. In the most amicable splits that see a constellation of variables come together to expedite the process, it’ll take about 9 months. This is only the case should both sides be able to settle issues on their own. 

On average, a divorce takes about 11 months to come to its hopefully cordial conclusion. Cases that go to trial take on average 18 months to resolve. 

In the worst-case scenarios where divorces lead to long protracted court battles, it may take years to finalize a divorce. 

Don’t go into divorce thinking that it’ll end soon. Prepare for the worst and be relieved when your expectations aren’t realized. 

Knowing this, are you really prepared to put your life on hold for years? 

It’s true that you may want to hold off from dating because of the optics. Whether you wait for legal reasons or because you don’t want to hurt your ex or children, holding off for a time isn’t a bad idea.

But when the divorce process is in the home stretch (or when you’ve consulted with your lawyers) and in your heart are ready to date, it’s time to get back out there!

Use the momentum your newfound autonomy has given you to get your date on!

You’re Not The Only Person on the Planet Going Through This

The only person that can put you on the sidelines is you. 

Even men that are still technically married have a right to date around.

Sounds weird right?

As long as it does, you won’t be able to move forward with your romantic life. 

But look, you’re not the only one. 

40-50% of marriages are ultimately terminated. Does that mean that thousands of people should wait around every year for their divorces to be finalized to finally participate once again in the dating scene? 

There is no rule saying that men going through divorces need to spend Friday nights at home. You’re not the first guy to file for divorce while simultaneously swiping right on Bumble. 

Your situation isn’t unique. It’s understandable that you might feel a bit awkward MegaDating while still being married. 

The only thing that matters is that you’re not leading anyone on. If your heart is in the right place and is ready to date again, then you should. Too bad if your legal marriage status is playing catch up to how you really feel. That’s not your fault, and it shouldn’t convince you to eschew pursuing love. 

At emlovz we’ve built a community of single guys. A large portion of our students are in the recently divorced camp. They know what it’s like to be newly single again. They understand how difficult it is to navigate being single in this new dating scene, but also how rewarding it can be if done right.

Look no further than our student David.

A man who went from divorced and zero matches, to having so many dates he’s started to turn down women.

David took full advantage of our program, Dating Decoded to not only learn how to meet women in this fast-paced and modern dating scene, but also bonded with other men like him via our Man Cave sessions and with his accountability partner.

Listen to his story below. 

You Still Deserve Love (even if you’re going through a divorce)

It didn’t work out. 

This is just a fact you’re going to have to accept if you want to move forward. But a marriage that wasn’t characterized by eternal love doesn’t mean you’re incapable of finding love. 

There’s nothing wrong with you because you’re going through a divorce. You haven’t failed at life. You still deserve love. 

And hey, I know you’ve been out of the game for a while, but finding love through online dating is just what’s happening right now. 

A 2017 Stanford study found that 39% of relationships started in 2017 began online. Look, online dating isn’t a fad, it’s how single people meet each other and it’s shaping our romantic lives in an indelible fashion. 

It’s fine if you’re inept at dating apps, the learning curve ain’t steep. 

Manage Expectations

Name the elephant in the room for those that see it. 

Look, not everyone will have an issue dating a divorced man, in fact, few probably will. But there are those that will be turned off if they abruptly learn of your romantic history. 

This is why you need to put the word “divorced” on your profile.

Writing this in your profile will filter out women that want nothing to do with a divorced man — their loss.  

You can even manage expectations if you’re not looking for anything serious by writing something like:

“Divorcing and looking to meet people and enjoy life without commitments.”

Don’t be afraid of turning some women off. Polarizing your audience in this way will help you attract the type of women that are compatible with your relationship preferences. You don’t want to bait and switch anyone and there are plenty of wonderful women who are seeking the same as you. 

Broadcasting the vicissitude of your romantic life will turn women off. There’s no denying that. But casting a wide net never works. You can never write a profile that will turn on every woman that reads it. You’re much better off not investing in women that don’t want to be with you by weeding them out with the use of a filter. 

They’re Fast, They’re Effective, They’re Dating Apps

Think of how you dated all your life. 

It was most likely that you met someone at a party, through a friend of a friend, or through school. When you think about it though, these are all small pools. The only way you’d meet someone IRL is if you run in the same social circles as them and happen to strike up a conversation. 

Dating apps expands those dating pools tenfold. Any woman that satisfies your search preferences is now a candidate. With dating apps on your phone, you’re basically walking around with a 24/7 singles bar in your pocket. 

With the help of dating apps, you can quickly filter out women that aren’t compatible. You can also find matches and ultimately date more women. The best way to meet a hyper-compatible woman is to date around. The more women you’re introduced to the higher a chance you have of finding someone worthy of dating long-term. 

Make Sure You’re Ready to Date

Why would you bring your ex on a date with you?

If you haven’t grieved the loss of your marriage, you’re not ready to date because you’re going to bring your past baggage into your dates. You’ll never get to a second date if your ex is always playing third wheel. 

Make sure to take time to consciously grieve your divorce. Don’t try and just push it down, repress it, distract yourself from the pain. 

You have to go through it. 

You have to feel it to heal it. 

Give yourself space and time to go through that dark night of the soul. When you come out the other side, you’ll be ready to date and have wonderful, exciting, and fulfilling new experiences. 

Take your time as you get back to 100% emotionally. Reconnect with family and friends, sort your living situation out, find a new routine, figure out how to live life again. 

Once you’ve got this sorted it, it’s time to get back out there, but hey, there’s no rush.

Know Your Limits and Communicate Them Early On To Manage Expectations

If you know you’re not ready for a relationship but you still want to meet people and explore physical intimacy, that needs to be front and center in your communications with women. Bring it up early-on, lay the foundation so the women you date are fully informed and can decide for themselves whether to pursue you, knowing full well what you’re capable of offering. 

Fresh off a divorce not every guy is looking for a serious relationship. Perhaps you just want to enjoy yourself. You’re entitled to feel this way. You’ve just been locked up in a monogamous relationship for years. Finally, you’re out of the cage and want to have fun. 

I get that, just make sure she does too. 

Being upfront and honest is the best way to not only hurt someone else’s feelings but also to get what you want. 

So, Should I Use Dating Apps When Going Through a Divorce?

Not only should you use dating apps, you should use five of them.

There is no single dating app that can satisfy all your needs. Each dating app caters to a certain user. 

You could research every app on the market to figure out which ones would work best for you, or you could download our favorites starting with Hinge.

Hinge

Hinge is the most unique dating app on the market, and also a favorite among our students (it’s how David met his now girlfriend).

Unlike other apps, Hinge really tries to help you find a partner as evidenced by its witty tagline, Hinge, the dating app designed to be deleted.

Some features we love about Hinge include:

• 10 likes a day (so you don’t spend your entire afternoon on the app)
• Gale-Shapley algorithm that suggests compatible partners
• Ability to like and comment before matching
• Requires scrolling over comments and written bio to see more photos
• Least superficial profiles on the market
• Video and audio bios

Users that are really looking for a serious long-term relationship love these features. That’s why unlike Tinder, users actually are on the app looking for a serious LTR instead of a confidence boost or one-night-stand.

After you’ve created your profile shoot her one of these amazing opening messages. 

Bumble

Our second favorite app for divorced men looking to date again is Bumble.

Rarely does sexual harassment lead to anything positive, but in the case of Bumble, it does.

Co-founder of Tinder, Whitney Wolfe left the company a few years ago, citing sexual harassment as one of her reasons. She took the lessons learned from Tinder and used them to create the feminist version of Tinder, called Bumble.

The app’s interface is just about the same as Tinder (a point of contention still being dealt with in court). The main difference being that matches are lost after 24 hours if the female user doesn’t message first. Remember, in Bumble, females are required to message first. It’s this appeal as a feminist dating app that attracts strong female users.

This being the case, Bumble has a much better female-male ratio than Tinder.

Like Hinge Bumble isn’t a superficial app, meaning you’ll be connecting with women that are serious about getting into a long-term relationship.

Facebook Dating

Americans had to wait quite a bit for Facebook to finally launch its dating capability within the US.

After testing in 20 other countries, Facebook Dating finally kicked off in the US in 2019.

So what do we know about Facebook Dating? Well, not a whole lot. Facebook has been rather shy about releasing statistics about its users – that being said we do know it has 278,000 users in NYC (not too shabby).

What we do know is how FB Dating works.

FB Dating isn’t an app separate to FB, rather it can be found on the app or website. And no, just because you signed up for FB doesn’t mean you’re already enrolled in FB Dating.

What makes FB so unique is that its algorithm factors in all the data it can extract from FB. It takes into account your likes, location, friends, interests, where you went to school, and more to put you on a collision course with compatible singles.

We still don’t know how many users FB Dating has, but considering that 7 in 10 Americans use Facebook, it’s safe to say that it’s only a matter of time before users flock to the new FB feature.

Coffee Meets Bagel

Despite its ambiguous name, Coffee Meets Bagel is in fact a dating app. Furthermore, this is one of the many issues that led the investors of Shark Tank to turn down the chance to invest in the once-fledgling company. Despite some growing pains, Coffee Meets Bagel has become one of the leading dating apps in the US.

CMB is the only app to send you a curated list of 21 potential matches daily at noon. They rely on an algorithm that updates every time you either reject or accept potential matches or as CMB calls them, bagels. A Discover feature also allows you to browse users nearby as you would in Tinder and Bumble.

CMB is much more popular on the west than east coast. This region-heavy dating app is geared towards attracting users that are looking for long-term relationships.

The League

The League has been called elitist Tinder.

That’s because it’s expensive, most only used by good-looking people making 6 figures, and requires a great deal of patience as your application collects digital dust on a waitlist that could see you wait over a year to be accepted.

That being said once you’re in, man are you in. 

As I’ve said, The League is home to the bold, beautiful, educated, and wealthy.

If you only want to date women that went to Ivy League schools (plus Stanford) The League is your app.

But just because you download a bunch of apps doesn’t mean you’ll magically start getting matches.

Dating apps are competitive, so you best know how to create an amazing profile. Our program, Dating Decoded dives deep into creating an amazing profile, but if you want to set yours up now keep reading.

How To Setup Your Profiles When You’re Newly Single

When it comes to sculpting a dating app profile, not all apps are the same.

Tinder for example only restricts the number of characters you write and the number of photos you post. Apps like Bumble and Hinge, however, don’t allow you to pen a bio from scratch, rather they request that you complete their answer prompts.

What’s most important when creating a dating profile for newly single men is that you offer the reader something to latch onto. Tell them about your hobbies, what your ideal first date is, where you’d like to travel to, etc. And of course, keeps things light and humorous.

Studies suggest that 70% of your profile illustrates your personality while 30% is dedicated to conveying what you’re looking for.

Another tip is to keep your profile short and sweet. Don’t just rattle off a list of likes and dislikes. Paint a picture of who you are in 3-6 lines. Leave her wanting more while still giving her enough to connect to.

Pro-tip: List your height in drop-down menus as the max height and then make a note that you are “7 feet tall in heels” or something to the effect in the about me section of your profile, or in a prompt response.

This way you’re not lying but you’re also not being hidden from the oodles of women that have their filters set to a 6 feet-tall minimum. Women often filter for height just to reduce the number of matches they get and you don’t want to miss out because of a computer’s algorithm. Give her a chance to make up her own mind and enjoy a lot more matches than if you didn’t.

How To Select The Best Pictures

It doesn’t matter if one dating app targets Jewish singles (looking at you J-Date) and other dog-loving singles, there’s one thing that all dating apps have in common -their superficiality.

Look you could have John Green pen your bio but it won’t matter if your dating app photos are all selfies.

Here are some keys to keep in mind when picking and assembling your photo roster:

• Smile/look amiable and look toward the camera
• Don’t wear hats or glasses that obscure your face
• Wear different clothing in each of your photos
• Post 4-7 photos. Too few and women won’t have enough information about you, too many and you’ll come off as desperate
• Group shots are a must… just not as your first or second photo and make sure you’re the most attractive one of the bunch
• Show yourself doing a wide range of activities
• International travel photos always got love
• Show off your hobbies
• Dog photos are right swipe magnets (just don’t steal your friend’s dog)
• Don’t hide your kids. Show that you’re a proud father
• Keep the shirt on
• Let me reiterate… no selfies

Even if a photo meets the aforementioned criteria, it doesn’t mean that it’ll be well-received online. Poll your friends to see if a photo is worth posting.

How To Answer Question Prompts

Show don’t tell.

Yes, it’s the advice your English teacher gave you freshmen year but it also applies to dating apps.

Instead of saying, I like to travel, rattle off some of the places you’ve been. Allow the reader to see and feel who you are. There’s enough guesswork involved in online dating. Realize that most apps reduce you to a card in a deck. The females that swipe left and right don’t see you as a unique individual but as another profile card in a card game.

Don’t just tell me you like Netflix (like everyone else on the planet) tell me what shows you’re currently watching.

Give her something to latch onto, something to connect to, something that will make you stand out and help you build rapport.

Or when in doubt just make her laugh.

Team Up With A Coach & Community

If you need a little help, no worries, we’ve got you.

When you team up with emlovz you don’t just add one coach to your squad, you add various coaches from mock date specialists to fitness instructors AND a community of single men (many of whom are divorced).

Going it alone sucks and can lead many men to give up hope. Our community doesn’t allow you to lose hope. You and your accountability partner will team up (along with a host of other men) to support one another, listen, and strategize. Our community isn’t exclusively an online one as many students meet up IRL as well.

Twice a month we also have Man Cave sessions where our male students (no female coaches are allowed) can come together to talk about whatever is on their minds. It’s here you can let it all out, talk about struggles, and also talk about wins.

So how will you learn?

At emlovz we believe in being a proactive dater.

That’s why we teach men how to MegaDate – in other words how to date multiple women at once.

We’ll teach you how to quickly find a compatible partner by MegaDating.

You’ll learn via:

• Online Curriculum – Self-paced and accessible for life, covering every dating topic you ever had a question about
• Live Weekly Sessions – Run by co-founder Emyli where students can ask specific dating-related questions and receive in-depth and nuanced answers that address their specific obstacle
• Mock Dates – Practice what you’ve learned by taking out one of our lovely coaches and receive post-date feedback
• Community – We’ve formed a close-knit community of students and coaches that support one another

Book a New Client 1-on-1 Zoom Session today so we can create your tailor-made dating blueprint & see our program is right for you. If you want to learn more, just check out what these students had to say about our program.