Is it possible to find love using dating apps? 5 tips from dating coach Logan Ury

This story is from The Pulse, a weekly health and science podcast.

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Dating apps have revolutionized modern romance, but is it possible to find love and make meaningful connections online?

Behavioral scientist, author and dating coach Logan Ury has spent the last decade studying both dating and relationships, and she says “Getting more scientific about dating is romantic, and it helps empower people to get into the best relationships for themselves.” 

Ury, author of “How to Not Die Alone: The Surprising Science That Will Help You Find Love” and director of relationship science for the dating app Hinge, blends her passion for psychology and relationships with practical dating advice.

Most recently, Ury was featured as the on-screen dating coach for the new Netflix show, “The Later Daters”, where she helped golden singles navigate the complexities of modern dating. Ury says, “Just because you’re in your 50s or 60s and you’ve been married twice, doesn’t mean that you automatically know how to date. In fact, dating is a skill and it’s something that we’re not born doing.”

Ury coaches her clients on self-awareness. Before setting up a dating profile online, she encourages singles to reflect on their relationship patterns to understand what might be holding them back from finding love. Are you chasing an unrealistic “spark” while overlooking great long-term potential? Are certain dating habits preventing you from forming lasting relationships? Recognizing these behaviors is the first step to making meaningful connections.

Ury says, “Be intentional and do that work before you start. Get clear on who you are, what you want, why things haven’t worked well in the past and what you’re going to do differently this time.”

Ury chatted with Maiken Scott, host of The Pulse, to dive deeper into the science behind dating and share her expertise on building better relationships. Here are five dating takeaways to keep in mind from dating coach Logan Ury.  

Interview Highlights:

Your profile is important 

Profiles are really important. It’s almost as if you were going to buy a billboard on the side of a highway. You get this limited amount of space to express who you are. For that billboard, you would want to put a lot of effort into the picture and what you write. The same thing is true on your profile. My advice for people is to do an exercise I call the three big things. What are three big things that you really want to express about yourself on your profile?

Make sure through your different pictures and prompts you’re really expressing those things … Your profile ideally has a mixture of humor and vulnerability and really paints a picture of what it would be like to date you.

Get to the date quicker

I recommend people get to the date faster than they think. A problem that I’ve identified over the last few years is pen paling when people are going back and forth for way too long and learning everything they can about this person, when in reality that’s what the date is for. At Hinge, we found that after three days of chatting is actually the sweet spot of coordinating a date. 

Instead of building up a fantasy of somebody in your head from weeks of chatting, it’s a really good strategy to get to the date sooner and see if you have that in person connection.

It’s not all about ‘the spark’ 

I’ve found that there’s three myths of the spark. The first one is that if you don’t have instant chemistry, it can’t build over time, and we know that’s not true. Only 11% of couples say that they even experience love at first sight. For many people, it’s about getting to know somebody at work or somebody in your extended friend group, and the chemistry builds over time.

The second myth of the spark is that if you feel it, it’s a good thing. Sometimes somebody themselves is just very sparky, very charismatic, and they actually give that feeling to a lot of people. You think it’s something special between you and that person, but it’s more about who they are.

The third myth of the spark is that if you have it, then the relationship is viable. That’s also not true. I know so many couples who stayed in the wrong relationship because they met ‘the right way.’ So It’s enough to get you into a relationship, but it’s not enough to keep you in it. 

Instead, I really recommend that people go after the slow burn. Those are people who may not be as initially charming or the life of the party, but the more you get to know them, the more you like them. If you could see the beginnings of interest, even if it wasn’t that knock you off your feet spark, it’s a good idea to pursue that.

Know the difference between dealbreakers and pet peeves

Dealbreakers are something that truly represent a fundamental incompatibility. It might be something like you have asthma and this person is a smoker or you’re of one religion, this person is of another, and you both want to raise kids in your own religion. That does seem like something that would make it hard for you to be together long term. But far too often, we have pet peeves … that perhaps you don’t like and you wish were different. 

But there’s no research telling me that those things are going to mean that you can’t have a successful relationship long term … If you can really forget about the things that don’t matter and actually double down on the things that do, that is going to get you closer to finding this dream relationship.

There’s no such thing as a soulmate

My philosophy is that there’s no such thing as a soulmate. I think we can make a lot of relationships work with a lot of different people.

When I work with people who I call romanticizers, I try to shift them from this idea that it’s all about finding the perfect person. If you find them, then everything’s going to be effortless and easy to this other thing called the work it out mindset, where they understand that they need to put effort in. I think it’s only a problem when you end up giving up on relationships too quickly, because you believe if this were my soulmate, then it should be effortless, and that’s just not the case.