• Podcast host Ilana Dunn gives daters advice on her podcast "Seeing Other People."
• She guides her listeners through transforming their dating app profiles, charging $95 apiece.
• She shared three tips to make dating profiles better, including how to choose photos.

Ilana Dunn knows dating — and she agrees that it's tough out there.

Dunn, 30, used to be the lead content creator for Hinge, a dating app with about 20 million users. Now, she hosts the podcast "Seeing Other People," which is about dating in the digital age. It recently hit 5 million downloads and has over 400 episodes.

Its popularity comes as singles complain of "swipe fatigue," a disillusionment with online dating apps that has caused headaches for Bumble and Match Group, which owns Tinder and Hinge, and created a rush of new dating-app startups.

Dunn told Business Insider that she sympathizes with modern daters, who have the daunting task of crafting digital personas.

"Dating apps appeared one day, and they never came with an instruction manual," Dunn said.

There's hope, she added: Some simple tweaks to online dating profiles can help boost the chances of better matches.

In recent years, fans of her podcast have reached out for help with their profiles. Dunn began charging $95 to revamp them, helping clients select the best photos and prompts and curate how they share the story of who they are.

Dunn shared her top three tips to improve any dating profile.

1. Choose photos that show you doing what you love

Dunn said some daters fall prey to an obvious impulse — they only select photos in which they think they look the best.

"They're just posting the most attractive pictures of themselves, or what they think somebody would be attracted to," she said.

It can end up looking like a random, bland collection of images, Dunn warned.

Instead, Dunn recommended finding photos that more effectively reflect one's interests and personality. For example, Dunn once suggested that a dater delete a gym selfie from their profile and upload a picture of a marathon they ran instead.

Dunn suggested a simple thought exercise: Think about how your friends might describe you to a stranger, then pick photos that showcase the most important things a potential partner should know about you.

2. Weave an easy date idea into your profile

A common complaint from dating-app users is that conversations rarely translate into real-life meetups. This year, Hinge added a feature that blocks users from matching with new people if they have eight unanswered matches.

To encourage real-life plans, Dunn suggests planting an idea for a date somewhere in your profile, ideally related to food or drink you like.

Sometimes it's as easy as tweaking a statement you're already making. For example, Dunn would change a response to the prompt "The one thing you should know about me is…" from "I just moved to New York City" to "I'm looking for the best dollar slice in town."

"It sends the signal, 'We don't have to beat around the bush. We can just get to the date,'" Dunn said.

She added that another strategy is to name your favorite cocktail or café order and then ask where to find it in your profile.

3. Put one of your answers to a prompt in list form

Dunn said more is better when it comes to listing your interests on your dating-app profile.

You never know what word or phrase might pique the interest of a potential match, so put it all out there, she added.

Dunn recalled filling out Hinge's "I won't shut up about…" prompt when she was dating. She initially listed just her dog, Zoe, but then went back and added the Jonas Brothers and Sugarfish, a buzzy chain of sushi restaurants in New York and LA.

Her future husband ended up messaging her about the Jonas Brothers. The first dance at their wedding? "When You Look Me In The Eyes," by the Jonas Brothers.

"We've now been to 10 Jonas Brothers concerts together," Dunn said. "We may not have met if that wasn't on my profile."

• Like regular body language, digital body language refers to what's unspoken in texts.
• It includes how often a person texts as well as how even a conversation feels.
• A dating expert shared the digital body language signs someone is interested in you.

Conversations on dating apps can be tricky to navigate.

Is it a red flag if a new connection takes three days to respond? Is a text paragraph vulnerable, or self-centered? Does replying with a lone "k" really mean someone hates you?

Logan Ury, the director of relationship science at Hinge, told Business Insider that this is what's known as digital body language (DBL), and it isn't much different from in-person body language, conveying what is unsaid.

Ury said DBL includes "how long somebody waits to respond, whether or not they double-text, what punctuation they use, and if they use emojis."

From her internal research at Hinge, she's learned that users — particularly Gen Zers — rely heavily on DBL to quickly gauge a match's interest in them. Among those daters, there are some widely agreed-upon indicators that a person isn't actually into you, even if they technically always respond to your texts.

To prevent wasting your time on a confusing situationship, "you want to be good at deciphering somebody's DBL," Ury said. She added that it's important to be aware of how you come off when you do like someone, so that they're "not misinterpreting how you feel about them."

She shared some digital body language signs that someone's not really interested in you.

They always respond, but never consistently

Healthy relationships are built on trust and communication. Naturally, daters look for signs of it from the very first message.

According to a 2024 Hinge report surveying 15,000 Gen Z users, Ury said users have a 44% higher chance of getting responses when they answer messages within 24 hours. Their matches sense more seriousness.

This goes beyond the first few messages. She said 76% of users also look for message consistency. Someone who texts for hours one day but then is MIA for three is widely considered as disinterested.

Because of that, she discourages matches from "playing it cool" or delaying responses when they really like someone. "It's much better to just not play games and respond quickly because those people are more likely to get onto dates and into relationships," she said.

Your text bubbles are imbalanced

Deep relationships require reciprocity and a sense of evenness. Beyond timing, Ury said the flow of conversation is a big sign of how interested someone is in you.

But it's about more than just taking turns hitting each other up, Ury said. "For iPhone users, there needs to be that mix between blue and gray" text bubbles, she said. That includes the match "leading with a question and then offering answers that build conversation," she said.

If they write you walls of text without asking anything back, it doesn't indicate that they're interested in knowing who you are. Ury has a term for these people: "ZQ," or "zero questions." ZQs indicate a lack of genuine curiosity to learn more about you, she said.

They're 'bad' at texting, but don't connect in other ways

Not everyone loves texting a lot — plenty of people prefer calls or simply can't be on their phones during the work day.

Ury said that if they're interested, they should be communicating with you about how they want to stay in touch. If they're offline during the workday, they should be transparent about that — and find other ways to share that they're thinking of you, such sending voice notes, memes, or photos of their day.

But if they don't make an effort to be clear about liking you, it comes off like they're not that interested in you.

It's why Ury emphasizes meeting in real life quickly if you hit it off with someone: digital body language isn't a science, and sometimes it's worth having conversations around communication differences.

Plus, the better way to confirm if someone likes you is to meet them in person.

"You need to get to the date as soon as possible," she said. "You don't know if somebody's in-person vibes will match their digital body language."

• A study found older couples living apart experienced more mental-health benefits than single people.
• A dating expert said older people tend to be more independent and set in their ways.
• Being open to living apart also widens the dating pool, particularly for older women, she said.

Moving in together is one of the biggest relationship milestones. How well you blend into one unit often precludes other big changes, including getting married or raising kids.

But for older couples, there's another appealing relationship setup: living apart, together — also known as LAT.

A new study found that couples living apart experienced more mental-health benefits than single people. The study examined data gathered on over 15,000 British people between 60 and 85 years old and found that while LAT relationships didn't confer more mental-health benefits than being married, people who exited LAT relationships had fewer negative mental-health consequences than couples who divorced or left a shared home.

Ury, the director of relationship science at Hinge and an on-air expert in Netflix's "The Later Daters," told Business Insider that she's been seeing this trend thrive.

"They're like, 'I have my house set up the way I want. You have your house set up the way you want,'" Ury said. "'Why don't we be in a long-term relationship, but we don't need to live together?'"

It's not just logistical. Ury said living apart, together has a ton of perks — particularly for older daters.

It widens your dating pool

If you're comfortable living in separate homes, it can broaden your dating options. You can manage differences in social lives or hobbies more easily by living independently than by trying to find someone who matches your lifestyle.

Ury said this is appealing to older daters. When you're younger and looking to start a family, "you want someone maybe with the same religion, the same lifestyle, the same education," she said.

But for older daters who aren't looking to raise kids together, ticking off all those boxes is often less important. Living apart allows each person to live in their own world — and that could be a boon for some relationships.

You don't have to compromise as much

LAT gives couples the opportunity to keep living how they want, with the benefit of romantic companionship.

The study's authors concluded older women would likely benefit the most from the arrangement. Women often take on more domestic labor in marriage or cohabitation, so they "may have more to gain than older men from LAT" by having more autonomy, they wrote.

Ury said it makes sense that older women are drawn to LAT. Her research shows older daters typically have a "stronger sense of self" than younger people. She added that older people have reported having more satisfying sex because they know their bodies better and are more capable of asking for what they want.

Knowing yourself also makes it harder to compromise, whether it comes to sharing a bedroom or eating the same meals. "People are stuck in their ways, Ury said. "They're less flexible and they have their ways of doing things."

Ury said younger couples are like startups that grow together, whereas couples are more like mergers. "Mergers are notoriously hard because each one has their own HR department, their own CEO," she said. "It can be hard to blend those things."

• Dating apps like Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge have new competition.
• A slew of new apps have launched in 2024 and are taking on swipe fatigue and dating-app burnout.
• Business Insider has interviewed several founders of the newest dating startups entering the ring.

Dating apps are in for a shake-up.

Many users are tired of swiping, dating app giants like Match Group (which owns Tinder and Hinge) face headwinds, and new startups are launching left and right.

Business Insider has interviewed several founders jumping into the dating-app arena as incumbents lose their luster.

Read: Meet the founders behind 11 dating startups

The new crop of dating apps is tackling various pain points in the online dating experience.

Some, for instance, are experimenting with new ways to discover and meet singles (aka not swiping). That includes startups offering users only a small batch of profiles to review each day, such as the New York-based app Pique Dating.

Others are testing how to successfully incorporate artificial intelligence into dating, like Sitch, which offers a chatbot and matchmaking feature powered by AI.

Matchmaking, whether through AI or by friends and family, has also become one of the hottest buzzwords in the dating-startup world.

There's also a wave of IRL-focused startups that forgo the experience of a dating app entirely with in-person events bringing singles together.

Read: The loneliness epidemic has given rise to a new crop of startups aiming to help people connect in real life

Meanwhile, social startups that aren't branded around dating — like Posh, 222, and Pie — are also breeding grounds for new friendships in person that could lead to love down the line as young adults seek to meet people in more organic settings. (Several of these IRL-social startups have also raised venture-capital funding this year.)

Even Big Tech is getting in on the action, with Facebook continuing to expand its Facebook Dating feature and Instagram's long-standing role as a digital flirting mechanism.

Read more about new dating startups launching to compete with Tinder, Hinge, and Bumble:

• Fourplay, a dating app that lets people go on double dates.
• First Round's On Me, which prioritizes setting up dates over DMs.
• Several new dating startups, like Cheers, Sitch, and Arrange are launching apps with matchmaking features.
• 222 is not branded as a dating app, but sets up strangers on group dinners in New York and Los Angeles.

• Would you trust your friends to curate your dating-app matches?
• Several new "matchmaking" dating apps have launched in the past year, addressing dating-app fatigue.
• Startups like Sitch and Cheers are using AI and social connections to match users.

Matching and matches are everyday phrases in the online dating app lexicon. But matchmaking? Less so.

That may be changing.

A slew of new startups have launched in the past few months centered around matchmaking in the age of swipe fatigue.

Sitch, an AI-powered matchmaking app launched in New York in November. Cheers, an app that lets friends play matchmaker in a social-media feed, launched in October. Facebook Dating even launched a matchmaking feature last month.

Matchmaking is by no means a new invention. People have relied on matchmakers for centuries, and have sometimes been willing to pay thousands of dollars to be paired by one.

Tinder's cofounder and former CEO, Sean Rad, told Harry Stebbings on a September episode of the 20VC podcast that he had always imagined the dating app moving beyond swiping and into matchmaking. Rad described an ideal version of Tinder where the app was trained well enough to suggest the right "person for you," he said on the podcast.

Big dating apps have previously dabbled in matchmaking. In 2017, Hinge (just before it was acquired by Match Group in 2018) launched a stand-alone app called Matchmaker that let friends swipe for each other. It appears to have since shut down. Tinder, also owned by Match Group, launched a similar feature in 2023.

The current trend of new matchmaking apps generally splits into two categories: Either the users themselves are doing the matchmaking, or the app (typically built with AI) is matching users directly.

Friends and family become matchmakers

Handing over the reins to your dating profile to friends and family may seem daunting, but several startups are betting on this form of matchmaking.

Loop, founded by siblings Lian and Adam Zucker, is a "matchmaking app where everyone can set up their single friends," Lian said. Only two-thirds of the user base are singles, though, Lian told BI, explaining that the rest are friends and family members — or even professional or hobbyist matchmakers. Loop launched in 2023 and is currently free for all users.

An app that's set to launch in December, called Arrange, is built around a similar premise. Developed by former Fizz staffers Ram Chirimunj and Zoe Mazakas, the app will let users link their profiles with a "scout," likely a trusted friend or family member, who can talk with potential matches ahead of time and vet for compatibility.

"I thought back on all my relationships and realized that they were all made by friend introductions," Chirimunj said. "I wanted to see how we could bring that authenticity from the real world onto a dating platform."

But some startups that offer matchmaking tools, like Cheers, recognize many people don't want to spend all their time matching on behalf of their friends — no matter how much they love them. Sahil Ahuja, an ex-Instagram engineer and founder of Cheers, is trying to bridge the gap between dating and social media with a friend-of-a-friend social graph. The app, which he describes as a crossover between Hinge and Instagram, is free and currently invite-only.

On Cheers, if a user spots someone they may want to go on a date with, they can send a request to their mutual friend on the app to make the introduction. Non-dating users can also send profiles or start group chats with mutual friends to kick off a connection.

"Because it's more social, it lends itself well to solving this more organically and feeling more like how you would date in real life through friends," Ahuja told BI.

Let AI do the matchmaking for you

Some newer dating apps (like Hawk Tuah Girl's app called Pookie or Rizz) are riding the tailwinds of the AI hype with chatbots that help people flirt, troubleshoot dating conundrums, and connect.

Sitch, for example, offers an AI chatbot experience where users can ask questions about dating. Users can also answer a series of intimate questions about their interests, values, and backgrounds that contribute to a profile within the app. The app then offers users potential "setups," where the AI will introduce two users.

"We've tried to replicate the exact human flow of matchmaking," Sitch cofounder Nandini Mullaji — who has experience in matchmaking friends of friends IRL — told BI.

Sitch launched in November exclusively in New York — but there's still a waitlist to get approved. Users can then pay for "setups," which cost $150 for three pairings.

Amori, a dating-advice app with characters users can chat with, is also experimenting with its own form of matchmaking using a personal assistant (though it isn't live within the app yet).

"We're trying to nail down the dating advice side of it with the coach," Amori's founder, Alex Weitzman, told BI. Down the line, Amori's AI dating coach will help users find potential matches through the app.

Will it really work?

Despite the string of new apps, New York City matchmaker Nick Rosen said he thinks it won't be easy for friends and family to find users a perfect match.

Rosen said he typically works with a roster of 20 to 30 people at a time and keeps a rolodex of 3,000 available singles in New York City for his clients to meet.

When he starts working with a client, he does an extensive intake of a person's romantic history, which he says is an advantage of a professional matchmaker. Friends and family know you well, but maybe they don't know the entirety of your dating history and scars.

"People open up to me like a therapist," Rosen said.

Though friends and family might be excited at first to play Cupid, the exhausting reality of helping someone find love can wear off, Rosen said.

Still, he thinks matchmakers need to change with the times.

"If we want to make matchmaking more approachable and cooler to people, we need to go and start having our own apps," he said.