Dating apps: How to go from single to 'in a relationship'

Men should be pickier, women less, according to the findings. Photo / iStock

If you made a New Year's resolution to log on to a dating site or app and find a significant other, how's that going for you?

Getting into a relationship takes more than just creating an online profile. You have to use it - a lot. Hinge, a dating app powered largely by users' Facebook connections, studied 1,000 couples who met on the app in 2015 and got into a relationship within two months of joining Hinge.

Some of the key findings included:

- 80 percent of the couples listed their jobs and education on their profiles.

- Men who met their significant other on the app were 12 per cent pickier than the average Hinge user, meaning that they swiped right less often.

- Women, on the other hand, were 20 per cent less picky.

- Couples who met on Hinge carried on an average of 16 conversations with people other than their eventual significant others. (These were two-way conversations, so those "Hey, what's up?" messages that didn't get a response don't count.)

- On average, couples messaged for three days, exchanging about 25 messages before handing over their digits.

Overall, those data points show that users who started relationships were very active on the app. Hinge's average user, who's single and is still using the app, chats with six people in two months - while couples who met through Hinge chatted with almost three times that number.

So if you're looking to get into a relationship, think about swiping right more often if you're a woman, less if you're a man. And everyone: Send a few more witty opening lines.

"Try not to be overwhelmed," Karen Fein, Hinge's vice president of marketing, told me. "Just like in the real world, it takes some time. ... Whether or not you try to do these things, it's more about seeing that it takes time. And don't get discouraged. You can make steps toward meeting someone if you start chatting."