Going on a first date with someone you met online? You need to read this

Meeting people through dating apps is a whole minefield of apparent rules and etiquette which leaves us all wondering: Which pictures should you use on your profile? How long should you wait after matching before messaging? What should you say in your opening line? And it doesn’t just end there.

There are no “laws of attraction”, no guarantees of success in dating , do I become more memorable when meeting someone for the first time?

In our Love App-tually series, Mashable shines a light into the foggy world of online dating . It is cuffing season after all. But there I was, sitting on my sofa, worrying if I was, to quote indie pop band London Grammar, wasting my young years. It had been a difficult week, to say the least. I was sleep-deprived and my anxiety was running riot. What I needed most right then and there was a quiet, restorative night of doing nothing. I was hiding under a blanket on my sofa when my phone started flashing like a lighthouse on the horizon.

Four Hinge notifications appeared on my home screen in close succession. I had a new match named Jake. My eye scrolled downwards to see that Jake wasn’t wasting any time: He wanted to meet up. Right now. I really didn’t want to do that. It was 9 p.