HowAboutWe is right for you if you actually want to go on dates! If you want to connect with people who like what you like then this is the place for you.

If you are interested in endless online chatting without ever getting offline to meet in the real world, it’s probably not your best bet. That said, you don't have to be super creative or outgoing to use HowAboutWe - you just have to be interested in meeting people like you.

Post great dates... dates you’d really like to go on. Go out with people you think you might like. Have fun. Do it again.

Seriously, just go for it, one date at a time.

(And post photos. People like those.)

We've structured online dating in a unique way. The basic currency of our site is the date itself. Here are some reasons we think this is a better way to date online:

• The date proposal is the ultimate digital first impression - it gives you more insight into what people are really like because they're saying what they actually want to do.
• It helps you find people like you - people who like the same stuff you like.
• It avoids a lot of the annoying things about online dating - endless chatting, never actually meeting, and not finding people with whom you share common interests.
• It allows you to do the things you’d want to do anyway. So, even if the match is a bit of a bust, you still got to see the gallery opening you’d been meaning to see, or you still did that grocery shopping you had to do (yup, the errand date).
• It helps you explore your city and try new things.

Above all, it supports you to go on awesome dates - romantic dates, light-hearted dates, crazy dates, simple dates…whatever you're into. It helps you date the way you want to.

Yes! HowAboutWe is best on your phone. Download our free iPhone app today here

Our Android app is in development.

While we can’t in any way guarantee your safety on any dates you choose to go on (and we strongly encourage you to be careful in how you share your information and meet people), we try to enable safe interactions in several different ways, including:

• We ask that all date proposals take place in public places.
• We ask people to flag suspicious date proposals, profiles, and messages so that we can deal with them. This includes requests for money, messages trying to sell you anything, offer you a job or any other “special opportunity,” harassing or offensive messages, proposals of non-public or sexual dates, inappropriate photos, or anything else that violates our Terms of Use
• We have an automated filtering system that informs us about potentially inappropriate content.
• We charge for subscriptions that require credit card payment through our third-party payment processor.
• We try to create a general tone of safety, authenticity, and positivism.
• We delete or disable suspicious accounts.

By default, your profile information is public and indexable by Internet search engines. You can make your profile private, and thus only viewable by users logged into HowAboutWe, by changing the appropriate setting in your Settings page. Date Ideas and the Date Report are also public by default, and if you have commented or liked items in those areas, anyone can see those contributions.

To tell us about possibly inappropriate dates, you can click on the X icon or “Flag” links and mark the applicable date as spam. We review flagged content and try to take care of the issue, but we can’t guarantee that we’ll be able to find or remove all offensive content.

• Say what you’d really like to do on a date. Maybe it’s a place you like or want to try out. Maybe it’s just something you like to do.
• Be descriptive - name the actual place you want to go, the activity you want to do, etc…the more descriptive you are, the more responses you'll get.
• Don't over-think it.
• Have fun!

When you post a date, two things happen. 1) Other users can then find it in their date stream or by searching for dates; 2) We send your date via email to people who might like it using our matching algorithm.

If you click the “Ask him/her out” button, you can send another user a date. In this case, ONLY that user sees the date - no one else does. These get delivered just like messages. You can see all of these dates in the Private Dates tab in your profile.

When you send a message, it goes to the account you sent it to through our messaging system. That person may also get an email message saying that he or she has a new message on HowAboutWe. Your email address, and the email address of the user you are sending a message to, are never revealed in this process.

When you click “I’m Intrigued,” we send a short message to that user letting him or her know that you are intrigued by their date. The user can then respond to you directly.

The best way to follow up with a specific user is to check out the other dates that user has proposed -- you can find these in their profile -- and respond to one that interests you. You can also send that user a message counter-proposing a date of your own.

Internet users generally ignore messages all the time, for a variety of reasons that often have nothing to do with the message or the user who sent it. If you don’t get a response to your message, write to another user that you’re interested in, or post new dates for the whole HowAboutWe community. Keep at it!

If you click the X on a date you'll have the option of hiding them. You can also hide users from their profile. You can unhide users in your settings area.

If you click the X on the date or the “flag” link on a profile you can flag it as spam, and we may review or remove it if it violates our Terms of Use

If you click the star on the date, it is saved/bookmarked so you can find it later. You can find your saved dates on your home page in the date stream under “Saved” dates.

If you click the star on a person (in the people stream or the profile), the person is saved/bookmarked so you can find them later. You can find your saved dates on your home page in the people stream under “Saved".

Repost the date - from you! And then wait and see who responds.

When you repost a date, you are posting another person’s date idea - from you. When someone sees your post they can tell that it’s reposted, but they won't be able to see who originally posted it (except in the trending view).

When you visit someone else’s profile, we let them know that you were there. Then they can message you or ask you out if they wish. If you visit someone’s profile multiple times they won't know that.

Well, we once called the Date Ideas section the Datetropolis - as Athens was to the Greek city-state, so Datetropolis is to... um, anyway. It is a city-state of dates. It’s the place on our site where great date ideas convene and make themselves available for you to post with a single click. Trending, likewise, is a list of the dates that have been most often reposted. It’s a great place to go if you want to quickly post a bunch of dates.

We take all the data you give us -- your rating of different dates, your profile information, and other preferences you've given us and plug that info into an algorithm designed to route each date to the HowAboutWe members who might like it. The algorithm uses obvious information, like your preferences, to make sure dates generally go to the right places, and over time it will also be based on how you use HowAboutWe. For example, if you always delete dessert dates, we're going to send you fewer dessert dates. The algorithm will evolve over time as we try to make it work better for our users.

We tried to design a profile that would allow you to tell people something about yourself while avoiding the kinds of dehumanizing, misleading, and superficial questions that too often litter other dating sites. In our view, things like eye color, body type and income are either (a) easy to figure out from pictures or (b) things that people tend to omit or exaggerate. We want our profiles to focus on characteristics that will enhance the process of going on great dates. Over time, based on lots of user feedback, we have added certain things to the profile like Race/Ethnicity and Children.

If you want to change your username, email us at theteam@howaboutwe.com and give us a few options for what you’d like to change it to.

While we'll be sad to see you go, you can deactivate your account by going to the Settings area and clicking on your Account and Subscription Settings.

Anything up to 10MB.

JPEG, GIF, PNG

The obvious -- it’s gotta be of you, it’s gotta be clean, etc.

We welcome and encourage any and all feedback. Just go to the feedback area and let us know what you think.

Ruby on Rails

HowAboutWe should scale just fine. Invite your friends, please.

You can check out the site for free, including:

• Posting Dates
• Browsing Dates and People
• Receiving Daily Dates
• Filling out your profile
• Checking out other profiles
• Browsing Trending Date Ideas
• Saying “I’m Intrigued”

Checking out HowAboutWe will give you a sense of things and help you decide if it’s for you. In order to send messages to other people (and therefore in order to set up dates with them), you'll need to upgrade your account.

Above all, we charge because we think it makes the site better for the people using it. When users are paying, they are more committed to really using the site, which means that there aren't a lot of people whose profiles you can check out but who actually aren't using HowAboutWe or aren't serious about dating. Making HowAboutWe a pay service also discourages sketchy folks from joining. We also charge because we think that the site is offering something of real value - an innovative way for people to meet and go on great dates.

All of this said, we do everything we can to keep the price of subscribing low. If you sign up for 6 months, it’s about the price of a movie ticket per month.

Email theteam@howaboutwe.com and we'll do our best to answer your questions.

Not currently.

Yes. They'll love it! You'll have fun conversations over brunch about your HowAboutWe dates. Maybe you'll even hear about a cool event and be like, “Oh, that’s a good HowAboutWe.”

We want HowAboutWe to help define love in our time. If we do a great job then millions of people will start their relationships with a HowAboutWe date - what an amazing way for love to begin. To make this happen, we're constantly improving our site, building new features, finding ways to get awesome people to join.

In that vein, please use the feedback button the right side of the page to let us know what you think we could get better at. And help us spread the word by inviting your friends and talking about HowAboutWe.

Users on HowAboutWe are constantly posting and going on dates. Our site has a database of great date ideas that our users can post with a single click. If you are in this database and your establishment or event is a great date, people will post it. It’s an awesome, organic way to advertise, and for now, it’s free. In return, we ask that you please spread the word about the date on HowAboutWe featuring your business. Just email us at theteam@howaboutwe.com and we'll talk.

At this time, posting dates at your establishment is the only way you can “advertise” on HowAboutWe.com.

Yes. We want to build partnerships with services that will help make the HowAboutWe experience better for our users. And we want to build partnerships with people who can share the HowAboutWe idea with lots of people. If you have an idea for a partnership, contact us at

theteam@howaboutwe.com