The No. 1 Personality Trait Single Daters Are Looking For in 2025

According to Tinder’s Swip year-end report, the No. 1 trait single daters will value most next year is trustworthiness.

The reasons why daters want a partner they can trust are obvious, but even more opaque is how to find one.

It can take months to discover a person’s character. Tinder dating expert Devyn Simone says you can sometimes tell early on if someone is being unreliable and dishonest.

“You know what they say, ‘If I won the lottery, I wouldn’t say anything, but there would be signs,'” Simon said. “Generally, there are some signs.”

Here are three red flags that may mean your date is untrustworthy.

1. Their dating profile has a photo

“If they only had one picture, I would say it’s not going to work,” Simon said. “If my father, who is in his 70s, can have a few photos on social media, anyone can have more than one photo.”

Simon says someone who doesn’t put effort into their profile is “not thoughtful” because they’re not considering the experience of those who swipe on them. You don’t want to trust someone who doesn’t consider others from the beginning.

Even if they have more than one photo, make sure it’s clear. Not being able to see their face or body may mean they are trying to hide something.

“There are a lot of people on this app,” Simon said. “You don’t have to settle for someone who’s like a jigsaw puzzle.”

2. They said they would send text messages but they didn’t.

It’s easy to forgive someone when they’re slow to text or not as responsive as you’d like, especially if you don’t know them well yet.

But if they specifically tell you they’ll contact you at a certain time and don’t, that may mean they’re unreliable.

“Even something as simple as, ‘I’ll text you when I get off work,’ (make sure) they actually do it and it’s not three days later,” she said.

If they only had one photo I would say this is a no go.

Devin Simon

Tinder Dating Expert

3. They change plans at the last minute

It’s difficult to feel comfortable or safe with another person if one person’s ideas about what they want to do are constantly changing.

“If someone puts you in a bind and they say they want to do one thing and then suddenly want to do something else, that’s a bad sign,” she said.

You should trust that the plans they make will actually come to fruition.

learn to believe in yourself

Sometimes our delay in trusting others has nothing to do with our own behavior but is based on our own life experiences. That’s not always a bad thing, says Lisa Bobby, a relationship psychologist and founder of Growing Self Counseling and Coaching in Denver.

“I think it’s wise to be cautiously optimistic,” she said. “We don’t want to assume that other people are malicious liars, but you really shouldn’t trust people you don’t know well.”

Remind yourself that character reveals itself over time.

“When we get too hung up on the idea of someone before we know who they are, it diminishes our ability to see them,” says Bobby. “We’re looking at them through a filter.”

If you feel like you’ve been misled about love and find it hard to trust again, it might be helpful to analyze your blind spots. To do this, Bobby says, you can ask yourself a few questions:

What did I say to myself about this person that was ultimately wrong?
What are my patterns and weaknesses?
If I had to do it over again, what should I look for or pay attention to?

The answers are often illuminating, says Bobby: “I’ve never met a person who didn’t have something around them to protect them when we were exploring.”