The In-Depth Men’s Guide to Tinder Success

7 Rules For More Success (and Less Collateral Damage) in Your Online Dating

I’d just arrived in a new city in Arizona several years ago, I was adjusting to the local climate and people, checking out the local hangouts, and sorting my local work prospects to see my next move after the one I’d just made. Being a frequent traveler at the time, Tinder had become my best friend for meeting people quickly, be it friends or something more.

Often times, I’d travel to a new city for only a few weeks and then, as work called elsewhere, would be uprooted to travel and be tossed into a completely new atmosphere, with a decidedly different local culture, and have to figure things out.

My life went on like this for years and Tinder quickly became the quickest way to meet locals and figure out my way around a new area, believe it or not. I stand firm by my conviction that if you approach Tinder honestly and with good intentions (ie, you’re open to friendship, meeting new and interesting people without expectations) you can have a really great time and build some lasting friendships — and the occasional solid sexual relationship will come of it, if that’s what you’re interested in.

When I’d arrived in Arizona for my work stay, an unusual idea hit me to make the process of meeting people via the world’s most beloved — or hated, depending on who you are — dating app: I decided to look up all of the “tips” on how to “succeed” with women on Tinder on the internet. I took a day or two and scoured the forums and blogosphere to see what all of the other guys were doing, creating a mental checklist in the process of what was popular and what “worked” for securing dates and sex. What was my goal? To do the exact opposite. What I was surprised, yet, not surprised to find out was just how much better everything got once I did the literal opposite of what all the other guys were telling me to do. Once I started paying attention to women and asking them questions, even the women I’d match with, sometimes, I found my connections got much more solid and frequent. Who’d have thought, a bunch of men sitting around talking about what women want might have gotten it wrong. It’s not like that exact scenario hasn’t been going on since, I don’t know, the dawn of humanity.

I should take a brief aside to say that Tinder success probably doesn’t look like you think it looks. In reality, Tinder success, or dating success more generally, is just a matter of ratio — it means less rejection. Dating is and always will be a numbers game, we can expect several tens or dozens of rejections for every one successful date. Successful dating, and thus successful love, takes time, to quote Eric Fromm:

“Love isn’t something natural. Rather it requires discipline, concentration, patience, faith, and the overcoming of narcissism. It isn’t a feeling, it is a practice.”

If you’re looking for digital love, well, you came to the right place, here are some ground rules to help you understand what works and what doesn’t work on Tinder.

Rule #1: Follow the herd, go where the herd goes; and when it comes to dating and sex, most men fail before they even start because they believe what they’ve heard is supposed to work from other unsuccessful men. Anyone can start a blog, doesn’t make them right. But wait, why should you listen to me? I’ll let the responses from women about my work (which is overwhelmingly positive) speak for themselves and suggest starting to read the works of women themselves, don’t just take my word for it.

• It’s so odd, the things that men think women want, especially seeing as they almost never turn out to be what women actually want (or anyone, for that matter). Imagine a woman who talked about nothing but herself and how cool she was twenty-four-seven and could never take a moment to notice anything novel outside of herself and her self-centered “coolness”…right, that would get old pretty quick. Imagine, everything interesting you had to say, dear man who might be reading this, she had to follow it up with something that’s even cooler than what you were talking about. Ugh. No thanks.
• Yet, among the echo-chambers of the average male, that seems the absolute best way to attract women. An echo-chamber of males writing and discussing things for other males and their consumption. See anything wrong with this picture? We’re told we have to be fierce, dominant, taking no shit, never being afraid to “put women in their place” and willing to stand our ground and always fight for the most pointless and banal victories. This is utter nonsense.

Rule #2: Drop the “bro voice” and adopt something much more articulate and straight to the point. I feel like, considering the fact that the cards are stacked against men (the data pretty well bears this out) when it comes to dating, especially online dating when men find the occasional truffle, they subsequently tout the mistaken belief that they’ve found the Holy Grail. Henceforth cometh the “bro voice.” In my experience, and I think women will agree with me, here, a normal, polite, eloquent conversation will work wonders.

• What about negging? DO NOT NEG UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. Negging was made up by men who felt like their best chances at getting laid would be targeting arguably insecure women and playing upon their fears and insecurities — this is manipulation and it’s wrong. It pisses literally everybody off and rarely works.
• This “bro voice” we hear has also been popular for the last ten years and you definitely don’t want to do that, either…you know the “bro voice” I speak of, in fact, if you’re a guy, chances are pretty good that you actually use it currently when you’re online and Tindering away, it goes something like this:

“Sup? You’re lookin’ mighty fine today, sexy. Did you like my gym selfie? Do you think you can lift as much as I do? I bet you can’t. Look at my big muscles, I bet you dream of dating a guy like me. I work at a car dealership, in case you want to take a car for a test drive, I can hook you up. Would you like to see six photos of just my abs? How about my biceps? I bet I can get you off in 25 seconds…”

You know that braggadocious, arrogant, boastful, self-absorbed, egotistical tone that just reeks of toxic and fragile masculinity, the “bro voice” as I call it. Yeah, that’s was a big no-no. If you’re online and trying to date, stop using this inner-voice immediately.

Maybe just start like you’d have a conversation with, ummm, well, another man that you weren’t desperately trying to impress? “Hey, I’m glad we matched. Honestly, I adore the cat in your photos, what’s their name?” Notice what they’re into and discuss that in the safest possible way, “I noticed you’re into reading — are there any cool used bookstores around here by chance that I might be missing? I’m open and taking suggestions.”

A lot of guys think the “bro voice” makes them look hard (I’m not talking about tone, I’m talking about the “bro slang” but, in actuality, they just end up looking like a scared, clinging child lost in a crowd of adults at the fair trying to find their mothers so they can feel safe again. I was totally guilty of this for years and, heh, well, yeah, I’ve learned how stupid it looks as I think we all tend to once we grow out of it.

Rule #3: Eliminate competitive language. This one will probably be the hardest, but do you see what I did there with my suggestion of how to hold a simple, honest conversation? I didn’t say something dismissive, to the effect of, “Honestly, I adore the cat in your photos, which is the only real reason I swiped right — but you might be okay, time will tell.” These disqualifying stances put you at odds with someone right off the bat, which isn’t a good place to be.

• The truth is, women are really tired of the competition. They’re tired of being told how valuable or invaluable they are by some fucking man, they’re tired of us men constantly reminding them that we get to assign their value for them based on a split-second interaction with a profile they carefully crafted, stripping them of their autonomy and basic human rights. I see guys do this all the time thinking it makes them look sophisticated, selective, or otherwise self-respecting, but in reality, it just makes them look like a total asshole. Do you want to fuck someone who can’t muster up some civility, decency, and respect? Don’t think so.
• Dating isn’t a battle where one sex must win and the other sex must lose, that ain’t how it works, guys and gals, the point is to start immediately building a partnership (should it amount to that) with someone and we don’t very well do that by insulting people.

Rule #4: Act like you care (or better yet, actually care). Take time on your profile, take time to pick out some good photos, dress well, and even hire a local photographer if you’re interested in dating someone seriously. An investment of $50 will not only boost your local economy but will get you some seriously good-looking and accurate pictures of who you are from different angles so that you may honestly reflect who you are. Tell them what you’re after and that you don’t want ultra-filtered images that don’t really look like you. The goal is to be as honest as possible and be yourself, but the best version of your authentic self possible. Everyone’s got a good angle (and I’ll speak for myself, here, that I have way too many bad angles as well).

If at this point, you’re wondering why you should invest $50 in stupid pictures for a stupid online app to impress those stupid women, I simply can’t help you, dude. You’ve decided that you’re not going to put any effort into improving this part of your life and you might as well work on your personal hangups before continuing the rest of this article. Real talk.

Rule #5: Just be a nice person. Seriously, the whole alpha-male nonsense is so played out. What we think when we communicate that we’ve got this so-called tremendous social value isn’t what we actually communicate. What we communicate by putting on an alpha-male persona is that we’re insecure and that we have an ego that will need to be tended to constantly, lest we ball up and whine and cry because the big bad woman didn’t stroke our ego properly.

Be nice and if you fail, you live to swipe another day — that’s the beauty of Tinder, there’s always tomorrow and you get the opportunity to match with many women per day.

Rule #6: Accept that rejection comes with the territory. This is the other side of the “nice person” coin, we must accept that not everyone will be into us or for us, but that by being nice, pleasant, and civil, we can greatly increase our chances of not turning off someone who might have otherwise clicked with us. We need to learn to take rejection in stride, if you haven’t already, keeping our mouths shut except to say, “Oh, thank you for the conversation, I wish you the best of luck.” Can we get a little politeness back into the world of dating, please, especially us men?

• Don’t be ashamed to create a drafted rejection message. This message is basically a rough draft that you can copy and paste, one that’s written at a time when you’re in a great, positive mood so that you can always be polite as you make your exit when you get shot down. Here’s a starter message that you can tailor to your liking:
• “Hey, no problem, I appreciate the sincerity and the conversation, as well as the no-nonsense willingness to be upfront with me. Kudos to you for having such character and I’m glad neither of us wasted too much time. Alas, I wish you luck in your future endeavors. Take care!”

A few things you want to communicate with a standardized rejection-response letter:

1. It’s okay and that your feelings aren’t hurt; you don’t want them to feel bad rejecting you, a good rejection letter will make a clean and clear break and move along.
2. Make it short, sweet, concise, and to-the-point. Compliment them and make the conversation about them, not yourself.
3. Wish them luck and explain that you’re thankful that you didn’t waste a whole lot of time chasing down a dead end.
4. Make the last phrase or sentence as light-hearted as possible. Rejecting someone is never fun, let’s make it suck as little as possible, shall we?

Rule #6: Keep working on yourself and becoming better. This is one thing we can and should do in all departments. Brush up on your poetry, second language skills, hit the gym and get just a little bit fitter, keep your house a little cleaner, and with this, extend it all to your Tinder profile. Continually brush it up, but keep it within the aforementioned framework. Learn from the criticism and feedback you get online when women tell you something is a bad idea or not working, don’t take it personally but take it as constructive advice. The guys who stay stuck are the guys who stay single.

Rule #7: Realize that dating takes time — a lot of time. I find it pretty humorous the way people flippantly discuss dating as if it’s just this casual and easy thing. It’s not at all, even for the top-tier and skilled daters out there who have all the advantages one could ask for. If something were to happen to my current relationship, God forbid, and I were to choose to enter the dating scene again, I understand that I could expect it to take a year to find a compatible partner at an absolute minimum. Learning a language, learning a musical instrument, truly mastering a piece of complex software — all of these things take a lifetime, and I think we get so wrapped up in feeling entitled to love and sex that we just assume that we can hop online or go out to a local bar and obtain it within a month or so. That’s really not at all how it works. Sure, we can get one-night stands and quick pieces of action, here and there, but to find truly quality partners takes a lot of weeding through people who aren’t quite compatible with us. That’s just the name of the game. I assume that I might be compatible with 1 out of every 10,000 people, and that’s being conservative, the honest truth is, I’d likely be compatible with 1 out of every 100,000 people. These are the grim numbers of dating and we can either accept this fact and move along, trudging the road to successful loving, or we can give up before we even try. I’ve personally chosen to do the former and it’s worked out for me and I believe that it can for you, too.

I’ll close by saying, if you haven’t read The Art of Loving by Eric Fromm, I highly suggest it, it’s absolutely indispensable to gaining an understanding of how to love other people — not how to be loved or make other people love us, but how to love them. This will not only make you a better lover but a better dater, by understanding the deep psychological mechanisms of why we date, love, want love, give love and try to secure love. It can be found through an affiliate link here on Amazon, and, full disclosure, I may make a small commission from the affiliate links contained in this article. Thank you for reading and knock ’em dead.