Top Tinder Tips from a Tinder Pro

First of all, misleading title. I’m not really a Tinder Pro. I would call myself a “slightly above average Tinder swiper”. Enticing, huh? Who would take tips from me when the reason why I got matches and then dates in the first place is probably a result of one (if not all,) of the below:

  1. Having a vagina
  2. One of my images is a selfie with a sloth
  3. Impressive cleavage
  4. Plain ol’ determination

I don’t even think I’m selling myself short there.

I also don’t think that my dating experience could ever be of actual use to anyone. Therefore ‘Top Tips’ is a little misleading. When my friends tell me that they’ve broken up with their boyfriends, my only real advice for them is: “have sex with his best friend!”

I did this 30DaysofTinder experiment so everyone could laugh at my bad decisions, not to help anyone else with theirs.

Anyway, here it is. Top Tinder Tips from a Tinder Pro Hoe:

1.LOWER YOUR EXPECTATIONS

(This one is simply too easy).

This goes for both guys and girls. Realistically, you’re not going to find the most amazing person you have ever met after swiping them and then meeting them once. If you do, you’re the exception, not the rule (thanks “He’s Just Not That Into You”!). Whilst I believe that there are a number of reasons why one may be on Tinder (I read that 10% of New Zealand’s population uses it) you’re never going to know their reasons until you message or meet them.

And for those guys with the shirtless selfies, the girls (and guys!) with the pouted duck faces,  people who take multiple selfies in general for their Tinder, and those who are a huge fan of the mirror poses – you’re probably not as hot as your angle portrays.

Therefore you need to Lower your expectations!

Are you here for true love, aka a gentleman who’s going to buy you dinner and kiss you BEFORE he taps and gaps?

Lower your expectations!

Are you using Tinder for the best sex of your life? Then you need to really:

Lower your expectations!

2. Be wary of people’s photos, bios and grammar

There is no awesome way of depicting yourself flawlessly via an application unless you’re already an Instragram Model. You’re always going to be better in real life! At least, I hope so, for your sake and for your potential Tinder luver’s.

My favourite line I’ve ever used as my bio is: “What do classy bitches write here?” and the best line I’ve ever read on Tinder is: “It’s all fun and games til I fuck your Dad”. Brutal and crass; I appreciated it. I hope that girl got a lot of matches for that.

The moral of the story is, keep the bio simple. No one wants to read a novel before they’ve even made up their mind.

Now, profile pictures:

Has anyone else noticed that people are noticeably fatter IRL than in their Tinder pictures? No judgement here, the same hold true for me too. You bet I uploaded Tinder pictures of me post break-up in a sassy play suit with a 90 degree angle cleavage shot. I’ve since gained back that break-up weight I lost when I was too sad to eat.

The other Tinder picture cardinal sin that I suggest you think long and hard about is shirtless selfies. Does anyone really want to see shirtless selfies? Since I’m all for the Dad-Bod, I was pleasantly surprised/mildly disappointed that one of my 30 Tinder Dates had a six-pack since he wasn’t a body builder and he never mentioned going to the gym.

Here’s my small list of things your absolutely shouldn’t have in your Tinder pictures

  • Sunglasses in every single photo. (Are you on the run from Police 10/7?)
  • Friends in every single photo. (Are you the token ugly or the potential Instagram model? I can’t tell = no swipe.)
  • Selfies in every single photo. (Do you ever leave the house?)
  • Alcohol being consumed in every single photo. Same goes for illicit drugs. (What am I getting myself into here?)
  • Pictures of things that aren’t you. (For example, famous people, dumb memes that no one gets, fancy cars that you could never afford and so on. Oh, and sports team flags! No one who doesn’t know you will care about a team they haven’t heard of, okay? Show me more pictures of yourself so that I can reassess this situation.)
  • The Classic DP.
  • Don’t crop your ex out of pictures. (It does not show that you’re a classy human being. And especially don’t crop them when they looked good that night! Just TAKE NEW PHOTOS. Shade thrown.)
  • Photos with cats.(Note to Melissa: girl, this is totally your Dog bias talking. I would definitely swipe right on pictures of cats, as long as the person was actually in the photo with the cat, it wasn’t just a rouge kitty. Same with pictures of dogs! And pigs. And bunnies. And – okay, all of the animals! I want to see some Noah’s Ark shit on Tinder.)

My small list of things you should have in your Tinder pictures

  • You having fun
  • You how you actually look right now, not your profile picture from 2012.
  • A few photos of you with friends so we know you have them.
  • Good angles
  • If you’ve travelled, prove it. With one or two photos. Be aware though that any more than a few seems as though you’re flighty and don’t stay in one place for long. That is, unless that’s true and you don’t. in which case you’re being appropriate with your messaging.
  • A nice 85 degree phone angle of your face.
  • Photos with dogs.

And remember that you don’t need to explain that the kid is your niece/nephew every time. We believe you.

3. To get a fuck, you need to give a fuck

Or in other words, put an effort into your dialogue.

If you settle for the first person that greets you on Tinder with a “Hey” and agree to meet up with them, you won’t be satisfied unless they are truly the exception to the rule. I’ve had some tragic Tinder encounters (pre-30 Days of Tinder!) where in some situations I settled for the sake of settling and others where I met up with them under false pretexts in the hope that it would lead to something more exciting, like an offer to ride his motorcycle (which never eventuated, we never got past the second date where he offered to pay for dinner under the condition that he could take the leftovers home. Sustainable yes, but embarrassingly cheap).

There’s something exciting about Tinder banter, which I never got to enjoy throughout my 30 Day Challenge with the exception of Date #12 and the Harry Potter chat guy. Flirty banter where you attempt to sass and outwit each other leads to an underwhelming real life meet-up where you find out that they are way funnier online than in real life.

Or it leads to something more.

4. No really, LOWER YOUR EXPECTATIONS

How pleasantly surprised would you be if you found out that they’re even taller than you imagined (A rare occurrence in my case, I find,) or that you were met with a screenshot of their DP before you ever met them? Yep, that’s happened to millions of girls (and guys) on Tinder.

Realistically, you’re going to run into 34 year old Geoff, or any of Tinder’s other frequent fliers, who think that deleting their Tinder every other day increases their chances of matching you, because you won’t remember the awkward, terrible conversation you had with them two days prior.

You’re also probably going to match some good-looking guy who tells you how much he likes choking. Aside from the fact he uses pictures of a German Instagram Model, no one should probably lead with the “Hi, How are you?” “Can I choke you?”

5. The rules are there are no rules

There are no rules on Tinder (apart from spamming, rudeness, illegal soliciting and being a douche bag) so it’s one of those things where you have to make your own rules for how you want to play the game. I made this rule where I wouldn’t put out for 10 Dates (sorry for telling the world, Mum!) I started this rule about a year and a half ago and shall we say that my total count for Tinder penetrations is more than the Virgin Mary’s and less than the dudes that Taylor Swift has written songs about. (I don’t know if this is true… I hope I’m not miscalculating Tay’s number in my head.)

I also had this rule about what constitutes a date: it had to be one where we go out and enjoy each other’s company, eat food and not just hang out in awkward ‘getting to know each other’ situations. This wasn’t because I was trying to restore any sort of dignity that I probably didn’t have in the first place, it was just that I’m not a fan of awkward, horrible naked encounters with someone I’m not even sure showers every day. I just need to be reassured, that they shower, y’know?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4 thoughts on “Top Tinder Tips from a Tinder Pro

  1. Hi Melissa, I came across your blog from the herald articles 🙂 Dating is a regular topic in my life since I’m 25 and single (ohh noo times running out! haha). I’ve been a tinder user for a while now and to date unfortunately I haven’t had much luck… Obviously a big part of this is the fact that I don’t “have a vagina” but overall I think my biggest issue is that I hold too much to the interactions/profiles on Tinder. I really admire that you’ve gone out and done this because from my pov it would be fucking hard to go on 5 dates let alone 30. But it seems like you haven’t taken it too seriously and have just gotten on with it which from what I read in the latest herald article about your escapades has worked out very well for you! To sum up I look at what you’ve done as the classic “numbers game”. Lately I’ve been convincing myself more and more that I’m much more likely to meet someone that I genuinely like and would want to be with long term in my day to day life vs. trawling through Tinder with the hopes that I’m going to match with “the one”. Here’s a couple questions I think it would be cool to hear your views on 🙂
    – You may not have much insight on to this but overall do you think in general that the ladies of Tinder are wanting something serious vs just a fling? (despite the majority saying “I’m not DTF”, in their bios)
    – Is Tinder the go to in today’s age here in New Zealand for dating? Obviously hypothetical now but if you weren’t to do the 30daysoftinder what else is out there?
    Hope this reply isn’t too intense 🙂 Thanks for the tips I’ll be sure to give them a go!

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    1. Hi Liam, thanks for your comment. It’s nice to see people understanding the blog for what it is and not taking it too seriously. To respond to your questions, I think that it’s really hard to predict who is on Tinder for genuine reasons. Some people are probably on it out of pure curiosity with no intention of actually meeting anyone. I would say its 50:50. I truly believe that you should never go into a situation looking for something and you will increase expectations and constantly be disappointed, or potentially fall into a relationship that you’re not really keen on for the sake of being in a relationship. I found myself in a relationship at one point in the last few years as a means of security and staying out of trouble (there was another guy on the scene who was extremely nasty and toxic). I wasn’t really over my ex but the guy seemed to be in the right place and perfect to me for the situation I was in. Wasn’t fair on him as I don’t think I liked him enough and I wouldn’t put myself or anyone else in that situation in the future.
      In regards to your other quest, I think Tinder is the go to in today’s age here for the meantime. If someone told me four years ago that I would be using an online dating app to meet people, I wouldn’t have believed them! But in this day and age, it is nice to broaden your social circle and meet someone you wouldn’t have met at work, at a bar or at the gym. At work I keep it professional whereas perhaps thirty or forty years ago that was the way to meet someone if it wasn’t through friends. At a bar, I’m usually having fun with friends and ‘meeting someone’ isn’t a priority. At the gym, I’m beetroot-faced and sweaty so it’s unlikely for me to approach anyone, or be approached. Unless someone saw me out dog-walking, Tinder was the best option for me to meet people. I was working 50-60 hour weeks at the time so any time that wasn’t working was spent sleeping, eating or walking Richie McPaw. I think, this explains why I think people should lower their expectations as that is when you see it happening. Wouldn’t you rather wait six months to meet someone you could justify spending the time with? For me, I didn’t want to be with anyone and now I’m with someone. I was truly wanting to explore being single and being okay with sleeping alone. Two years ago, I ended a three relationship and that was crazy hard and I think it took me about a year and a half to fully get over the guy. My advice is to be open with the unknown and let life do it’s thing. You seem like a great guy so I’m positive you’re a catch. Now I’m sorry for the rant!

      Like

  2. your blog is such an interesting read, I totally agree with the tips you’ve listed – it’s pretty much the criteria I use when swiping through profiles too! Keep up the content 🙂

    Like

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