Skip to content

Here's what I've been doing on Tinder to get a casual fling every couple of months

Fuente

Post original

Step One: Move near a major city or college town

This is critical.

Step Two: Swipe consistently for a while

I barely got matches the first month, it takes a while for Tinder to understand your preferences and show you to the right people. I've incorporated swiping for 5-10 min into my day during dead time or bathroom breaks. Consistency is key here.

Use at least four bright outdoor photos that show you either in interesting places or doing interesting things. Make sure you're around 5-10 feet away from the camera. Selfies are way too close and feel cramped.

As for your bio, the idea is you want as many things as possible for conversation to spring from. I simply listed everything I was interested or wanted to talk about. The second you share something in common with someone, you begin to accept them as not just a stranger.

Step Three: Swipe strategically

Do NOT swipe right on everyone, Tinder's ELO algorithm will see that and punish you for it, and you will psychologically feel your self worth drop. Swipe right on at most one in five profiles, focusing on relative attractiveness rather than conventional beauty. This means tuning into things that specifically attract only you rather than conventionally beautiful girls who probably get overwhelmed with attention.

Superlikes matter. Some girls find it too much but the truth is, they're not going to bother spending the effort so being at the front of the like-line counts. Tinder Plus gives you five a day, and also lets you swipe in specific areas so you can narrow in on neighborhoods and universities which have the types of people you like.

Profiles to swipe left on:

  • No bio.
  • Any bio with an Instagram or Snapchat username. Never break this rule under any circumstances.
  • Any bio that is a laundry list of demands, complains about men or dating apps, or reads like a political lecture rather than talking about themselves.
  • Any pics or bio involving weed as their personality.
  • Low effort and vague bios that just mention popular things such as hiking, dogs, brunch, etc.

Profiles to swipe right on:

  • Long detailed bios talking about passions, experiences and desires, genuine interests they are eager to talk about.
  • Any bio with the key words "fun", "drinks", "new people" — positivity and eagerness is always a good sign.
  • Any bio of someone who recently moved to the area — these girls don't have established connections in town and are very enthusiastic about meeting new people and going out.

Step Four: Choose an opener customized to their bio or pic

This usually takes the form of a funny detail or comment regarding something about them that ties into a funny story you have. The conversation will become natural when one or both of you have things in common that you're passionate about, and storytelling is a great way to normalize the conversation.

For example, one girl's bio said she liked cooking and was bad with directions, so I said "I used to work in navigation so I could help with directions hopefully. Hey and you like cooking and I suck at cooking so it seems like a perfect relationship already". Another girl said she liked weightlifting and abolishing the electoral college, so I opened with "Between those two, which do you spend more time on? For me it's probably the second, I've been really bad about going to the gym lately". The basic recipe is taking something about their profile and tying it to a clever joke, funny story, current event, or self-deprecating jab.

If I can't tie anything to the bio my generic opener is "Hola, Hablas Español?". A lot of girls have learned Spanish so it kind of seems like a test, and a lot of them want to practice their Spanish with me.

Step Five: Converse, and always be entertaining

Use storytelling, clever jokes, and educated opinions. You want to throw in many details/subjects in your messages in the hopes that she will have something relevant to say to spring off of. It doesn't matter if her responses are short, just keep it going a bit without waiting for a reply. People don't like being interviewed, they like joining in with their opinion when they have something to say.

If the conversation gets stuck, only then do you bust out the basic questions of work, school, etc. Food, travel, art, and entertainment are even better to talk about. Using proper spelling and vocabulary is critical and will separate you from other guys.

Don't be really sexually forward unless she is using dirty humor. Dirty humor is a great sign and correlates with sex-positive personalities. If you say something dirty, always add a humorous or self-deprecating aspect to it to defuse the tension. Don't say "I want to kiss you", say something like "you're a couple inches shorter than me, but luckily I have bad posture so you won't have to strain yourself when we kiss". Be playful.

Step Six: Escalate, get the phone number, and make plans

You start escalating by casually bringing up romantic, flirty, intimate, and personal topics and getting a good reaction.

At some point, I straight up ask "What are you looking to get out of using Tinder". Some people get intimidated and ghost here (they weren't worth your time anyway), some appreciate the straightforwardness, sometimes you'll learn that you're looking for different things, but often you'll get a vague answer like "Oh not really sure, could be open to anything for the right person". Remember that not everyone you meet fills the same role in your life — if you meet someone who's better as a friend, or someone you want to be serious with, that's fine too. When she asks for YOUR answer, say that you regularly meet up with Tinder girls for drinks and you're looking for wholesome intimacy, cuddling, watching tv, getting food.

Whenever you make a big ask, don't leave it hanging! Defuse the hanging tension by immediately telling a story or making a tangential observation. This is really useful since if a girl continues the conversation here, it often means she's interested in what you're offering without her having to say it explicitly/awkwardly.

Sometime later I like to say "My number is …", I find that leaving a number and waiting for someone to text me if they're interested works better than asking for theirs. Once you get a text, respond and continue the conversation — show that you care about getting along and having a nice bit of chitchat without being pushy or impatient. You'll find that it's way easier and more personal to talk and make plans through text rather than the app.

Location is important — choose a bar that's well lit, cozy, and doesn't have loud thumping music so you can talk. Most importantly, choose a place you've been to before and feel safe and comfortable in, preferably the same place every time — this is your home field advantage.

When choosing a place and time, say the date and time assertively and she will follow. For some reason, trying to be accommodating or flexible always fails hard. Don't go around dinner time or there may be food expectations, which is too big of a time commitment for a first date.

Step Seven: Light a Spark

For me this is the hardest part due to my anxiety and introversion. I've worked on it, gone to therapy about it, but I still struggle being myself in person around a stranger. Just remember that sometimes it doesn't go well and that's perfectly fine. You don't need to impress someone, you don't need to hide all your flaws and faults, you just need to be an honest and happy you. That's often enough for someone. It's hard, but it gets a tiny bit easier every time.

Talk about shared interests, have a drink or two, and most importantly enjoy yourself. This isn't a test of your worth. If some chemistry is there, that's amazing, but it's not completely necessary. Sometimes all you need is a bit of trust and positive signs. Offer to go for a walk, hold hands on a park bench outside, kiss outside an ice cream shop, just have a good time.

Just remember you can and will be ghosted at any step of the way. Only about 1-2% of swipes will be a match, only half of those will respond, only half of those won't ghost you at some point in the conversation, a significantly smaller fraction of whom you will have some kind of connection that goes anywhere, less than half of those might be open to what you're offering and agree to meet, and even then it's really common to be ghosted or chickened out on via text. Just be happy in who you are and what you're doing, dude, because you are worth it.

Comentarios destacados

toaster-of-tomorrow (▲ 66)

I like this, a lot! A few things I'd add from personal experience:

Use super likes liberally. Assuming there haven't been any algorithmic changes from Tinder, Super likes will put your like at the top of their swipe stack. Treat super likes as "normal likes". The reason being is if you're a random guy on Tinder then your ELO is probably really low (independent of your real life attractiveness), thus there is a low chance she'd see your regular like, but if you Super like, it'll bypass the algorithms and put you near the top of her swipe stack. I have 20+ matches with very attractive women from super likes alone.

I pretty much agree with swiping left on profiles with no bio, but if they have their interests listed (like hiking, grabbing a drink, reading), then I'll swipe right on them and start a convo either on the topics they listed or comment on their photos. The other exception is if they have a photo at a place I've been to (iconic place on campus, national park, a place you're a regular at). She has been one of my best matches yet across any dating platform.

McClownd (▲ 73)

Did any pothead hurt your feelings?

bhendel (OP) (▲ 22)

No, but girls who base their personality on getting weed were all wastes of time.

RovinbanPersie20 (▲ 15)

That's the thing tho. Everyone does it. Lots of people put that on their bio as if it's their only personality. Generally if a bio says about weed and not much else (or its the main subject) that's what he's talking about.

[deleted] (▲ 79)

Apart from swiping 5-10 minutes a day, which I don't agree with, most of his advice takes almost no time or effort at all and is just normal steps in dating. If you think what he's describing is too much, no wonder people on this sub are so utterly hopeless.

JuanOnOne (▲ 3)

The problem is a lot of the work goes in before you even meet the girl.

[deleted] (▲ 8)

Agreed, but the matching advice is gold. Just employed OP's swipe-left/right rules and instantly got a match — while, presumably, raising my ELO score by dismissing thirst traps along the way. I would add any mention of ENM (ethical non-monogamy) to the swipe-left list, btw. Been down that road and it's always a waste of time.

onewander (▲ 3)

100% on the ENM references, and I'm not opposed to that at all. In my experience though there is definitely a "type" of girl that puts that in her dating profile.

macroxela (▲ 40)

That's because bots are programmed to swipe right on everyone. If you do that then Tinder will think you're a bot.

Fuckmedaddy__666 (▲ 31)

TL;DR: Tinder is trash and wastes countless hours. Take those big brass balls and ask out the next attractive woman you see. You're automatically above all her tinder matches now, and you know she isn't a catfish.

reigningnovice (▲ 11)

I agree with this sentiment. Dating apps should not be the only thing you're clinging onto. It seems you "date down" on apps even if you're a good looking guy. You'll get more quality in real life. Always heard dating apps should be like 30% of what you do.

MagicPikeXXL (▲ 10)

I've noticed Tinder's algorithm works in a way that if you stop swiping for a while (say 3-4 days), it pushes you lower in the deck. You'll see fewer or no matches because of your low activity. Whereas Hinge and Bumble work on a different algorithm — based on the number of right swipes or interests you get, your profile deck gets rated and ranked, so there is never a point where you never get a match (provided you've followed most of the rules mentioned in this post).

Trail_Blazer42O (▲ 17)

I disagree with the weed part. I like someone who smokes.

IHeartFaye (▲ 6)

The sad thing about all of this advice is that it revolves around posturing. So many men think that the key to being interesting when talking to girls is to crack jokes every 2 sentences. You have a personality, you have things and hobbies that make you interesting, or at least you SHOULD.

Relationships are like sales exchanges. You provide value to this girl, and she provides value to you. Instead of you trying to impress her, make it about her impressing YOU. But in order for this to work, you need to figure out what makes you unique and interesting — your income, your hobbies, the things that drive you in life. Once you truly build up that confidence and learn about the value you can bring to a girl's life, the rest will naturally follow.

bhendel (OP) (▲ 2)

In real life that's all true. But sadly online, just saying "hi" and asking questions isn't going to get you anywhere, you have to be entertaining to not be ghosted.