How to Use Tinder Successfully as a Man

Tinder is a one second decision about one photograph, and most of what men get wrong here happens before a single word is typed. Lead with a clear, well lit shot of your face. Back it with a few that show what your week actually looks like. Then spend the time you save on writing first and asking early.

Everything else on the card is a tiebreaker. She sees one image at thumbnail size, in a queue, usually while doing something else, and the decision is made before she has read a word.

So the lead shot has one job and it is narrow. Your face, clearly visible, taken in daylight, from about chest up. No sunglasses. No hat pulled low. No group of four men where she has to work out which one you are, because she will not work it out, she will move on.

Men resist this because their favourite photograph is usually a wide one from a holiday. Keep it. Just put it third.

Once she has stopped, she is looking for three things, and you can answer all of them without writing anything.

What does he look like, properly. One full length shot handles it, and leaving it out makes her assume the worst. What does he do with his time. One image of you actually doing something you do, in the place you do it. And do other people like him. One photograph with friends, where you are clearly identifiable and clearly at ease.

Four to six images is plenty. Different clothes, different places, different days, because a set shot in one afternoon looks exactly like a set shot in one afternoon. Cut anything blurry, anything from six years ago, and anything with an ex cropped half out of it.

Nobody is reading an essay on Tinder. Nobody is reading a list of demands either.

Two lines does it. One that says something concrete and true about your life, one that gives her an easy way in. "Chef, so I eat dinner at midnight. Tell me the best thing you have cooked this year." That is specific, it sounds like a person, and it hands her a reply.

What to leave out: the height joke, the "not here for hookups" disclaimer, the list of things you do not want, and anything phrased as a warning. All of them read as a man who has had a bad few months, and she has no reason to sign up for that.

The single biggest habit change is being harder about who you like.

Liking everybody feels like playing the numbers and it is actually the opposite. You end up with a queue full of people you were never going to meet, which buries the two you were, and you write worse openers because you are not interested. Ten deliberate likes a day, each on a woman whose page you actually read, produces more real plans than three hundred taps.

Set the distance tight while you are at it. Somebody twenty five minutes away can meet you on a Wednesday. Somebody two hours away is a plan that keeps getting rearranged until it dies.

The opening line is not a test of wit. It is a test of whether you looked.

Find one thing on her page and react to it like a human being. Her photograph in a place you know: name the street. Something she says she is bad at: ask how bad. A strong opinion: disagree lightly. Two sentences, one question she can answer on the bus, and no comment on her looks, because every other man led with that today.

If her page genuinely says nothing, ask about the one image that looks like it has a story behind it. That works far more often than it should.

Speed matters more early than men think, and later far less.

Write while she still remembers tapping on you. A day later you are a name she cannot place, and the conversation starts from nothing. After that first exchange, stop worrying about timing entirely and roughly match her pace.

Keep three or four conversations going rather than twelve. Twelve is how you end up asking the same question twice and calling her by the wrong name, and she notices immediately.

Here is where most men lose the ones they had. The conversation is good, so they keep having it, for nine days, and then it quietly stops.

Three or four exchanges is enough. Then name something concrete: a place, a day, a rough time. "There is a decent wine bar near the station, are you around Thursday evening." If she cannot do Thursday and offers Saturday, you are in. If she says she is busy and offers nothing, let it sit and move on.

The men who do well on Tinder are not funnier or better looking than the men who do not. They have a clear lead photograph, a short honest few lines, a tight set of likes, and a habit of asking early. That is the whole of it, and every part is something you can fix this week.