What Gets You Banned From Tinder?

Breaking Tinder's Community Guidelines, either badly or more than once. The rules cover what you post, what you send and the account itself, from sexual content and harassment to fake or duplicate accounts. Tinder says it has a warning system, but it responds accordingly when violations continue or when one is severe.

These are the things Tinder's Community Guidelines rule out.

• Nudity and sexual content.
• Looking for sex on your public page.
• Publicly broadcasting personal contact details.
• Violent content.
• Advertising or selling.
• Fake accounts.
• Harassment and hate.
• Users under 18.
• Illegal content.
• More than one account per person.
• Posting other people's images or private messages without their consent.

Read cold, the list looks like it has nothing to do with an ordinary man. Most of it really does not. The trouble sits in a few items, and in how ordinary conversations can drift into them.

Tinder does not describe every violation as an instant ban. Its guidelines say it has a warning system in place.

The same sentence carries the catch. If violations continue, or if a single violation is severe, Tinder says it will respond accordingly. So a warning is a record, not a free pass. Each new problem is added to the last one, and something serious can skip the warning entirely.

Treat your first warning as the last one you intend to get.

Plenty of men who lose an account never posted anything explicit. They got reported for how a conversation went. A few habits cover most of it.

The reply to losing interest. She tells him there is no spark, or simply goes quiet, and he sends a paragraph about how rude she is or what she is missing. That message is the one that gets screenshotted and reported. Send one gracious line or nothing.

Too sexual, too early. An opener or an early message that goes sexual before she has shown any interest reads as harassment to a lot of women. Let her set that pace.

Pushing after a no. A second and third message to a woman who said no, or who never replied, looks like unwanted contact however politely it is written.

Insults when the app is not working. Some men get frustrated with their results and take it out on the women who do reply. That is exactly the behavior the harassment rules exist for.

A few of the rules are about what you put up rather than what you send.

Contact details. Publicly posting your phone number, email or other ways to reach you off the app is against the guidelines. Share them with a woman who has asked, not with everyone who opens your page.

Selling. Tinder is not an advertising board. Promoting a business, a club night, a course or anything you sell breaks the rules.

Sexual content. Nudity and sexual content are out, and so is using your public page to say you are looking for sex.

Other people's images. Posting someone else's photos, or screenshots of someone's private messages, without their consent is prohibited. That includes the screenshot of a woman's rude reply you were thinking of sharing to make a point.

A handful of rules are about the account itself.

One person can have one account at a time. Running a second one, even just to test different photos, breaks the rules. The account also has to be genuinely you, because fake accounts are prohibited, and you have to be 18 or older.

Men get into trouble here after a first ban, too. A second account opened to get around a decision breaks a rule of its own. It can turn a problem you might have appealed into one you cannot.

Tinder's guidelines reach past the app. Behavior off the service counts when it involves someone you met on Tinder. The guidelines let Tinder investigate it and close the account over it.

So the texts after you swap numbers, and the way you behave on the date itself, are part of your record. A woman who has a bad experience with you in person can report you on Tinder, and the guidelines give Tinder the right to act on it.

The rules read like a long list, but a man who dates well breaks almost none of them by accident. Good behavior on the app and good results on the app turn out to be the same habits.

Make your first message about her and something she wrote or showed, and keep sex out of it. Suggest a drink early instead of keeping her in small talk. When she says no, answer in one line or not at all. Give out your number only once she has asked for it or agreed to move off the app. Use recent photos that are honestly you. Keep a single account, type every message yourself, and leave your business off Tinder.

If Tinder does act and you believe it made a mistake, contest the decision in its Appeal Center. A man who follows the habits above will rarely have a reason to open it.