What Is a Good Short Tinder Bio for Guys?

A good short Tinder bio is one or two lines with one specific detail and one easy thing for her to answer. Short is fine. What fails is short and empty, like a height and a job title, which tells her nothing about what an evening with you is like.

Men hear that a bio should be brief and then strip out everything that was working. What they leave is a stat line: "6'0, engineer, gym."

That is thin. A thin bio has no detail to ask about and no voice, so it cannot start anything.

A short bio is different. It has fewer words and the same job. It picks the single best thing about your life, says it plainly, and stops. You are choosing one hook.

Use two short pieces.

First, one concrete thing. Not "I love food" but "I will drive across town for a particular dumpling and defend it to strangers." A detail she could picture and might argue with.

Second, a small way in. A question, a mild dare, or a plain invitation. "Tell me where I am going wrong with pizza." It should be answerable in a line.

If you can only keep one, keep the detail. A good detail makes a woman curious on its own.

These are original. Use your own facts.

• "Learning to surf at an age when it is mostly falling. Tell me your worst sport."
• "I will always order the second most expensive thing on the menu. Ask me why."
• "Sunday plan: long walk, bad coffee, strong opinions about both."
• "Moved here for work, stayed for one taco place. Prove me wrong."

Each is under twenty words and holds a picture. Each leaves a gap.

Cut in this order.

Cut the demands first. Lists of what you do not want, jokes about the app, and warnings about drama all sound like a man who has had a rough run.

Cut the labels next. "Adventurous", "funny", "laid-back" and "down to earth" are words every man uses. Replace one with a fact or leave it out.

Cut anything the pictures already show. If you are on a mountain in two shots, you do not need to say you like hiking.

Cut the stats. Height, job and zodiac sign, if you list them at all, belong after the hook, not in front of it.

What remains is usually half of what you started with, and it is the better half.

Women look at your pictures first and read the words second, and she often reads them in a few seconds. a dating coach's view is that the page should do the heavy lifting, getting attention and easing the first message. A short bio can do both if every word is working. A long one buries its one good line.

Short also keeps you from over-explaining, which is where most men lose the reader. If you cannot say it in two lines, you are probably justifying something. State it instead.

Some men reach this page asking about height, not length. If that is you, here is the plain version.

a dating coach says that height is not as big a deal as many men think, though being dramatically short will put some women off. Our view is that your bio should not carry the weight of a height apology. Do not announce it, do not joke about it, and do not write "short but fun." A man who raises it first teaches her to watch for it.

Let your pictures be honest and well chosen. coach pointed to one shot where a poor camera angle made a man look about three feet tall, and he noted the man was not. Stand tall, shoot from a flattering height, and include one picture next to another person so she can see the real scale. Then write a bio about something else.

Read it out loud. If it takes more than ten seconds, it is not short. If it could sit on any other man's page, it is not specific. If you would not say it across a table, it is not yours.

Fix one of those at a time, then leave it for a couple of weeks. Changing the words daily tells you nothing about which line was working.