The 8 Rules of Tinder Success for Men
By: Joe Duncan
Tags: Dating, Tech, Self, Apps, Relationships

I think most people have a love-hate relationship with Tinder. It’s like gambling, we love to open the app, full of high hopes. We hate getting let down and leaving the app feeling unaccomplished. Before I ended up in a relationship, I used to dread it.

But I sometimes felt like Tinder was the only way to meet people and find love, sex, or relationships. Everyone was on it. Dating in person can be hard sometimes, time is scarce, and circumstances can get in your way, like the global pandemic like right now, so Tinder felt like my only option back when I was on the market.

That’s why it’s essential that anyone looking for love and relationships consider learning how to use Tinder. It can be a great app if we learn how to use it correctly and we don’t place unrealistic expectations on people like I used to. It can be a terrible app if we use it the wrong way or think it’s going to be a magic bullet that will cure our dating woes.

My Shift in Thinking

I used Tinder but I didn’t love it at first. But at some point, I had a consciousness shift that radically changed the landscape of how I perceived dating. It opened me up to new experiences and making wonderful memories with new people. I stopped searching for something and just set out to enjoy myself.

And that’s the first lesson of Tinder, don’t take it too seriously.

After years of searching for “the one” and taking dating really seriously, it finally dawned on me that I could casually date and just see what’s out there. I didn’t need some earth-shattering, life-changing event to transpire with every single person.

Come to think of it, outside of dating, we don’t place these expectations on our regular friendships. And I think those bad expectations set us up for failure.

Once I just decided to have fun with it and accept whatever may come, things got a lot better and I stopped putting so much pressure on myself to perform. It’s easier to make friends than find the love of your life.

And that was just the beginning. Here are seven other rules that if you follow, you’ll get better at Tinder…

Rule #1: Be yourself.

I know it sounds cliche, but if you follow the herd, you’ll go where the herd goes. Dare to be different, but in a way that the women you’re trying to date can appreciate. Think of dating like putting your best foot forward. You want to be yourself; you want to be authentic, but you also want to be the best version of yourself you can be.

Put your best foot forward, but never front or be fake.

Rule #2: Drop the “bro voice” when you communicate.

Overwhelmingly, overly masculine statements usually just read as very inauthentic and sometimes covertly abusive. No begging. No belittling women. No calling them names or trying to one-up them. No “establishing dominance” or anything of that nature. Words like “sup” shouldn’t enter the dating vocabulary.

Articulating yourself well will help your chances of success infinitely.

Rule #3: Eliminate competitive language.

Relationships aren’t a contest; they aren’t a competition between who’s better. Relationships are built on cooperation and mutual interests, mutual care, and a mutual investment of time and energy.

Dating isn’t a battle where one person must win and the other person must lose. That ain’t how it works. The point is to start immediately building a partnership (should it amount to that) with someone and we don’t very well do that by insulting people.

Reach out and connect instead of reaching out to prove you’re cool and you’ll go far.

Rule #4: Act like you care (or better yet, actually care).

Take time on your profile, take time to pick out some good photos, dress well, and even hire a local photographer if you’re interested in dating enough to take Tinder seriously. A day’s worth of photos could revamp your profile in a way that makes you stand out and it would be done professionally.

An investment of $50 will not only boost your local economy but will get you some seriously good-looking and accurate pictures of who you are from different angles so that you may honestly reflect who you are.

Tell them what you’re after and that you don’t want ultra-filtered images that don’t really look like you. The goal is to be as honest as possible and be yourself, but the best version of your authentic self as possible. Everyone’s got a good angle (and I’ll speak for myself, here, that I have way too many bad angles as well).

Rule #5: Just be a nice person.

Seriously, the whole alpha-male nonsense is so played out. People who try to pull the alpha strut *think* they’re communicating alpha status, social superiority, or desirability, but usually they're just communicating that they’re insufferable and take themselves way too seriously.

Other things we communicate by putting on an alpha-male persona is that we’re insecure and that we have an ego that will need to be tended to constantly, lest we bawl up and whine and cry because the big bad woman didn’t stroke our ego properly.

Being nice is simple. Being nice and interesting is great. Being nice, interesting, and attractive, well, that’s the magic combination.

Rule #6: Accept that rejection comes with the territory.

This is the other side of the “nice person” coin, we must accept that not everyone will be into us or for us, but that by being nice, pleasant, and civil, we can greatly increase our chances of not turning off someone who might have otherwise clicked with us.

We need to learn to take rejection in stride, if you haven’t already, keeping our mouths shut except to say, “Oh, thank you for the conversation, I wish you the best of luck.”

Can we get a little politeness back into the world of dating, please, especially us men? Let’s not take rejection seriously. It happens to everyone, it’s part of life, not everyone’s going to match with you, just like you’re not going to be attracted to literally every person you come across.

We shouldn’t take rejection as a slight on our egos.

Rule #7: Continue to use the app.

Like any other social media app, Facebook, Twitter, you name it Tinder success is largely dictated by algorithms. There are a set of algorithms that reward certain behaviors. If someone messages you, promptly get back to them when you can. Be polite and don’t get your account flagged.

And try to be on the app as much as possible. I know it’s easy to get discouraged and put Tinder down for a few weeks (or months) and then try to get back into the mix later when we get lonely. But social apps invariably reward the more active users. So, try and do whatever you can to be one of those.

Rule #8: Realize that dating takes time — a lot of time.

I find it humorous the way people flippantly discuss dating as if it’s just this casual and easy thing. I used to believe falsely that dating was easy for everyone else and that it was only hard for me. That’s not really true. Everyone struggles with dating. Finding a great match takes time.

People are complex. We don’t fit into neat little boxes. Romantic chemistry is something we’re only barely beginning to understand. Compatibility in love and dating isn’t really all that easy to come by. It doesn’t matter if you’re a famous musician or actor, those people have dating and relationship struggles too.

So, understand it’ll take some time and be willing to put in the time and effort and you’ll go far. Patience is a virtue