Male: "I'm on Tinder, I'm relatively attractive, I have my shit together, and I can't find any dates. What am I doing wrong?"

To those thinking this, I'm in a similar spot as you. I've had plenty of luck finding hookups/GFs using online dating sites, but Tinder has been infuriatingly difficult to master.

Here is my hypothesis about Tinder, which is based entirely on my friends' experiences over the years as well as my own, recent experiences.

  • Tinder's initial release: Sept 2012

  • Tinder's "Low-key Cool Phase": Sept 2012 -- Middle of 2013. This is when the most hype was generated for Tinder. It's that app you go on to to get laid! Lot's of horny men and women hook up and eventually start dating through this period. Importantly, this is the phase containing the largest group of horny women who had never heard a story about a friend meeting a "great guy" on Tinder. These women are adventurous and confident. Because this is what men want, the early women have no problem matching up with men for sex or love. User population is at an all-time low. Dates are set and followed through with quickly. The quality of profiles is high.

  • Tinder's "Well-known, Middle-aged Phase": Middle of 2013 -- Middle of 2014. The sexually liberated ladies have blazed the trail and have told all their friends by now about "the great guy they met on Tinder". Their less sexually liberated friends want a boyfriend too, so a steady stream of uptight women begin to flood the Tinder market. "Not just here to hook up" is a phrase which becomes more and more common-place on females' Tinder profiles. Importantly, prostitutes and wanna-be prostitutes begin to enter the market. User population is breaking records daily. Dates are set but not quite followed through as quickly as previously. The quality of profiles is mediocre.

  • Tinder's "Despised, Death Phase": Middle of 2014 -- Present. The Tinder app, originally intended to facilitate quick dating and sex, has collapsed into a wretched pile of single moms, prostitutes, wanna-be prostitutes, uptight women, hypocritical women, and women who lack the confidence to meet in person. The thrill is gone. "Not just here to hook up", "single mother", "divorced mother", "sugar baby", "new in town", "only here for tonight", and the like are all phrases which are ubiquitous on female profiles. User population is at an all-time high but has leveled-off in terms of acquiring new users. Dates are rarely set and even more rarely followed through: women are bombarded with requests from men and the women never make up their mind. Importantly, the women do not want to proceed with a date because they fear that, just as they start dating a man, they'll lose out by inadvertently passing up on a better man who might come along any second. This fear by women that they'll lose out on the next, better man, in addition to losing all that wonderful attention generally, is why so few women want to proceed to the next step of meeting a man in person to either hook up or to date him. The app has lost all focus and is being used for anything: scoring drugs, finding a sugar daddy, selling sex, hooking up, husband seeking, hocking Instagram accounts, hocking Twitter accounts, selling Girl Scout cookies, etc. The quality of profiles is at its poorest, and recovery of the app to its former greatness is impossible.