I have been on Tinder since January of this year and have been working on developing a “one size fits all” strategy. I have never been the one to actively seek sexual encounters before mostly because I don’t crave sex that much, however, my dry streak started going into uncomfortable double digits and I set out to change that. I had a rough start with the app and in the first 3.5 months I only got 2 numbers and 1 date. I analyzed my results and identified a few problems (might be obvious to all of you but I didn’t know Seddit existed back then):

1) I was being too picky – I actually spent time looking through the numerous pictures and only liking the girls that I wanted to talk to. This decreased the number of my matches and unnecessarily increased my time investment. The solution was simple; “like” everyone and only start conversations if there is a match and some attraction

2) My main picture was too serious – I had a personal photographer friend take a picture of me for my LinkedIn account and I was using that. Albeit it’s a great picture but it didn’t do the trick. Upon my roommate’s suggestion I changed it to a half-naked pic of me at the lake. Im not in great shape or anything but it was a really good angle and perfect timing. From these two things the number of my matches sky rocketed.

3) I lacked a consistent opener.

In April I came up with the following and have been using it ever since: “Psst…heaven called and said they are missing an angel so whatever you do don’t tell them where I am at.” This line didn’t start paying off till July because the responses were either “don’t worry your secret is safe with me”, “haha that’s funny” or “LOL, that was going to be lame but way to recover.” Now my problem was I didn’t have a good enough follow up. After more than a few trial and errors I settled on “Good I knew I could trust you but now you got to tell me a secret of yours, its only fair” or “I exist to entertain but you got to tell me a secret of yours now, its only fair.” Their responses then will range widely and can be categorized as either “I don’t have any secrets” or “witty response that you can build off.” For the latter I had everything from “I play video games naked when I am home alone” to “Im meeting Nick Cage to steal the declaration of Independence later” – which are really easy to deal with and lead to some witty banter. I used to drop the ones that said they don’t have any secrets but lately started feeding them ideas. My favorite one is “You got to have one! Who is your secret female celebrity crush?” Does not matter who they name, they usually ask for my crush at which point I declare my undying love for Channing Tatum. I don’t know why but the mention of his name makes every girl go “splosh.” After that it is the same song and dance – who doesn’t love Channing after all? – and you are in.

So, what are the results? I tried this line 99 times and got a response 56 times. Since July, when I solidified the routine, I got 7 numbers, 4 first dates, k closed 3 of them on the first date and ended up in bed with all of them by the third date (1 f close, 1 gave me numerous blowjobs (because I didn’t want to part the red sea), and the other one was naked on top of me but I couldn’t get past the final psychological barrier with her). Now, I am sure 3 out of 56 sounds like shit to most but that number also includes the 3 months of trial and error and the fact that the last time I even pursued sex was over two years ago. If I skewed the data to only represent numbers since July, it would look a bit more favorable.

If you guys want, I can share my game plan for first dates with Tinder girls. Also, I will take any tips, suggestions, and pointers. I really hope this helps somebody because otherwise I just wasted an hour at work writing this. Hey, at least I got paid.