I've been on Tinder about 3 weeks or so and I've had 11 conversations (discounting a few that were either with weird profiles or tourists who never responded) and I've not been able to get a date yet. In 2 conversations I THINK I was close, but IDK. I'm trying to understand what I'm doing wrong and I was hoping maybe you folks could help me see what I'm not seeing or what I don't get here.

I'll give you an idea of what I do and how these conversations tend to go and maybe you can tell me what I'm doing wrong here.

I'll also give you some stats for these conversations. I'll remove some conversations from the stats for the reason I mentioned previously - weird, possibly fake, profiles, tourists who maybe weren't in town by the time I messaged, with one girl there was some bug so my two initial messages were doubled into 4.

I've had 2 long convos, 3 unmatches after messaging, 3 ghostings, 3 no responses to first message - I'll break this down a little more in a comment.

The response rate to my first messages is 9/11 or if I include all the conversations 9/16.

For my first message I do one of two things:

#1 I make some kinda joke (never anything rude or sexual)

#2 I ask a question about something in her bio.

Whichever way I go with my first message, my second message is always a question about something serious.

I'll give you some examples of conversations that will maybe give you an idea of what I'm doing. I can't post screenshots, because they're not in English:

#1 video games girl

Me: Joke + asking her does she want a serious or a joky question

Girl: Laughing emoji, hahaha, want a serious joky question

Me: I have a hard time coming up with a message at all and you want it to be serious AND joky. I say I can tell she's high maintenance.

Do you really play videogames? (that was in her bio)

Girl: (short answers) Yes

When I have time

I'm not (high maintenance)

Me: What videogames do you like? Have you played my favorite videogame, Metal Gear?

No response after that.

#2 no response girl

Me: You have an unusually good bio, Sonia :) What directors do you like? (she mentioned she likes film in her bio)

No response.

#3 emoji bio girl

Her bio is a sequence of emojis.

Me: I'm trying to decypher your bio. The books mean you like literature, the pen and paper, I guess, mean you like reading, the pumpkin head is in anticipation of Halloween, but what does the alien mean???

Her: Heyy, pretty close actually! I do write a bit, I work at a production company (there was an emoji related to that), the alien means I like sci fi.

Me: Aaaah, sci fi. I just read some Arthur Clarke short stories recently and I really liked them. Do you like sci fi literature or is it more films?

Unmatch.

I won't drone on any more, if you'd like any more info or more examples of convos let me know.