Introduction:
Online dating is one of the most important and best developments over the past hundred years in dating. There is no reason not to be using it. In this episode, Tucker and Geoff teach you everything you need to know to succeed using online dating.
After listening to this podcast, you’ll know how to build a profile to show your best qualities, you’ll know what kinds of messages women do and don’t respond to, and you’ll know how to set up the perfect first date. Online dating is one of the best ways to meet women, and the information in this episode is invaluable for helping you learn how to utilize it.
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Key takeaways:
Online dating is one of the most important and best developments for men and women over the past hundred years in dating. If you’re not using it, you’re wrong. You should be able to get a date or two a week out of it.
The technology for meeting women is completely different from meeting women thirty years ago, but the psychology of female choice is the same. You still have to demonstrate the same intelligence and openness and creativity and humor and kindness and show that you’re a tender defender.
Hinge is a great dating app. It’s like Tinder except it’s for people who want it more relationship-based as opposed to random hookup. What makes Hinge very different from Tinder is you sign in through Facebook, but you’re only shown about ten girls a day and they’re all girls who are friends of friends, or friends of friends of friends. It connects you and shows you exactly how you’re connected. Hinge eliminates the creep-factor. Hinge is all young professions in major cities, all between twenty-two and forty, and almost all attractive. It’s super easy to meet girls on Hinge.
For Tinder profiles, you want to have two or three good, clear pictures of your face. Don’t use shirtless bathroom pictures, pictures of cars, or pictures of guns, or anything where you are overtly bragging. If you have a dog, put a dog in one of the pictures. Preferably you playing with the dog. If you have nieces and nephews, you can put a picture of you with them. Put a caption on the picture like “The kids are my sisters, not mine, but I love them anyway”. While shirtless bathroom pictures are bad, a picture of you demonstrating a physical skill such as CrossFit is fine. But only one of those. Choose pictures that show the type of person you are. Choose pictures that show you have friends. In group pictures, add an arrow to the picture pointing to you. You can also add funny captions to the pictures.
To develop an online dating profile that works well, you have to do some soul-searching and ask yourself “What do I offer to women? What do I want to feature? What do I want to highlight and emphasize and talk about and what are my strengths and weaknesses?” Use correct spelling and grammar. Make sure your profile isn’t too short, and make sure it gives women a sense of who you are and what it would be like to spend time with you. Don’t overstate your height, don’t overstate income, and don’t lie about your education or your job. Be completely honest about who you are.
If you’re having trouble thinking about what makes you a good person to date, focus on developing positive traits. If there’s nothing attractive about you, it’s your own fault. It doesn’t mean you can’t be attractive, it just means you aren’t being attractive. So fix it. Whatever matters to you, whatever things you like, have something to show for it. Write a book, start a company, run a marathon, do CrossFit, whatever you like. There are so many things you could do that are not that hard that are a lot of fun.
It’s a toxic idea that women should just accept you for who you are. Do you accept women just for who they are, or are you judgmental? Everybody is judgmental. Ask yourself, “Why would a woman want to sleep with me?” If you can’t think of a good answer, you need to develop some positive traits.
Another thing you can do is ask your friends what positive traits you have. It’s super common to undersell yourself, and often your friends will have a better idea of what you offer than you do.
State clearly in your profile what you are looking for in a woman. Be very specific. By talking about traits that would be dealbreakers, the women that aren’t excluded by them will be more drawn towards you, because they will feel like they are what you’re looking for. Don’t list too many traits, but being selective is a good thing.
When you message a girl on Tinder, have an actual conversation. Start with a 200-400 word message explaining a bit about yourself and mentioning some things in her profile that are relevant. Make it clear that you have read her profile and are interested in her as a person. This will make you stand out from the majority of guys.
When you message a girl on computer dating(e.g., Match.com, OkCupid.com), you want your first message to be short. “Oh, you look interesting because of this specific fact and feature about your life from your profile. That intrigues me.” Then, say something funny and see if she responds. Don’t use generic messages.
Most of a woman’s attraction to you is based on your verbal courtship and what you say. What’s not effective is when the entirety of your verbal courtship through messaging is based on commenting on how pretty they are. That’s useless.
Set up meetings relatively quickly. Don’t drag out the messaging for too long. That being said, by switching over to text messaging and talking to them a bit more, you can screen out women who you won’t actually be that into and avoid wasting time.
Meet in low stress situations. Choose a place that you know and are comfortable at. Choose a place that you think she’s going to like that you can both talk at. Have the first meeting be very casual with a defined end date. After-work or after-school drinks are perfect. “Hey. I’ve got a dinner at 8:00 with somebody, so I can’t stay that long, but I’d love to meet you and get to know you better.” This will make her feel safe, because she knows she doesn’t have to stay. If things are going great, you can extend the date.
It’s a good idea to choose a few places to become a regular at and make friends with people who go there or who work there. This is material proof and social status.
Broaden out your search criteria for women a little wider than you think you feel comfortable with, and treat it as a personal growth experience. Online dating is a great opportunity to learn what kinds of women you like.
Use online dating lots, and get better at it. Chances are really good that you’re going to meet your mate through online dating.
Links from this episode
Hinge is like Tinder but for people who want it more relationship-based.
Tinder is great for short-term dating.
TinderLines shows hilarious, terrible messages by guys on Tinder.
Your other options for online dating include Match, OkCupid, Grouper, Plenty Of Fish, JDate, Zoosk, and eHarmony
Podcast Audio Transcription:
Tucker:
Alright. In this episode of the Mating Grounds Podcast, we are going to talk about meeting women. Specifically, meeting women through online dating. We get this question a lot from guys. It’s not one of the top two or three questions, but it’s usually in the top five. “Where do I meet women? How do I meet women?” Or, at least, a lot of questions guys ask, that will be the implicit assumption of the question. For the vast majority of guys, the best way for you to meet women is online dating. It doesn’t mean it’s the only way you should be meeting women. You should, essentially, have two strategies. You should have a social life that involves a lot of things that include lots of women, and you should be online dating. All guys should be doing those two things. Some guys should be going to bars and clubs as well. We’re gonna have different podcasts about those. This is only online dating. The first thing we need to talk about with online dating is we need to talk about the stigma behind it. There used to be a stigma in online dating, and I don’t want to say it’s totally gone, but I think, especially for under-35 and definitely under-30, there’s very little stigma in online dating anymore. In fact, it’s almost assumed. If you’re not on OkCupid or Tinder or anything, then that’s a little bit weird.
Geoff:
If you’re single.
Tucker:
If you’re single. Of course. I can remember a time when I was in law school, late nineties-early 2000s, where the idea of meeting someone online was unheard of. You were a creep and a weirdo and, “Oh, what’s wrong with you?” I remember when Match.com first really started being used, a lot of people didn’t have pictures in their profiles because cell phone cameras didn’t exist and digital cameras weren’t even that widespread. Most people didn’t have pictures online. If you talk to a 25-year-old now about not having a picture online, they’ll look at you like, “I don’t understand. Are you a spy? How does that even work that you don’t have pictures of you online?” That’s fifteen years ago. Less, actually.
Geoff:
This is the biggest change in how human mating works, really, since evolution of language. It’s a massive shift in the mating culture. It’s one of the gifts from the gods, really, in terms of how men and women can meet each other more efficiently.
Tucker:
That’s absolutely true. I don’t know of a better thing for guys and girls than online dating. Here’s what online dating does. If you invest any amount of time and do a decent job with your profile – you don’t have to be great, just do a decent job – what you’ve done is you’ve exposed yourself to thousands of women and given yourself the ability to quickly and easily sort through the ones you don’t want, who either you’re not attracted to or aren’t attracted to you, and find the ones that you can connect with and then connect with them without any sort of gatekeeper, without any sort of awkwardness. There’s a little awkwardness, but you don’t have to go to a bar. You don’t have to go to some stupid church dance. You don’t have to have any contrived social situations. There is really nothing better, I think. I don’t know about since the advent of language, but it’s a huge development in the last hundred years, at least, in dating. And if you guys are not doing this, you are fucking up. There is no better way to meet tons and tons of women. Essentially, at this point in your life, if you are a man and you live anywhere where there are women, you should be getting dates through online dating. If you’re not, then it’s sort of like a pro-wrestler who doesn’t use steroids. You’re fucked, because all the ones that do are going to beat you, except this isn’t cheating. This is just using the tools available to find women who want to meet you or that want to meet some guy. Maybe not you, but they wanna meet you.
Geoff:
It’s almost like choosing a college and going, “Oh, it’s beneath me to actually look at the college’s website.” Why would you not use the current technology that’s available, that’s specifically designed for you to meet women?
Tucker:
The better analogy is like choosing a college only based on the one you can drive to in an hour. “If I can drive in an hour, then I’ll go to it. I’m six hours from Massachusetts. Why would I think about Harvard? Why would I even do research on other schools?” The fuck? You can go to any school in America. You should consider all of them, right?
Geoff:
I’ll tell you what. The even better analogy is you only consider colleges you happen to drive by in real life in your car. It’s like, “Well, I drove past Middlebury College in Vermont and I haven’t driven past any other colleges. Clearly I was fated.” This is where romantic comedies do a massive disservice to you, that they always portray boy meets girl in some cute little real-life situation.
Tucker:
“We’ve got such a great story about how we met!” That’s such bullshit.
Geoff:
Yeah. It’s like, okay. That used to work because that was the only way to meet people. I hope to god the Hollywood script writers get their act together and start having rom coms that actually reflect how people meet each other.
Tucker:
I’m probably wrong. I can’t think of any that have involved online dating that were good except You’ve Got Mail, which was an amazing movie.
Geoff:
And was twenty years ago!
Tucker:
You’ve Got Mail is amazing. I will have a fist fight with anyone who denies that movie was great. It was one of the best-written, best-acted, best-executed movies I’ve ever seen. I loved it. It was amazing.
Geoff:
You’re picking a fight with me, but I loved it, too. So, there.
Tucker:
I’m not picking a fight with you. I was putting a challenge out to the world. I’m gonna fight some dude in the street over You’ve Got Mail. How funny would that be? Dave Chappelle is one of the main character actors in that movie, and he’s hilarious in that, too. It’s a great movie. You’re right. That was twenty years ago…Was it twenty years ago? God, yeah. It was the mid-nineties. Yeah. In my books, Hate and I used to watch You’ve Got Mail all the time together. That was our thing. Whenever it came on TNT, I’d be like, “Hey. You’ve Got Mail is on.” I’d call him and he’d come home from the library.
Geoff:
That’s the girliest thing I’ve ever heard you talk about.
Tucker:
It kind of is. See, I hated Sleepless in Seattle, though. Same main characters. Kind of the same premise. I thought that movie was terrible. I wanted to burn it down.
Geoff:
Yeah. So, the main point is, there’s this stigma about online dating. You’ve swallowed this cultural programming that says you’re supposed to meet your mate in real life in some cute situation that makes a good story. Okay. You can wait for that to happen and have this fatalistic attitude about it.
Tucker:
Or you can meet hundreds of women online.
Geoff:
Or you can meet hundreds of women and you’re much, much, much more likely to meet women who meet your needs and vice versa.
Tucker:
Yes. Exactly. I can’t think of any other arguments against online dating. I don’t know if we have to keep arguing that. I think for a lot of the guys listening to this podcast, they’re like, “Yeah, of course, online dating. That’s great.” Or, at least, I’d hope. If you still have problems with online dating, then either email us or call the number that’s on the site of questions and we’ll address them in Q&A, because that’s ridiculous. Alright. Let’s start with mobile dating. I think that’s what a lot of younger guys are more dealing with now. Then, we’ll go into more traditional online dating. The big player in the mobile dating space (and we’re talking about apps on your phone)…Tinder is the big player. They’re the 800-pound gorilla. The other big one is Hinge, and I think Hinge is actually way better than Tinder. Hinge is only about eight or ten cities right now. Like, the big ones: New York, LA, San Francisco, Atlanta, etc. I think Hinge is better, but most people only have access to Tinder. If you’re listening to this and you don’t know what Tinder is, then I don’t know what fucking planet you live on. But essentially, you get the app, you sign in with your Facebook account, and then it uploads all your profile pics and you can put in a little bio, like a thousand-character max or 500-character max. It’s essentially a game. You see pictures of women and then you swipe left if you don’t like them and right if you do. If both of you swipe right on each other, then you’re connected and you can email each other through the app. You see their first name, their age, and four or five pictures in the bio. So, Tinder is pretty fucking amazing. It’s essentially used as a short-term mating meet market, and it’s really good for that. I’m not gonna lie. Especially for me. If you’re a little bit famous on that, it’s amazing. All the women know who I am. That’s the big thing with Tinder. It’s, “Oh, I don’t know. This guy could kind of be a creep.” It’s tied to Facebook, so you know it’s a real person. You can’t be faking it. At the same time, you don’t know him. I’m not single now, but I was one of the early people on Tinder. I don’t have problems getting women, but it was ridiculous. 80% of the girls who picked me knew who I was and were down. It was like, “Come over.” “Okay.” It’s funny. They’ve started doing profile…not certifying, but what’s the blue checkmark on Twitter? Validating. Verifying. They’re verifying celebrity profiles on Tinder because so many people are pretending to be celebrities. In fact, you can go look at my Twitter feed. I see it all the time. Once a week, a girl will be like, “Some guy’s using Tucker Max’s picture to catfish girls.” She’ll take a screenshot of it and it’s James, 28 in Nashville. Like, yup. That’s me. That’s my picture and I’m not 28, I don’t live in Nashville, and my name isn’t James. A lot of people are doing that, so they’re starting to verify celeb profiles. Tinder is really good for short-term hookups. Not the best for long-term hookups. It’s basically like being in a bar, except on your phone. The one cool thing is that if you’re connected with someone, it means you, at the very least, know they thought you were attractive. Here’s the mistake that most guys make. Let me make this clear to you if you don’t understand it. Women expect you to initiate on Tinder. So, if you both pick each other, then you need to initiate the conversation. In my experience, less than 10% of women will initiate conversations, and that’s even with me. They know who I am. I’ve got a bunch of male friends who use Tinder. Pretty much all of them are like, “Yeah. I have to initiate pretty much everything.” So, when you initiate, here’s a couple things that I’ve found, especially from my male friends. A buddy of mine kind of hacked Tinder. Remember the hypothetical we gave you where we were like, “Think of yourself as a gay guy in a bar and how awful most guy would feel?” To understand what a woman feels like? The gay bar example. I think that was in episode eight. Here’s what happens on Tinder. At least 50% of the guys that women match up with and usually more are just fucking creeps who are, like, after two posts, “Hey, come suck my dick.” There’s whole Tumblr accounts about this. Go the complete opposite direction. If you go the complete opposite direction, you’re gonna do really well. Here’s the thing. Even if you just wanna fuck, most of the girls who just wanna fuck, again, have twenty guys on Tinder who are like, “Time to fuck.” They’re just deluged with these clowns. If you actually go the other way and say, “Hey, what’s up?” Have an actual conversation. Charlie Hoehn, who was on the podcast, said, “I realized I just started writing tons of stuff to girls and all of a sudden, they totally open up and write a bunch of stuff back.” Especially on Tinder, where dudes are like, “Hey. What’s up? What are you doing?” You’re like, “Hey. What’s going on? My name’s Charlie. Here’s some things about me. I saw that stuff about you. That’s cool.” Comment on a couple of things in her profile that are relevant. “Oh, you have a dog? I love dogs. I used to volunteer…” It doesn’t have to be that much. I’m talking two-, three-, four-hundred words. Very simple. He actually wrote a template – it was the same basic shit – for each girl, but then changed for her profile. He was like, “I couldn’t fight the girls off on Tinder after that.”
Geoff:
The key thing there is the technology is completely different from meeting women thirty years ago, but the psychology of female choice is the same. You still have to demonstrate the same intelligence and openness and creativity and humor and kindness and tender defender. All of that stuff, but a lot of guys treat it as a kind of superficial video game where they’re not investing any courtship effort in it. It’s so easy to stand out from the guys who are just typing “DTF?” Just invest a little bit in connecting her profile to the questions you ask her. If she has some indications you’re at least paying attention to her as a person, you’ll be completely different from 90% of the guys who are sending her messages.
Tucker:
We’re gonna talk about this a lot and how to do good profiles, but there’s a certain way to do Tinder profiles that work well. First off, have at least two or three good, clear pictures of your face. Don’t be one of those assholes who hides or whatever. Women do that more than men, but don’t be like that. I don’t care how good your body is. Generally speaking, a shirtless bathroom pic is gonna be looked down on by most girls. Even the girls who won’t look down on it aren’t gonna think more of you because you have a shirtless bathroom pic. If you’re one of those dudes who literally only wants to go over and shoot a load in a girl and not have to talk to her, okay. If that’s working for you, play that game. Probably, the majority of our listeners are not in that category, which doesn’t mean you don’t want short-term relationships. I’m just saying there is a much better way to do it. Shirtless bathroom pics are never good. Extreme, “I’ve got three guns and a dead deer in front of me…” Unless hunting is your entire identity and the woman has to be okay with hunting, even for short-term, then that’s okay. Do that. Otherwise, things like that just don’t help you. Also, anything with guns or where you’re overly focused on cars in your pictures – women generally look at that as insecure. If you have a Ferrari and you want to put it in your Tinder profile, you’re gonna get a certain girl that responds to that. She’s gonna be a gold digger. If you’re cool with that, alright. Most guys who buy Ferraris, that’s why they do it. It’s to get women. That’s the type of woman you’re gonna get. Which is funny, because if you have a Ferrari and you don’t do any of that shit and you meet women and then they see it, they’re like, double or triple impressed because they’re like, “This is the only guy I’ve ever met with a Ferrari who didn’t fucking immediately tell me he had a Ferrari in three seconds.”
Geoff:
Yeah, imagine her delight when you actually pick her up for a date and you haven’t previously bragged about it.
Tucker:
You haven’t said a word about it. That’s super great, actually. Avoid shirtless bathroom pics, avoid gun pics, avoid car pics. I would avoid anything where you are clearly, overtly bragging. If you have a dog, put a dog in one of the pics. Preferably you playing with a dog or whatever. It’s a little bit cliché, but it’s one that works. Especially if you like your dog. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. That’s a good thing. Women like that. If you have nieces, nephews, whatever, don’t be afraid to put pictures of you with your nieces and nephews. I’d put in the profile, “The kids are my sisters, not mine, but I love them anyway,” or whatever. Those things are great. If you’re active, if you’re an athlete, there’s a difference between, “Oh, I’m in great shape. I’m gonna put a half-nude bathroom pic in.” That’s very different than a pic of you doing a CrossFit workout or something. That’s cool. There’s nothing wrong with that. That actually shows you’re active and in shape and whatever. One of those, though. Not six of them. The majority of your pics should be normal pics. “Oh, me out at a bar. Me with one or two friends. Me whatever.” You know what’s really cool? I’ve seen girls do this. It works really well. If you’re in group pics, those are fine. It takes nothing at all to go into any of these online photo editors and drop in a little arrow pointing to you in each one. If you’re black and you only have white friends, you probably don’t need to do that. But for everyone else, you think you look different than everyone else. You fucking don’t. I can’t tell you how many Tinder profiles I’ve seen where I’m like, “I don’t know which one you are, girl.” Every fucking picture is her and six girls and I’m like, “That’s great. You have a lot of friends. First off, I don’t give a shit. Second of all, I don’t know which one you are, bitch. You all look the same.” She’s the ugly one, usually. Not always, though. Depends. If all your pics are group pics, the girl’s gonna assume you’re the ugly one because that’s what girls do. You don’t think of this as a guy, but that’s what girls do. That brings up another point. Another great way to do your profile is putting funny messages in the pictures. Not many guys do that, and if you’re funny, it’s really funny. One of my friends did this. I had made this suggestion, he changed a bunch of his profile pics, and he tripled the number of girls who swiped right on him. So, it’d be him with a picture and he would be like an arrow, “This is me,” and then to the girl, something like, “I didn’t date this girl. She said she was too hot for me. To hell with her,” or something. Smiley face. Whatever. That was funny. The next one would be him with four girls and he’s like, “I don’t know any of these girls.” And then an arrow to him, “This is me,” and the other four, “I don’t know any of these four girls. They’re just really hot and I asked them to pose with me for a picture so I would look cool on my Tinder profile.” Shit like that is self-deprecating and funny and that’s his personality, but it was fucking hilarious. Literally tripled. It was crazy. He’s like, “Almost every girl I picked had already picked me.” You can do things like that.
Geoff:
So, to sum up. A couple of good face shots that show you at different angles, different lighting. One shot of you with friends where you identify who you are. One shot of you doing something cool and active. Not just flexing, but actually showing some athletic skill at something. And then some interests. I’ve been attracted to women in online dating just ‘cause they include a cool photo of a galaxy or dragonfly or their book or a cool place they’ve been. You don’t have to feel limited to just do photos of you. You can do anything creative you want. Anything that catches a woman’s eye. But you must include at least three or four photos of yourself.
Tucker:
Yeah. Exactly. Photos of you with friends, obviously, shows social proof. Make sure there’s at least a couple. The first two it should be obvious who you are. Honestly, it’s not a bad thing to show the things you’re into. “Oh, I’m on a boat. I’m playing basketball.” Whatever. Because that gives the girl an indication of who you are and it’ll help select girls you actually might get along with.
Geoff:
And remember, she’s not just choosing you. She’s choosing your whole lifestyle and imagining, “Oh, what would it be like to be with him for a night or to be his boyfriend?”
Tucker:
Exactly. I would really recommend Hinge, too. Hinge is like Tinder except it’s for people who want it more relationship-based as opposed to random hookup. What makes Hinge very different than Tinder is you sign in through Facebook, but you’re only shown about ten girls a day and they’re all girls who are friends of friends. So, if you live in New York City and you have a thousand friends on Facebook, then each of those thousand friends probably has a thousand friends, right? So, they have tons and tons of female friends in New York that you don’t meet through them necessarily. It shows you either friends of friends or second-order friends. Like, friends of friends of friends. It connects you and shows you exactly how you’re connected. So, you’re on Hinge and you know this girl Allison and a girl pops up. Katie Jones and she’s really pretty. You both know Allison in common, so you can both ask, “Allison. What’s this girl like?” And you can pick her and she picks you. What this does is it eliminates the creep factor of Tinder. Tinder is essentially a bunch of randoms and a bunch of creeps and maybe 5-10% are normal guys. This is what every girl who uses Tinder will tell me. “I’m happy if 10% of the guys that respond to me aren’t creepy and weird.” Hinge eliminates that or, at least, reduces it a huge amount so a lot more women are on Hinge than on Tinder now. Tinder started with a bunch of women because the initial marketing strategy was really smart. One of the female cofounders basically had sororities and modeling agencies use this. I was one of the first guys on because I knew someone involved. I was like, “This thing is amazing.” It was all hot girls at the beginning. Now, not so much. Hinge is like that still. It’s all young professionals, all major cities, all between twenty-two and forty, almost all attractive. It’s really fucking cool. I would really recommend it. You can absolutely find short-term mates on there. It’s more geared toward people that are looking for something more than just a one-night stand, but not necessarily marriage or boyfriend/girlfriend. It’s like, “I wanna meet new people. I wanna meet a bunch of guys and the ones I like, I’ll sleep with,” and vice versa.
Geoff:
And remember, we keep emphasizing the importance of emotional and reputational safety for women, and what Hinge does differently is it automatically kind of makes you at least a little bit accountable through your Facebook friends, ‘cause you’re connected through them. It gives social proof, but it also will give women a sense of comfort that, “Well, at least I know somebody who kind of knows this guy.” That’s a huge advantage in terms of helping her relax and feel safe and confident.
Tucker:
I’ve found, on Hinge, it’s super easy to meet girls. Almost every girl I’ve paired up with on Hinge, I met in real life. Because she was like, “Yeah, let’s go get coffee. Let’s get drinks.” Super easy. The problem with Tinder is a lot of people use Tinder as a narcissistic game. They want to see how many people are into them. They don’t even care about meeting them or whatever. That’s probably 50% of Tinder usage is really just a mobile app game. Not even a real-life thing that people use. Hinge is not as much like that. I would very much recommend Hinge. Look, this podcast is coming out at some point in 2014. The mobile app arena changes very quickly, so we’re gonna write quite a bit about this in our book, Mate, that comes out 2015, and we will have a section of the site that will be constantly updated that will be Mobile App Dating, because this shit changes. I can see, in two years, no one using Tinder and Hinge being the biggest thing ever, and maybe five years after that, Hinge is not being used and now it’s something else. It changes a lot. I think Dr. Miller made a really important point. Technology changes, humans don’t. All the same principles apply. This is why we teach you guys principles, so that you can think for yourself and apply them, no matter what arena you’re in. So many guys are like, “This is great information, but I need a checklist.” Those are monkeys and sheep. If you think you need a checklist for everything, you are never really gonna succeed at anything because you’re not thinking for yourself. I’m not saying that if at any point, you need a checklist, you’ve failed. No. Especially early on, to start a checklist is really nice and really helps. I’m not saying checklists are bad, but if you can’t think for yourself at all, then you’re no better than a robot. The robots are gonna take your jobs.
Geoff:
What we’re really trying to do with Mating Grounds and the Mate book is giving you a bunch of concepts about human nature and female psychology that will serve you well for the next fifty years or hundred years or however long human lifespans will be. The technology will change radically. It’ll change even more in the next twenty years than the last twenty. God only knows what we’ll be doing in terms of meeting and mating and virtual environments or through sexbot, avatars, or god knows what. But the way that women’s minds and instincts and preferences work is not gonna change that quickly.
Tucker:
Yours, too, guys. We talk about women’s minds and preferences and instincts a lot. I just want to emphasize that this shit applies to you guys, too. We’ve talked about that in other podcasts. So, those are the two big ones in mobile app dating. The only other one I would maybe think about is Grouper. It’s okay. Grouper is essentially you and two friends, so three guy friends will get paired up with three female friends, and then the guys buy the first round of drinks. So, each guy pays $10 a piece. You’re set up with three female friends, and then you guys go to a bar and the first round of drinks is paid for. Then, you guys can all talk and whatever. I’ve heard some decent things about Grouper, but I’m not sure how well it works. There’s a ton of other mobile apps out there, so I would look at them. If you stick with Tinder and Hinge – Hinge if you’re in a big city. It should be nationwide by 2015. If you stick with those two, you’re gonna probably get 80%, 90% on the market.
Geoff:
And we’re talking mostly about the American market. There’s gonna be other apps that might be popular if you live in a different country.
Tucker:
Tinder’s huge worldwide, but look in your country. I’m sure there’s other ones. Look in your country and see and test all the different ones, especially the free ones. There’s no reason not to. See what they’re like. But remember, the principles are the same. Good, clear pictures, be funny in your pictures, display the things you like and you’re good at in your pictures, don’t be braggadocious and obnoxious in them. Engage women emotionally, not just physically, in conversation, and you’re gonna do really well. Okay? Also, don’t be afraid of being assertive. That doesn’t mean aggressive. “Hey bitch, DTF?” That’s aggressive and obnoxious. “Hey, how are you? I looked at your pictures. You look like you love hiking. I like hiking, too. We should go hiking.” Talking about her, having a full conversation. “Let me tell you a little bit about me. My name’s Charlie. I’m this age, I grew up here, I went to school here, work here. I’m kind of into these things. I’ve got a dog. I’m looking to meet new people, etc.” Whatever. You might feel a little self-conscious doing that. Women love that, because that shows that you’re open, you’re vulnerable. Not even that vulnerable. You’re just talking about yourself. They will open up in turn, almost always.
Geoff:
Remember, women are less visual in how they choose men. Your photos for them are helpful and they want to see what you look like and there’s a certain minimum level of attractiveness, below which they don’t really want to go. But most of their attraction to you is based on your messages and your verbal courtship and what you say. What’s not effective is when the entirety of your verbal courtship through messaging is based on commenting on how pretty they are. That’s useless. She knows how pretty she is. If your message is basically just, “Wow. You have beautiful eyes or big boobs or whatever,” that gives her zero information about you other than your visual system works.
Tucker:
“Oh, he’s objectifying me. Great. Just another guy who’s doing that.” Let’s talk about traditional, non app-based dating. We’re talking about OkCupid, Plenty Of Fish, Match.com, Zoosk, eHarmony, JDate, things like that. When people think of online dating, that’s what they think of. It’s funny. I’ve had a lot of experience with mobile app dating. I’ve had very little experience with that sort of online dating, but I know you have when you were in New York and stuff. Talk a little bit about what you liked and how it works, etc.
Geoff:
Basically, I did a fair amount of dating through Match.com. It just seemed to work best. I didn’t even really try eHarmony or OkCupid, for no particular reason. It just seemed like the women on Match.com were more interesting to me. Also, Match.com doesn’t pretend to have any matching algorithms. I’m a psychologist. I’ve read the literature on the matching algorithms that some of these websites try to use, and they’re bullshit. They’re not good. They’re not published. They’re not peer-validated. You can choose women better than the matching algorithm can.
Tucker:
Think about it like this. How good does Netflix do at predicting what you’re gonna like in movies? Really bad, right? Okay. Well, the fucking psych algorithms for OkCupid and eHarmony are the same quality. They’re dog shit. They’re total dog shit. I’m with you on that. I’m not a fan of some computer telling me who I’m gonna like and not like.
Geoff:
Netflix actually invests serious money in predicting, and they’re still bad. Most of the dating sites don’t invest serious money in the matching algorithms, so I was like, “Fine. I can match myself.” I thought it was great. No doubt, when you’re doing online dating in New York, it kind of helps to be an NYU Stern Business School prof with a Stanford PhD and whatnot.
Tucker:
Right. It helps to be high status and intellectual and intelligent, no doubt.
Geoff:
One thing I found really useful about it was it forces you to clarify who you are, what your comparative advantages are, what differentiates you from other guys, and it forces you to verify what you want and what kinds of women you want in a way that just going out and meeting other people live and in person just doesn’t do. You can just bounce around bars and clubs and grocery stores without really clarifying who you are and what you offer and what you want. To develop an online dating profile that works well, you have to do a little bit of soul-searching and go, “What do I offer to women? What do I want to feature? What do I want to highlight and emphasize and talk about and what are my strengths and weaknesses?” It helps a lot to look at other guys’ profiles. Most guys automatically, instinctively, think, “I’m awesome. Women will be drawn to me.”
Tucker:
Or the other way. They think they’re pathetic and have nothing to offer.
Geoff:
Yeah. Right. Or they think they’re pathetic. Rarely are you well calibrated. So, if you look at other guys’ profiles, that’s probably the first thing to do, is get a sense of what your competition is. You’ll see a lot of mistakes that guys make, really bad profiles, massive turn-offs.
Tucker:
What are bad profiles? What do they look like? We’ve talked about bad pictures. It’s not fundamentally different, picture-wise. You need some good, clear pictures that are recent of what you look like. Have some pictures that show what you do. Remember the episode on signaling, guys? Signaling is super important in online dating. That’s what you’re doing. Every single picture you put up, every word you write, is a signal about who you are and women are reading them that way. So, understand them. Picture is super important. What else? What are some of the things guys screw up?
Geoff:
One thing they screw up is in a lot of these sites, you can specify what you’re looking for. Maybe you’re forty. If you say, “I’m looking for women aged 18-22,” that’s fucking creepy. Even if that’s only what you’re looking for, it kind of sounds bad.
Tucker:
Not kind of. There aren’t a lot of women who like that, either. Even if they’re twenty-two. That’s the thing. They’re not gonna be into that guy in online dating. If they met him at a bar and he looks really young and he’s fun and whatever, 22-year-olds can be with 40-year-olds. It can happen. But it usually happens because a 40-year-old has a lot of money or is very famous, and the 22-year-old is into that more than anything else. Very rarely does a 22-year-old pick a 40-year-old for no other reason than she thinks he’s attractive.
Geoff:
And a lot of guys kind of put up a profile that’s very matter-of-fact and objective and short, and it doesn’t really give a woman any sense of what it would be like to spend time with that guy.
Tucker:
Who is he as a person?
Geoff:
Yeah. Who is he? What is his lifestyle? How does he spend his time? What would we do together? What are his interests? Most women’s verbal fluency, verbal intelligence is higher than men’s, and a lot of guys are amazingly inarticulate. They don’t write enough. They have crazy grammar and spelling errors that are a massive turn-off to most women.
Tucker:
Huge! Don’t make spelling and grammar errors.
Geoff:
Yeah. If you’re texting a woman in real life, fine. But you have unlimited time to edit your profile. If it’s still full of apostrophes in the wrong place when you’re saying your…serious, intelligent women look at that and go—
Tucker:
Most women do. If you make one or two mistakes, it’s not the end of the world. But if it’s riddled with profound mistakes, you are reducing anywhere from 10-30% the number of women who want to respond to you.
Geoff:
And you know what it signals? It signals contempt for women. It signals disrespect. They treat it as, “He couldn’t even make the effort.” Invest a little time and energy in this.
Tucker:
That’s one of those weird things where getting everything right doesn’t get you points, but fucking up takes it off. No woman’s ever said, “Man, he spelled everything right in his profile.” That’s never been an attractive thing. But if you don’t, then it looks terrible.
Geoff:
Yeah. And it’s the same principle as making a little bit of effort in how you dress when you show up on a date. We talked about how women like it when you wear leather shoes on a date to a first approximation rather than Crocs or athletic shoes. It shows you made an effort. Same principles in online dating. The profile text is kind of analogous to clothing that you’d wear on a first date, and if you show that you put in a little effort and thought and creativity into it, that’s a big plus.
Tucker:
Huge. So, take good pictures. Make sure you spell shit right. Be fucking honest. We’ve talked about this in other podcasts. If you are 5’8”, do not write 5’10”, because she will know when she meets you. Even if everything else is great, at some point she’ll make fun of you about it or she’ll talk about it. She’s definitely gonna think less of you. No doubt.
Geoff:
It’ll be the first thing she mentions when she calls her girlfriend after the date. “I was kind of disappointed. He showed up and this didn’t fit with his profile.”
Tucker:
No. She’ll say, “Well, he’s not 5’10”.” They won’t even be that vague. In fact, what you might want to do is undercut an inch. The problem is that excludes some girls. So, I’m six feet, but if I put 5’11”, then a lot of girls think six feet is a cut-off. I’d actually keep it at six feet. Don’t overstate your height.
Geoff:
Guys also overstate income.
Tucker:
Don’t do that.
Geoff:
Sometimes they lie about their educational credentials.
Tucker:
Don’t do that. Don’t lie. Be fucking honest. I can’t emphasize this enough. Just be honest. It’s so much easier and it’s so much better for you. Here’s the argument against being honest. “Well, there’s nothing good about me so I have to—“ Okay, guys. If there’s nothing good about you, there’s a solution to that. Develop some fucking positive traits. Seriously, think about that. There are a lot of guys who say or imply this. I’m sure this doesn’t apply to most of our listeners, but the ones that it does apply to need to fucking listen to this. If there’s nothing attractive about you, then it’s your fault. It’s not her fault, ever her fault. If no women like you, it is your fault. It doesn’t mean you can’t be attractive. It means you aren’t being attractive. So fix your fucking shit. This is one of our big critiques of some of the manosphere people. These guys act like if women aren’t falling all over them, it’s women’s fault. No. I’m sorry. It’s just not.
Geoff:
No woman owes you a mating. You have to raise your game. Being honest in your profile is a great way to actually motivate yourself. If you see other guys’ profiles and they’re like, “I’ve traveled to 14 countries by age 23,” and you’re like, “I’ve never left Connecticut…”
Tucker:
If that’s important to you…We’re not saying you have to travel. The point is, whatever it is that matters to you, whatever things you like, if you don’t have anything to show for any of it, come on. Do you know how easy it is to write a book? It’s not hard. It’s really not. And to get it published. I’m talking about self-publishing. You know how easy it is to do anything? To start a fucking company. To run a marathon, to compete in Tough Mudders, to join CrossFit. What the fuck ever, man. There’s so many things you could do that are really not that hard that are a lot of fun that, by the way, doing those things you’ll meet women as well, and then you can put them in your online dating profile and a woman could be like, “This guy does things.” We’re probably gonna have to have a whole podcast about this. I don’t think we even have this in the book yet. This is a good discussion. We need to have taking inventory of yourself. We don’t have that. It’s kind of assumed, but for younger guys, they don’t understand that.
Geoff:
A lot of you guys are listening, going, “Oh, man. Tucker’s being really scary. He’s unsatisfied with my mediocrity. He’s shaming me for my failures.” He’s kind of being the drill sergeant who’s tough on recruits because they will face an enemy who will shoot them if they’re not good. As hard as we’re being on you, women will judge you even more harshly.
Tucker:
And they should. There’s nothing wrong with that. There’s this idea that a lot of guys have, a very toxic idea that women should just accept them for who they are. Okay, guys. Let me ask you this. Do you accept women just for who they are, or do you say, “You need to lose weight,” or, “Wear better makeup,” or, “Dress better,” or, “Be sexier,” or, “Have bigger tits.” Of course you do. I do it. We all do it. We all judge people. So, why do you think you get to judge people and people can’t judge you? That’s fucking ridiculous. So, just think of it that way. If you’re one of those guys, one of the five guys on earth, who are totally non-judgmental, then this doesn’t apply to you. Good for you, and there’s a Buddhist monk female who’s ready to date you and you guys are gonna be amazing together. For the rest of us on planet Earth, we’re all judgmental. So, until you become totally non-judgmental, until you’ve reached Bodhicitta with the fucking Buddha, then you should apply the same logic to yourself. Here’s what’s cool. Dr. Miller brought up a good point. I’m not trying to beat any of you dudes up. I’m trying to be the voice, the clear, direct, no-nonsense voice of reason in your life. You are a special, unique snowflake to your mom and your dad and that’s it. The rest of us, you’ve got to show us. I’m not even trying to fuck you. I don’t care. Other women, why would they want to sleep with you? Ask yourself that question. Just like women ask themselves, “Why would a guy want to sleep with me?” Or they should. Don’t get me wrong. There are some out there that don’t. Those are the ones we make fun of, ‘cause they’re not attractive.
Geoff:
If you’re young, also, you probably don’t know some of your own traits that are actually attractive to women. You can ask your friends. Ask ex-girlfriends. Ask people who know you. Have them look at your profile and be like, “Am I missing anything?” A lot of young guys just don’t know their own two or three most distinctive strengths that women actually would value.
Tucker:
You don’t know how right you are. There’s what’s so funny. Ryan Holiday and I found this out. A few years ago, I had to write my own author bio for something, and I wrote it, and Ryan emailed me. He was like, “What are you doing? You forgot a bunch of shit.” I’m like, “What do you mean?” He rewrote my author profile and it sounded ten times better. All of it was true and I’m like, “Man, I forgot about that,” or, “I didn’t think about that.” He did the same thing and I rewrote his author bio and it was totally different. Guys, it’s super common if you’re underselling yourself. That, I think, is a more common problem. There are definitely a lot of young guys who don’t have shit going for them, but part of that is that guys are underselling themselves for the things they are good at. For instance, maybe you’re twenty-two and you just haven’t done much in life. That’s fine. No 22-year-olds have. I didn’t even start writing till I was twenty-seven. I had nothing to show for my life at twenty-two. But I was funny, I was creative, I was inventive, I was fun to party with. You can show all these things in your profile. Even if they’re sort of subjective traits, that’s fine. That’s perfectly fine. Have a bunch of pictures of you out doing all those things that are fun, and then describe yourself that way. Then, when you interact with a woman, show yourself that way. I’m not saying you have to have all these resume data points. By the way, if you only have resume data points and you’re boring as fuck, that won’t help you either. Here’s the takeaway, guys. Make sure your profile shows the things about you that women care about. We’ve had multiple podcasts about that at this point. They care that you are intelligent. They care that you are empathetic. They care that you are kind. They care that you have friends. Just go listen to all the fucking podcasts. I’m not gonna go over everything. You can show all that shit very easily in a profile. This is a podcast, so there’s a limit to how directly we can show this, so we’ll probably have stuff online at some point where it’s like here’s a good profile. Here’s a bad profile. Here’s why. We’ll literally break it down. I think we should actually charge for that, because if you can’t take the generals and apply it to your life, that’s fine. It takes a lot of time to do that and if you need that step-by-step stuff, I think you should have to pay for that. That’s a huge pain in the ass, to have to write all that stuff out. You and I know what we’re talking about, but we’ll see. We’ll see how that breaks down. It’ll definitely be in the book. We’ll definitely outline it in the book, and maybe we’ll do other things, too.
Geoff:
And there’s a specific reason why guys undersell themselves. If they’re doing a cool activity, they tend to hang out with other guys who do that activity, and they get the impression that this is totally normal. I have students that come into my office hours and, “Prof, I’m trying to do online dating. I’m taking your human sexuality class. It’s not working. What should I mention in the profile?” They kind of spill some really cool thing, like they’re a volunteer firefighter.
Tucker:
That’s awesome. That should absolutely be in your profile!
Geoff:
And then they forgot to mention that. Why? Because every guy they know is a volunteer firefighter, ‘cause they all hang out at the fire station. I’m like, do you know how hot firefighters are to women?
Tucker:
And volunteers, too! You’re so cool, you don’t have to get paid for it. That’s awesome! And you share a picture of you with your buddies on the firehouse on the thing. Is that a real example?
Geoff:
Yeah. Guys who are on the skiing team and the only other guys they know are skiers, and they don’t think it’s cool. Again, this is where it’s really useful to look at the profiles of other guys on whatever dating site you’re using and go, “Oh, my god. Almost none of these guys are volunteer firefighters and I am.”
Tucker:
So, when you take inventory of yourself, be honest about the things that you don’t have, but also get feedback, if you need it, on the things you do have. Do not undersell yourself. That is actually true. Almost every dude I meet, you see guys who will try and accentuate things that they’re actually not good at ‘cause they think that’s what women care about, and they undersell the things about them that are cool, like a dude volunteers at an old person home or something. They’re like, “Oh, that’s lame. No one cares.” Like, no, dude! Wrong! Women think that’s fucking awesome. Assuming you’re not a pussy. You’re a cool guy, you do other cool stuff, but also, in your spare time, you help old people because you lived through it when your grandmother had Alzheimer’s and it impacted you or whatever. That’s one of those things where women are like, “Aw, that’s so cool.” That actually puts you ahead, not behind. I’ve seen that, too. I think we’re pretty clear on profiles. Take good pictures, be honest, accentuate the things you bring to the table, don’t undersell yourself. Also, don’t oversell yourself. If you don’t have anything, go develop things. And, you could always talk about what you like to be around if it’s fun, talk about it honestly, and then show it in pictures if you can.
Geoff:
And remember that the preferences you list also convey a lot of information about you.
Tucker:
Yes. That was the last one I was gonna talk about. Focus on what you actually are looking for in a woman. Be very specific. Women read that and they pay attention to it. So, if you say “tall blonde,” and then you message a Hispanic girl, she’s gonna go look at your profile and be like, “What the fuck? He said tall blonde. This guy’s full of shit.”
Geoff:
Yeah. And it worked really well for me on Match.com to be kind of exclusionary and there’s certain traits that drive me nuts in women.
Tucker:
Just make sure it’s not too long. Not twenty traits.
Geoff:
No. Basically, what I said is, “If you believe in Astrology, don’t contact me. I’m not interested, ‘cause I think it’s bullshit. I’m looking for an Atheist, ‘cause I’m an Atheist and that’s important to me.” Whatever your political and religious views are, whatever actually matters to you, whatever about women drives you nuts and would be a deal breaker, you can be honest about that. Okay, maybe I excluded 70% of women who believe in Astrology, but the ones who are left and are kind of proud they are Atheists or secular or rational or whatever, are extra into me and they’re like, “This is cool. This guy is selective.” That’s an indicative value.
Tucker:
“He’s for me.” Remember, we talked in the romantic proof episode, women are very turned on by men who are turned on by them. So, if you are exclusionary of things you actually don’t like, what you’ve created is romantic proof for the women that are left. They’ll think, “Yes. He cares about who I am specifically. Not just some wet hole for him to put his dick in.” Absolutely. Great point.
Geoff:
It also kind of indirectly shows that you’ve had sexual experience. She’ll automatically read it as, “He hates women who are into astrology. That probably means he’s had a girlfriend or two who was into that and has driven him nuts with it.” So, it kind of indirectly shows, “I’m not a virgin. I’ve dated women before. I had experience. I know what I’m doing. They selected me and I rejected them.”
Tucker:
Yep. We got profile covered. Should we talk, now, about how to communicate? I think mobile app dating communication is a little bit different than computer dating. What are some keys that you’ve found in communication?
Geoff:
The first message to a woman should always be pretty short.
Tucker:
That’s the difference. With Tinder, there’s very little information. You want it long to fill her in once she’s picked you. If you have a big profile, you don’t need to fill her in. It’s already on the profile.
Geoff:
Yeah. If you’re doing Match.com through your home computer, your first message can basically be, “Oh, you look interesting because of this specific fact and feature about your life from your profile. That intrigues me.” Then, say something funny and see if she responds. It’s really simple. But if you send some generic message, like, “You look cute. What’s up? Write me back if you’re interested.” That shows zero investment and no interest in her and that you haven’t even necessarily read her profile. That’s a big turn-off. As much as the stigma about online dating has been reduced, if you become her boyfriend, she will be asked, “How did you guys meet?” And if she can say, “Match.com. His first message to me made me laugh,” that’s completely different from, “Oh, his first message to me showed zero interest in me as a person.” She’s gonna have to live with your first message for however long your relationship lasts.
Tucker:
Here’s the thing about communication, what I understand. Tell me if you agree with this. For computer-type profile dating, once you have a profile up, you want to communicate for a little while, but it’s essentially like, “I like you. You like me. Let’s set something up. Let’s meet in person.” It’s essentially facilitating the meet in person. To show that you’re not a weirdo and meet in person. How do you go about that? I think it’s a little different if you’re younger. Dr. Miller’s a little older. So, this advice is gonna apply to young professionals and above, so let’s call it 24-25 and above.
Geoff:
I actually do use a little bit of texting and messaging through the site or switching over to share phone numbers and then send text messages or share emails and send emails. Actually, I do use that a little bit to select the women and screen out women who are crazy or desperate or inarticulate or boring, and vice versa, no doubt. It’s not like as soon as I see her profile, I definitely want to have an in-person date. Probably only about half of the women who look good on a profile would I ever end up offering a date with, ‘cause their messaging game just wasn’t up to my standards or vice versa. It’s really efficient to screen women, ‘cause if you meet them in person and you realize they’re kind of boring, you spent half an hour getting to the place, an hour having coffee or a drink. You’ve wasted a couple hours and you could’ve qualified them with just a few minutes of messaging.
Tucker:
Yeah. What about meeting in person? How do you normally do it? I think there’s a lot of different strategies. In a lot of ways, I think this is not that different from Tinder. Mobile dating vs. regular online dating, I’ve found meeting in person, you want to set up something relatively quickly. If you dick around for a while and you both like messaging each other, that’s fine. But set up something very casual that has a defined end date, is very public, and can evolve into other things if you want. What I’ve found the best thing to do is after-work drinks. “Hey, wanna stop at 6:00, let’s get a drink?” What I usually do is say something like, “Hey. I’ve got a dinner at 8:00 with somebody, so I can’t stay that long, but I’d love to meet you and get to know you better.” So, then she feels safe ‘cause she knows she doesn’t have to stay. It can’t be longer than two hours, and she can give her own, “Oh, yeah. I’ve gotta do something at 7:00.” Then, what it does, if things aren’t going great, it gives you an out. But then, you can say, “Fuck it. Do you wanna