Andrew Culyer's Blog - Posts Tagged "how-to-make-a-profile-on-tinder"
5: How Tinder works
‘We didn't start the fire, It was always burning, Since the world's been turning, We didn't start the fire, No we didn't light it, But we tried to fight it’ – Billy Joel
Before you start reading this, I must do a disclaimer:
I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TINDER WORKS.
Well, not strictly true. I mean, I have some idea, like, you have to put a photograph on it, and a little description, and you have to swipe left and right, but let me tell you how things went when I started out on the app...
The first thing I noticed: the picture on the app looks like a fire.
That should be the first warning.
Yes, I can see it: the name Tinder comes from the material used to kindle a fire, hence the picture of a fire in their app. It’s red as well, which is the colour of passion, and of a heart. Overall, I think, a pretty good job done by their marketing team, though, inevitably, it also brings me to think about what ‘Tinder’ and ‘fire’ actually mean.
These are the descriptions I have:
What is tinder: a dry material which burns easily, used for lighting a fire.
What is a fire:
An instance of burning in which something is destroyed
Wood or coal that is burning in a hearth or stove for heating or cooking
Passionate emotion or enthusiasm
Dismiss an employee from a job
Direct a rapid series of questions of statements towards someone
To stimulate.
So, overall, a fire is something that can be stimulating, and passionate, and can be used for cooking, though more noticeably brings destruction and devastation, after a heated set of unwanted questions before being dumped.
Yep – that’s sounds like just the kind of woman for me...
So, the last time I was on here, I had the app downloaded. The next thing I did was to forego trivialities like good profile pictures and writing an online dating profile, and went straight to looking at pictures of the women that were on there.
Now, women are not going to like this part, but a man’s view of a woman is not that much different to a women’s view of a man, and what I mean by this is, and I am talking about at the deepest, most subconscious level you could get, Tinder’s method seems to fit perfectly with how the law of attraction works in real life.
That is, when a man or woman walks into a room full of people, and sees members of the opposite sex, they do an instant evaluation of everyone they see.
We’ve all done it, probably without even knowing it; been in a room and looked around and your subconscious is looking at the faces and bodies and going: ‘Yes, yes, no, yes, no, no, yes, no, etc...’
When you’re using Tinder, for all its modernity, you are doing exactly the same thing that humans have done throughout history, except instead of being a mental ‘yes’ or ‘no’, it is called ‘swipe right’ or ‘swipe left’.
An instant evaluation, in about a second, based on nothing but the way the person looks in a photograph.
Harsh.
And a lot of them...? Well, I wonder what they’re doing on there. I’ve seen pictures on Tinder of women who are beautiful, and some who are not so, and the beautiful ones, they could be anywhere, at any time, and get hit on by any number of men, yet here they are, on a dating website, opening themselves up to all the kooks and weirdos who are on that website because they cannot get a woman in the real world.
I am, of course, one of those kooks and weirdos now, which immediately makes me think in a different way, i.e. hold on, I am not a kook or a weirdo, I am a normal man that is starting on a long or short journey towards new romance, and need somewhere to start, and if that is the case for me, then it is probably the case for most other people on there as well.
It’s like, a dating starter pack, where you can harmlessly check out hundreds of single women in your area (without them knowing), and swipe right on the ones you like the look of, then don’t have to have any contact at all if you don’t want to, even if they match with you, and when they do match with you, it’s mostly the same as in the real world, that being, the man has to talk first.
So, in two weeks, I have matched with fifteen women, and not sent any of them a message, and now they’re not matched with me anymore.
Again, like the real world, if there’s a spark (there’s that ‘tinder’ link again), you have to move to do something with her, and when you don’t, you’re under the bus forever, rejected without even trying.
I know. I’ve already noticed it. I’m thinking of calling the next blog post ‘How to behave in the world when you’ve had your balls removed’. I won’t, though.
It’s called ‘How to make a profile on Tinder for (absolute) beginners’.
@andyculyer
My books on Amazon
Before you start reading this, I must do a disclaimer:
I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TINDER WORKS.
Well, not strictly true. I mean, I have some idea, like, you have to put a photograph on it, and a little description, and you have to swipe left and right, but let me tell you how things went when I started out on the app...
The first thing I noticed: the picture on the app looks like a fire.
That should be the first warning.
Yes, I can see it: the name Tinder comes from the material used to kindle a fire, hence the picture of a fire in their app. It’s red as well, which is the colour of passion, and of a heart. Overall, I think, a pretty good job done by their marketing team, though, inevitably, it also brings me to think about what ‘Tinder’ and ‘fire’ actually mean.
These are the descriptions I have:
What is tinder: a dry material which burns easily, used for lighting a fire.
What is a fire:
An instance of burning in which something is destroyed
Wood or coal that is burning in a hearth or stove for heating or cooking
Passionate emotion or enthusiasm
Dismiss an employee from a job
Direct a rapid series of questions of statements towards someone
To stimulate.
So, overall, a fire is something that can be stimulating, and passionate, and can be used for cooking, though more noticeably brings destruction and devastation, after a heated set of unwanted questions before being dumped.
Yep – that’s sounds like just the kind of woman for me...
So, the last time I was on here, I had the app downloaded. The next thing I did was to forego trivialities like good profile pictures and writing an online dating profile, and went straight to looking at pictures of the women that were on there.
Now, women are not going to like this part, but a man’s view of a woman is not that much different to a women’s view of a man, and what I mean by this is, and I am talking about at the deepest, most subconscious level you could get, Tinder’s method seems to fit perfectly with how the law of attraction works in real life.
That is, when a man or woman walks into a room full of people, and sees members of the opposite sex, they do an instant evaluation of everyone they see.
We’ve all done it, probably without even knowing it; been in a room and looked around and your subconscious is looking at the faces and bodies and going: ‘Yes, yes, no, yes, no, no, yes, no, etc...’
When you’re using Tinder, for all its modernity, you are doing exactly the same thing that humans have done throughout history, except instead of being a mental ‘yes’ or ‘no’, it is called ‘swipe right’ or ‘swipe left’.
An instant evaluation, in about a second, based on nothing but the way the person looks in a photograph.
Harsh.
And a lot of them...? Well, I wonder what they’re doing on there. I’ve seen pictures on Tinder of women who are beautiful, and some who are not so, and the beautiful ones, they could be anywhere, at any time, and get hit on by any number of men, yet here they are, on a dating website, opening themselves up to all the kooks and weirdos who are on that website because they cannot get a woman in the real world.
I am, of course, one of those kooks and weirdos now, which immediately makes me think in a different way, i.e. hold on, I am not a kook or a weirdo, I am a normal man that is starting on a long or short journey towards new romance, and need somewhere to start, and if that is the case for me, then it is probably the case for most other people on there as well.
It’s like, a dating starter pack, where you can harmlessly check out hundreds of single women in your area (without them knowing), and swipe right on the ones you like the look of, then don’t have to have any contact at all if you don’t want to, even if they match with you, and when they do match with you, it’s mostly the same as in the real world, that being, the man has to talk first.
So, in two weeks, I have matched with fifteen women, and not sent any of them a message, and now they’re not matched with me anymore.
Again, like the real world, if there’s a spark (there’s that ‘tinder’ link again), you have to move to do something with her, and when you don’t, you’re under the bus forever, rejected without even trying.
I know. I’ve already noticed it. I’m thinking of calling the next blog post ‘How to behave in the world when you’ve had your balls removed’. I won’t, though.
It’s called ‘How to make a profile on Tinder for (absolute) beginners’.
@andyculyer
My books on Amazon
6: How to make a profile on Tinder for (absolute) beginners.
There is nothing like writing about yourself to find out who you really are...
When you’re a clever person, like me, one thing you’re good at is research, which means trawling the internet. When you’re a stupid person, like me, another thing you’re good at is trawling the internet aimlessly.
I find it incredibly easy to start research with good intentions, then end up on a website nowhere near what I was looking for to start with, and this is what happened when I started researching how to write a good dating profile.
I mean, how you can start searching for that and end up looking at images of Jessica Alba, probably the most out-of-my-league woman you could possibly imagine? Well, her and Kate Beckinsale, and Kate got a search as well.
It happened because, when you start looking for internet dating sites, random pictures and ads appear all over the screen. ‘Young Russian brides looking for you’, ‘there’s a match for everyone’, and even ads that just say ‘single?’ I find it helpful to not be insecure and click on everything that comes up, but still, it ignites fantasy in your head, and before you know it, you’re doing a Google search for ‘Jessica Alba hot’, and ‘Kate Beckinsale 2016’, and you stay there for a while, until reality kicks in again, and you remember you have to write a blog post about online dating profiles for beginners.
The only way I can find other people’s profile descriptions is to look on women’s Tinder profiles. If I wanted to find out what men’s profiles are like, I had to register on Tinder as a woman, and reader, I just couldn’t do it. You can try and be as open about it as you like, but the nasty truth is, I just plain don’t like looking at pictures of men, and from comments I’ve seen elsewhere, these men aren’t always dressed either.
Urrgh!!
So, I went onto Google to find dating profile examples for men, and as you may or may not know, the internet will give you a 50/50 split of doing something one way, and also doing it another way. It was all a bit of a mess, but if there’s one thing I like about trying new things, it’s the experimenting part, and with the knowledge that you only really properly learn from doing, not reading, I put my profile together.
Now, writing an internet dating profile is a bit like writing a c.v. for a job, only quirkier.
In a c.v., you put a quick overview of yourself, then you put your qualifications and experience, then your pastimes...so far, so blah blah blah. In a dating profile, it is very similar. You put in a bit about yourself, what you do with your time, and what you can offer. You’re qualifying yourself as a potential candidate, and essentially saying ‘look at me; I am not a homicidal maniac. Don’t worry, you’ll be okay with me’.
Then, a tricky bit – how to come across as not eager, or desperate; how to be nonchalant even, like, ‘Yeah, I don’t really care, just doing this for fun’ (yeah, right, mate. You do things like hang with your friends for fun, or do paragliding, or play sports. You don’t spend hours aching over the right things to say in a profile. Tell the truth, mate, you’re doing this because you want to get shagging again (am not putting this in the profile)).
I also have to make myself interesting to others. A woman wants someone to take her on an adventure, not sip wine or cocktails in a local bar doing small talk, pretend-laughing at someone’s crap jokes and wonder why they spent all that time dressing up to have their night wasted by some frightful dullard. They want to know you have passion, and depth, and honesty, and are genuine, and thoughtful, and protective, but at the same time, are wondering if you can throw them around the bedroom in a fit of total dominance, and want to test you constantly to see if you really are the man you appear to be. I mean, who wants a lame duck, right? Nobody (except, I guess, a lame drake – there’s someone for everybody, so I hear).
So, in a nutshell, you just to have to be perfect in every way.
And the profile has to have something funny in it. Everybody, not just women, has and likes a good sense of humour. In the olden days, this was abbreviated to GSOH, which can also mean Good Salary, Own Home, which, to me, is a blatant attempt to woo ladies by offering them a good life, which, also to me, is like a bastardized form of prostitution – you may as well just say, ‘man here, all mod cons’.
So you have to put something stupid or funny in your profile. They also want someone to be different, to stand out (being 6 feet 10 more than covers this part), and they want to go on ‘an adventure’. I have no fkg idea what this means – there aren’t many Indiana Jones’ or James Bonds about, so am hoping this is really related to just not being the same old shit man they meet every day.
So here it is, my very first online dating profile:
‘Hey, there! Walter here...6 feet 10, book shop owner, member of an alcohol abuse display team on the weekends, looking for similar (not 6 feet 10, though), for fun, and for deep conversations. I’ve been told I’m a good listener, but only because I can’t usually get a word in edgeways.
I like listening to Elton John and movie themes, and if you look anything like Kate Beckinsale or Jessica Alba, you’re in.’
Form a queue, ladies...
@andyculyer
My books on Amazon
When you’re a clever person, like me, one thing you’re good at is research, which means trawling the internet. When you’re a stupid person, like me, another thing you’re good at is trawling the internet aimlessly.
I find it incredibly easy to start research with good intentions, then end up on a website nowhere near what I was looking for to start with, and this is what happened when I started researching how to write a good dating profile.
I mean, how you can start searching for that and end up looking at images of Jessica Alba, probably the most out-of-my-league woman you could possibly imagine? Well, her and Kate Beckinsale, and Kate got a search as well.
It happened because, when you start looking for internet dating sites, random pictures and ads appear all over the screen. ‘Young Russian brides looking for you’, ‘there’s a match for everyone’, and even ads that just say ‘single?’ I find it helpful to not be insecure and click on everything that comes up, but still, it ignites fantasy in your head, and before you know it, you’re doing a Google search for ‘Jessica Alba hot’, and ‘Kate Beckinsale 2016’, and you stay there for a while, until reality kicks in again, and you remember you have to write a blog post about online dating profiles for beginners.
The only way I can find other people’s profile descriptions is to look on women’s Tinder profiles. If I wanted to find out what men’s profiles are like, I had to register on Tinder as a woman, and reader, I just couldn’t do it. You can try and be as open about it as you like, but the nasty truth is, I just plain don’t like looking at pictures of men, and from comments I’ve seen elsewhere, these men aren’t always dressed either.
Urrgh!!
So, I went onto Google to find dating profile examples for men, and as you may or may not know, the internet will give you a 50/50 split of doing something one way, and also doing it another way. It was all a bit of a mess, but if there’s one thing I like about trying new things, it’s the experimenting part, and with the knowledge that you only really properly learn from doing, not reading, I put my profile together.
Now, writing an internet dating profile is a bit like writing a c.v. for a job, only quirkier.
In a c.v., you put a quick overview of yourself, then you put your qualifications and experience, then your pastimes...so far, so blah blah blah. In a dating profile, it is very similar. You put in a bit about yourself, what you do with your time, and what you can offer. You’re qualifying yourself as a potential candidate, and essentially saying ‘look at me; I am not a homicidal maniac. Don’t worry, you’ll be okay with me’.
Then, a tricky bit – how to come across as not eager, or desperate; how to be nonchalant even, like, ‘Yeah, I don’t really care, just doing this for fun’ (yeah, right, mate. You do things like hang with your friends for fun, or do paragliding, or play sports. You don’t spend hours aching over the right things to say in a profile. Tell the truth, mate, you’re doing this because you want to get shagging again (am not putting this in the profile)).
I also have to make myself interesting to others. A woman wants someone to take her on an adventure, not sip wine or cocktails in a local bar doing small talk, pretend-laughing at someone’s crap jokes and wonder why they spent all that time dressing up to have their night wasted by some frightful dullard. They want to know you have passion, and depth, and honesty, and are genuine, and thoughtful, and protective, but at the same time, are wondering if you can throw them around the bedroom in a fit of total dominance, and want to test you constantly to see if you really are the man you appear to be. I mean, who wants a lame duck, right? Nobody (except, I guess, a lame drake – there’s someone for everybody, so I hear).
So, in a nutshell, you just to have to be perfect in every way.
And the profile has to have something funny in it. Everybody, not just women, has and likes a good sense of humour. In the olden days, this was abbreviated to GSOH, which can also mean Good Salary, Own Home, which, to me, is a blatant attempt to woo ladies by offering them a good life, which, also to me, is like a bastardized form of prostitution – you may as well just say, ‘man here, all mod cons’.
So you have to put something stupid or funny in your profile. They also want someone to be different, to stand out (being 6 feet 10 more than covers this part), and they want to go on ‘an adventure’. I have no fkg idea what this means – there aren’t many Indiana Jones’ or James Bonds about, so am hoping this is really related to just not being the same old shit man they meet every day.
So here it is, my very first online dating profile:
‘Hey, there! Walter here...6 feet 10, book shop owner, member of an alcohol abuse display team on the weekends, looking for similar (not 6 feet 10, though), for fun, and for deep conversations. I’ve been told I’m a good listener, but only because I can’t usually get a word in edgeways.
I like listening to Elton John and movie themes, and if you look anything like Kate Beckinsale or Jessica Alba, you’re in.’
Form a queue, ladies...
@andyculyer
My books on Amazon
