I recently just downloaded the popular “dating” app Tinder, and I have to say, I’m no easy match. I swipe right on maybe one out of every 100 potential guys that pop up my screen. It’s nothing personal, (well, it kind of is), but I have to really see some potential in you if I’m going to subject myself to small-talk on a daily basis.
From what I’ve found, boys have no idea how to find suitable photos of themselves. While us ladies certainly don’t want photos of you looking like an Abercrombie & Fitch model when you’re only about a 6.3 in real life, sometimes guys pick photos that make them look far worse than they do in real life.
To put it shortly, I’m going to swipe left by default, but there are some sure-fire things that guys will put on their apps that will absolutely guarantee a swipe left.
- Posing with dead animals. Ew. I don’t care how country you are, posing with that deer you just shot with your rifle and are probably going to devour for dinner makes me want to watch Bambi and cry. While I’m not particularly a “country girl” myself, I’m open to the idea of a “country boy” (Prince Farming, anyone?) – just not one that enjoys shooting the brains out of animals in his free time.
Solution? Post some pictures of you holding cute puppies and kittens. (Preferably ones you’d rather play fetch with than eat for dinner…) This gives you automatic bonus points, because even if you’re not that cute to me, I’ll swipe right to get my hands on that baby corgi.
- Only group photos. If most girls have the attention span of a squirrel like I do, they’ll understand that I am not taking the time to turn up my phone brightness, squint and try to decipher if you’re the one on the very end of your group photo or not. Usually, when I’m crossing my fingers that my potential match is the cutie on the left, 99% of the time I’m disappointed to find he was the stockier, dorky one on the right.
Solution? Stop making your first Tinder photo a group one! Then I have to click on you, which is wasting my time. Utilize the crop tool! It’ll increase the efficiency of Tinder for the good of everyone.
- All your pictures are mysteriously with the same girl. For goodness sake, you’re on Tinder. We don’t want to scroll through a photo series of you and your ex-girlfriend. And to the guys that post photos of them next to incredibly attractive girls? That impresses other guys, not other girls. We probably want to be the sexiest thing you’ve ever experienced, so wrapping your arm around a Hooters worker really isn’t raising our eyebrows.
Solution? Family photos! Post pictures with your mom, because boys that love their parents are cute. Throw in some of you and your little brothers and sisters, too. Knowing you have a family life beyond the college party scene definitely earns you some brownie points.
- Gross jokes on your bio. Unless you’re f*cking Ryan Gosling himself, do not put “I like booty,” in your bio. OR “My smile is as big as a black woman’s booty.” Or, “Come and suck me.” (Yes, these are all things I have really seen.)
Solution? You can’t go wrong with your height and your major – these factors usually do more good than harm. (I’m 5’8, so I’d be pretty disappointed to meet up with someone who ends up making eye contact with my shoulders.) Better yet, set a bio that’ll make me laugh – all girls appreciate someone with good humor. For example, I’ve swiped right on a guy who had a bio of mock-reviews of himself. The New Yorker rated him a 9/10 on being a gentleman, our university newspaper called him “one hell of a guy,” and Candice Swanepoel said “swiping right is the best thing I ever did.” Props, dude.
- If you have pictures of anything other than yourself in your photos. This is far worse than having only group photos. I can’t begin to explain how many times I have scrolled to a picture of a freaking truck in the middle of a field, (which usually follows a picture of a dead deer. See point 1.) Are you a transformer? I don’t understand. And please, no more baby pictures. Or pictures of Pokemon.
Solution? Post some vacation photos, (with you in them.) It’s so much more refreshing to scroll through pictures of dudes hiking up a mountain and standing front of the Eiffel tower than pictures of guys obnoxiously sticking their tongues out at a bar. Well traveled = mature = super sexy. Plus, we know you’ll actually have some stories more interesting than how drunk you and your friends got last night.
There you have it, boys. Now that you’ve mastered the art of Tinder, crawl into bed and impress some ladies!
Featured image via “‘i saw you on tinder’ Trastevere 2014” by Ithmus / CC BY 2.0
