628 Guys, 310 Message Conversations, 7 Days, and a fair few propositions for sex later – this is everything I learnt on Tinder posing as the opposite sex.
Why Pose as the Opposite Sex on Tinder?
Let me explain. I’m not a Catfish. Infact, I’m not too fond of them having been catfished myself, which is another story entirely. So why use a dating app as one?
My best answer is out of intrigue and wanting to understand what life on online dating was like to the opposite sex. I had often sat at tables or in conversation with female friends when they would complain about the problems with online dating. There aren’t any good men. They’re after just one thing. And so forth. Moreover, girls would often complain that dating was harder for girls than it is for guys.
As a man, I can tell you my online dating is very different.
There seem to be lots of good women and they are definitely after one thing. That thing seems to be “not me”.
I regard myself as a fairly intelligent chap, I’ve always put up interesting photos, added a nice bio and…tumbleweed. When the very occasional fish would come into my web (there’s definitely not plenty of fish), I would start up what I though was interesting conversation. Most girls would last a message or two before giving up, some to the end of the day, and if I was extremely lucky for a week. My success rate is phenomenal. Phenomenally bad, that is.
Surely the online dating world was much better for women, as much as they refuse to believe it?
Tinder: The Rules of the Game
I set out to prove, to myself at least, that it’s not all doom and gloom for women.
I was very aware there was a possibility of taking the experiment too far, so I settled for a few ground rules. I didn’t want to upset anyone. Also, I didn’t want to be talking to people for days on end.
I decided on 2 simple rules. Firstly, I would never be the one to message first. Secondly, I would not draw out a conversation more than a few messages (or a few minutes). Therefore, nobody would invest too much in me or the conversation before we cut ties. I was relying on a match and a few sentences to be all that is needed to see how men interact on online dating, and whether it was better or worse to be a female on there.
Davina is Born
I took a few of my photos, “feminised” them and jumped onto probably the most infamous dating site out there – Tinder.
I thought about using a stranger’s photos, but there seemed an added element of fun using photos of yourself. I also wasn’t taking photos from anyone else and using them distrustfully. Additionally, it turned out to be very easy. Friends had been sharing over social media photos from an app called FaceApp, which had a filter that changed your gender. I had tried a few photos on that already, and they were already stored in my phone.
Anyone who knows me can clearly see the photos are of me. I didn’t think there were going to fool anyone else: I was wildly wrong.
I put up the three photos of girl Dave – Davina as I like to call her – and added a fairly generic bio. I clicked on “Travel”, “Outdoors” and “Yoga” as three activities that Tinder prompted me to like, then added a couple of sentences to make a brief bio.
“Nothing to do in Lockdown 3 but swipe…”
“If you like travelling, Netflix binges, snuggling and Espresso Martinis you’re in the right place”.
(I only later looked back on “Netflix binge” and thought maybe people would think it was a code word. It wasn’t.)
Pleased with my mediocrity of a profile, not the worst but definitely not the best, I turned off Tinder and thought no more about it.
Too Many Men
That evening I was going through messages on my phone and suddenly remembered about the Tinder Account. I have all notifications except Whatsapp and Messenger blocked, so hadn’t been subject to any “pings” during the day.
I logged on to 99+ likes, meaning that although Tinder would not show me who had liked me, over 100 men had given me the thumbs up. I started to swipe, right for guys that seemed interesting, left for guys that seemed boring. Some guys looked like “douchebags” and they got an immediate left swipe.
Then I realised that wasn’t the purpose of the experiment at all. I didn’t want to date these guys and I’m not gay (ex-girlfriends have told me that I have a “quality” but trust me, no thank you). I can, however, see if a guy is attractive or not, but I realised that wasn’t the point. I changed tack.
I started right swiping all profiles. Almost every profile I swiped, and at least 80%, created a match. Not only was I matching most guys that came up on the App by not picking selective, I was also matching with a lot of guys who had Superliked me. Men were Superliking me; a photo of a guy with a female face filter on it. This was crazy.
Furthermore, I would come across quite a few profiles where Tinder would tell me that a man’s profile was so popular that it may be best to drop a Superlike on the guy. You know, just to increase your chances. Given that you only have 1 Superlike a day on Tinder, I didn’t bother. And matched almost every time.
Tinder Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus
My inane swiping made me realise why many women tease men who Superlike or Favourite or whatever level or “extra like” a dating App has.
For men, sending the odd Superlike when you really like a girl’s profile is an attempt to get them to notice you. To be top of the pile, or to set yourself apart. But 99 times out of 100, they don’t like back.
Whereas for women, there’s absolutely no need to Superlike anyone. Men are craving for your profile already. There’s very little substance to Davina. I mean she had a cool main photo with a mountain behind it, but then just a couple of generic photos and a few sentences to boast.
There’s a reason that men Superlike, and there’s a reason that women don’t get it and find it desperate. Because they’ve never been in a position where they need to be picky.
That evening I drained Tinder of likes. You get a set amount a day, though I can’t reliable find out how many that is. It seems to change as well from day to day. By the time I had hit the limit, I had 80 matches.
"Hi. How Are You Doing?"
After matching, the messages came thick and fast. Men are very quick to message, impatient almost.
Whilst messages flooded in, I looked at many of the matches’ profiles in detail. It struck me that there were a lot of topless photos, many of them mirror selfies, but the profiles weren’t all bad. The men weren’t as awful as I had been led to believe. In fact, some of the profiles feature men on holiday, playing sports, attending well dressed events, looking kind and caring. There were a mixture of profiles from good to bad to ugly.
Incidentally, Davina also seemed to pull in a lot of men of India descent. I don’t know if there are a lot of Indian men or Tinder, or Davina just attracts them. C’est la vie. Davina’s second type seems to be African men. Both these types seemed to like showing off their body, more often than not.
But even the men with good profiles, seemed to fall down on their opening line to Davina. They were boring.
“Hey” was typical, and sometimes all you would get was a “hi”.
“How are you doing” was the number one comment after that, or just a single emoji like a love heart was common too.
And this is the problem for women. There’s too much choice. They’re inundated. It’s hard to sift through all the profiles and messages, and when you do, it’s such a chore.
Sexy Adventures
Yet, there were positives.
Though I kept most conversations very short, I found men to be friendlier than women. In my experience, women tend to jump ship very early. Moreover, they don’t seem to be very open, and this may be a reflection of having to put up with bad experiences before on online dating.
The guys may have been too keen, but they had banter. They had comebacks too. After a day of onslaught, I was a little exhausted so started to throw around some of my own punches. For instance, messages coming in saying just “hey” were rebutted with replies about lack of effort. Most guys came back with a reply, and didn’t seem to take it too personally. One remarked that it’s just easier because most girls don’t reply anyway. Now, that’s a sorry state of affairs, but typical of online dating.
There was another side of the keenness; the sex proposals. Not as many as I expected, but I was impressed with the candidness.
My favourite, let’s call him Dan, messaged me one day. I didn’t reply, so he somehow thought it was great to follow up the next day with four simple direct words – “I wanna fuck you”
Another lad, Josh, basically invited me round his within minutes of talking to “do it like they do on the discovery channel”, and Logan had an altogether different approach that did make me intrigued for more messages than I should have sent. His particular fetish was to jump over to Snapchat to show himself jerking off. Whether the lady then followed suit was up to them, though a nice add-on for him. He just liked women seeing him find his excitement!
Soul Destroyed
By Day 2, online dating was a chore. Yes, I was still interested to see what was coming in on the messages, but I was wading through too many Tinder profiles.
There was a trend appearing.
Many guys profiles had a Snapchat username attached, which I presume is so they can send disappearing photos to you and get the same back.
40% of the guys were topless in their photos, and of that percentage, about half of them again had more than one topless photo. (I did like the profile of the chap that had all 6 photos topless just for the sheer bravado and confidence of it all).
By the end of Day 7 there were 628 guys on my tinder; 318 had become matches but not messaged and 310 had messaged. That’s about 90 a day. Remarkably, by Day 4, I had almost given up on the project. For the last three days I just swiped right, and didn’t message anyone as usual. Still the messages came in.
In total over the week on the first message, I got 153 “Hey/Hi’s”, 101 “How Are You?”, 49 sharing just an emoji, and 62 with a generic lockdown message. You’ll note that adds up to more than the guys messaging me, but sometimes I even got a combo!
Additionally, 80 men complimented me in the first message, with almost all of them either commenting that I had “nice eyes”, a “nice smile” or was just plain “beautiful or gorgeous”. I still can’t believe how much attention Davina gets, and still wonder if most of this attention is fake. Maybe it’s real. But it does strike out a little odd. I’m a 5 out of 10 guy in the looks department. I’ve made my peace with this. Maybe on a good day, or at some point in my life, I’ve made it to 6.
Davina was just a 5 out of 10 guy with a girl twist – longer hair and a filtered face. But I tell you now, she be driving them men wild!
So, the killer question:- How many men actually messaged me with anything interesting?
About 24 at a push. I only give 20 of these kudos because they asked me about the mountain in my profile pics (and I like hiking and mountains so that interests me).
Only 4 actually said anything else of interest that really made me think they would be a match for the future.
Desperation, and Being Caught Out
Two further details astounded me.
Firstly, 80 men who messaged me, when I didn’t reply, messaged again either later that day, or in the forthcoming days. Even as a guy, I feel that’s quite desperate. I wonder how often it works as a tactic, and I assume it does; otherwise why would you bother? It didn’t work on Davina though.
That’s 26% of men thinking she hasn’t replied, I’ll have to give her a nudge. Second time is a charm, right?
Secondly, in amongst 310 message trails, only 1 asked if I was the real deal. 309 guys did not ask if I was a catfish, a cross dresser or a transgender person. Note though I do not like catfishes, I don’t condone crossdressers and transgender people. I just thought that people may have thought from my profile that I fitted one of those identities. But either 309 men didn’t want to ask, or they just fell for it. My money is mostly on the latter.
I did start to get too sassy for my own good around Day 5 (just after I had pretty much given up on the experiment). I broke my rule too of not messaging first.
I went to the very first guy on my match list who hadn’t messaged me and I wrote “5 Days and no message. Can I just date your husky instead then?” The rebuttal was immediate on his reply – “How do you know you’re real?”
Women Dating Women
One of the other things I ended up doing around Day 4, when I was snowed under with too much man meat, was change my searching requests to show woman as well as men.
The exercise was completely pointless as it only highlighted girls who like girls (and obviously I’m not a girl).
In my defence, I like girls and the profiles were much more appealing to me. I needed a break. Since I didn’t have any dating profiles of my own at the time, it was a welcome change. I understand why women turn off online dating after a week, as it’s the same reason I started looking at something more up my street. It’s a never-ending barrage.
I did find out two things about women through doing “woman” on woman dating – one universal and the other completely specific and personal.
The universal element I found is that women are much more open on dating Apps when they think they are talking to other women. Conversations just flowed better; there was less worry.
The second thing I found was purely specific. I got chatting to a girl that looked familiar but I couldn’t figure out why. And then it hit me, a few messages in. We had chatted a year earlier, her as a girl (which she is) and me as a guy (which I am). We had messaged for weeks and then gone on a date. I had done a little background research before the date to make sure she wasn’t a catfish and found out a few details about her.
The date was awkward. She purported to be straight, back from breaking up with her boyfriend in New Zealand. When asked about a few things I knew to be true about her (thank you LinkedIn), she lied outright. I even mentioned where she worked and she said she had never heard of the company. She did stay for two drinks, though to this day I have no idea why. At the end of the date, she just walked out the coffee shop with me and away without saying goodbye.
Then I found her on Tinder as a lesbian. I broke my rule of keeping to a small block of messages to find out more. I realised that she hasn’t dated a guy for over a decade, doesn’t like men anymore and that she lived with a girl in New Zealand (not a guy as she told me). She was a lot more open to Davina as well, than she was to Dave.
The epiphany was completely meaningless in many senses, but it made me feel better. It also left me feeling that’s it’s hard to tell reality from fantasy, even when you meet someone on a first day. Everyone seems to have motives, and it’s hard to find people whose motives are genuine. It’s hard to find people willing to just open up and be themselves. The straight girl I met on the date was very different to the lesbian girl I met on Tinder.
Part of me thinks that I should be a little guilty about this, about the fact that she gave away her truer self away to me thinking I was a women. I’m not: it was her choice after all.
It doesn’t really alter anything, except to wonder why she spoke to me for weeks before and went on a date. Maybe I would make a good girl?!
But Isn't Tinder Just a Hookup App Anyway?
But Dave, I mean Davina, you say that men were quite sexual and messages obvious, but isn’t Tinder just a hook up App?
Well, yes it has a reputation, but I don’t think everyone uses it like that. There seemed to be quite a few genuine guys on there looking for more. I don’t think this eliminates the need to make a good impression and be interesting, unless you have a penchant for being intimate with boring people.
What is quite hard to tell with this interaction is how men would operate on a different App.
For instance, on Bumble girls make the first move so there seems to be more of a rationale that men would want to be more serious to be on the App.
Incidentally, women criticise men about their opening lines and I’ve seen firsthand they are awful. However, ladies are equally predisposed to this; Bumble is a case in point. Most women start off conversations with a waving hand emoji or the typical “hey”. Please also stop with the GIF of Tom Hanks as Forest Gump waving to Lieutenant Dan from the boat. It’s been played and played again so much, it’s a cliché. You know who you are and you’ve been warned.
Bumble even gives girls prompts to make a good conversation. I found this out one week when three separate girls messages me “how does your light shine on others?” and I thought I was being duped. I had to ask them why they chose that opening line.
It turns out that most girls don’t even use the help they’ve been given, “go boring” and then are hypocrites to men for doing the same.
A part of me is curious to see how this experiment would play out on other Apps but I’m not willing to repeat the experiment.
Tips For Men (Trust Me, You Need Them)
I have some tips for men based on my experience.
Women are inundated with men on their dating Apps. This means they don’t have to try hard – sorry that’s harsh ladies but it’s true – and you conversely have to stand out.
This means interesting photos with a good bio. There are too many pics of guys to look through in the Matches so the first main photo has to stand out. It has to stand out for girls that swipe based on only seeing you first photo, and it has to stand out when girls have matched with you (because scrolling through those tiny round profile matches on Tinder makes you eyes go cross eyed!)
Make sure you ditch the mirror selfies. Topless photos are warranted in context, like on a beach holiday with the sunset behind you. One hand lifting your shirt while the other holds your phone as you stare into the mirror…. Not so much.
Finally, when you do match and what a miracle that is when you’re an average looking guy especially: make the first message count. Ask something genuine, or witty, or that invites a girl to have to reply. Make it irresistible for her not to reply, even if she just wants to answer your question or correct you.
Because if it doesn’t, that reply ain’t gonna happen at all. Then it’s just a case of keeping up the intrigue and interest for more than a few messages, and the rest – hopefully – will sort itself out.
Is Dating Better as a Guy, or as a Girl?
The million dollar question, and one I can only answer as an average looking guy. (I’m sure guys that look like Liam Hemsworth may have other views).
As a guy, you work hard on a profile, get relatively few likes, rarely match with the girls you really want – sorry if that sounds harsh but it’s true – and then have to work overtime to get anything out of a girl. Many ladies just seem to struggle with how to keep a conversation going or maybe they can’t be bothered. Note to the girls – questions help with this back and fro thing that we call a dialogue.
As a girl, you’re inundated with matches. Guys throw themselves at you. You can have the pick of the lot, or at least 628 men. Yet, you have to sift through all those guys, the boring greetings and the requests for sex. Note – if hook-ups are what you’re looking for, then that’s brilliant.
So, there’s definite pros and cons, but I have to let you know ladies – you have it easier.
Being on a dating App as a guy can be soul destroying and depressing. It can make you think nobody likes you and you’ll never be the one.
If I was a girl and put my mind to it, almost looked at dating like a test I had to study for, I reckon I could find a great guy in a week. In short, I’ll take too much attention over nothing, any day of the week.
I just might have to delete my Tinder every other week for my sanity.