“Tinder and the Tyranny of Language” is about the online horror stories you’re familiar with, and it explains why Tinder works poorly for the vast majority of guys… but the author also sucks at Tinder:

Expect several days of intimate, evocative and tantalising back-and-forth, conversations running into the early hours of the morning, a reliable hit of dopamine at the peering at of one’s lock screen. You organise a face to face, a real live date—and the anxiety hits infinity, as this person who you have finally clicked with, will suddenly become real.

WTF? No. Why would this guy do that? Get a drink with whoever quickly. Usually after three to five messages. If she won’t show up in person it isn’t real. Guys who do less often do better than guys who do more. This guy becomes her dancing monkey and attention drip, like a bag of morphine straight into her arm.

Location is important. This guy’s Twitter bio says he’s in Melbourne, Australia. I don’t know shit about Melbourne but Roy Walker says it’s awful. Guys in bad cities with lots of men in them (Melbourne, San Francisco, Seattle) are going to have a bad time compared to guys in cities with lots of chicks (NYC, maybe Sydney? I don’t know Australia).

The author:

I’ve decided that Tinder worked a hell of a lot better as a hook-up app, than it does as serious dating one, and that these strange textual romances—sterile, devoid of physical communication or exchange—can only produce a skewed experience of person, that might, in theory, be rectifiable via some promptly organised outbreak of touch, sensual engagement and sexual exploration. But in practice, they only lead to an equally sterile series of dates. I don’t know this guy, but there are several possibilities: he’s ugly, he’s in the wrong place, he has no game, he doesn’t understand evolutionary biology, or like most guys he shouldn’t be using Tinder. He needs to learn daygame and get offline.

Guys who try Tinder today suffer, unless they’re extremely good looking. Tinder and all apps also now have systems that reward new users and punish existing ones. The only way they work is to boot it up, pay for one month, use it for two weeks or so, cancel the subscription, and then re-activate a month or two later to get fresh matches.

Mostly, though, guys are better off hitting the gym and learning daygame. That guy is like three-quarters right, but he’s missing some key elements he can learn through game.

Also posted on blog.