Guys, here are the top 5 things you did to blow your Tinder date before it even got started.

Posted On September 9, 2017

Munich, Germany After living in six countries, and dating in nearly forty others, I’ve started to consider myself a bit of a dating guru. I’ve seen it all, and shared some of the more extreme cases over the years with all of you.  Although my stories are often tragically hilarious and make great material for the ridiculous story of my life, I often find myself wishing I could help these lost souls become better daters and improve their chances of finding love someday – not with me (no, no) but with someone else. So today marks my blogging transition from hockey to travel to dating with a list of what I consider to be the top five first date crimes committed by the average careless Tinder user. Use this knowledge for good instead of evil, young ones.

#1 You were indecisive.

We can argue all day about the male and female dynamics in dating and/or society as a whole, but remember that Tinder is a numbers game, and despite the prevalence of hook-up culture, in many ways old-fashioned ideas about courtship are still followed by the majority of users. What this means is that men are often still expected to be the one to ask the woman out and to make the majority of preparations prior to that all-important first date, and moreover, that a failure to do so is suggestive of weakness and/or a lack of masculinity. Whether you think this is stupid or outdated is irrelevant – when the average user is programmed to think in this way, then you are really only shooting yourself in the foot by rebelling against these principles. Remember, women have waaaaaaaay more matches than men do, so if you can’t propose a decent date idea for you and your lady, four or five other guys have already asked her out that week, and as a result you were either moved to the back of the line and/or she started to regard you as less “manly” and thusly less attractive than her other matches. Her interest in meeting you will be quite low, and if she does still agree to the encounter, it may only be because she feels bad for cancelling and/or she’s using you as a practice date before she meets the match she’s currently most interested in (Yes, practice dates – it’s an actual thing).  Sadly, this means she likely already knows that she doesn’t want a second date with you, and you haven’t even had your first date yet.

Advice: When in doubt, keep it simple.  Don’t overthink the date activity itself. Even if you think going out for dinner or drinks is mundane or clichéd, it is better than nothing. Think of it like making the playoffs. The second round (date) is really where things start to get interesting, but you have to survive the first round of elimination first. If you think about it, it really comes to down to the economics of supply and demand. For women, the quantity of matches is higher, therefore, in the first round anyway, her expectations are quite low, but those expectations will start to rise with the second, third and fourth dates as the number of matches still holding her attention starts to decline. Save the bells and whistles for date #2.

#2 You placed too little importance on the date itself.

Maybe you don’t need to be flashy on the first date, but you need to show some excitement. Tinder often gives its users a false sense of security because they can’t see the other members vying for their match’s attention. However, Tinder is really more competitive than meeting a girl at a bar or club. In a public setting, it was only the cocky and courageous guys (or the guys who had nothing to lose) who managed to approach women, and the average “nice” guy was often derailed by self-doubt when faced with the parade of physical specimens going up to bat during the course of the night. But, unlike with bar/club mating rituals, it is impossible for you to identify your competitors on Tinder. At the club, you probably knew that your only real competitors were those aforementioned cocky alpha-males, just like you knew not to stress about those hopeless guys in the corner who were never going to even try to talk to a girl anyway. But understand this – everyone is on Tinder. The “normal” guys, the hopeless guys and the cocky guys are all busy swiping away their boredom. They don’t need liquid courage, they have their smartphone to hide behind. But if you think the playing field has evened out, you’d be mistaken.

You can’t really fix stupid. So, those chronically shy or hopeless guys are often still making tragic mistakes even behind their safe Tinder screens. Some of those hopeless types like to ghost their matches once they schedule a date. This means they decide to stop talking to their match until the day of the actual date. If the date was scheduled quite a few days in advance, this is a major problem, as it suggests that not only is he not that interested or excited about the date, but also that he’s not that interested in her enough to even speak to her prior to the first meeting. Other guys try to downplay the importance of the first date in general. This could be in the form of suggesting a first date scenario that involves little to no investment of time or money, which in turn suggests little to no interest. Such activities could involve taking a walk, going for a coffee, or the infamous Netflix and chill. Some guys will even go so far as to verbalize the lack of importance of the date by saying things like, “I don’t like to waste money getting to know someone” hence their decision to opt for a walk instead of going out for dinner. However, all this tells his match is that he is a broke-ass scrub and, worst of all, not that interested in her. Other guys, I’m sure, opt for the low-impact first date because they think that their match is more likely to agree to a meeting if the pressure is off. Maybe their intentions are chivalrous in that regard, however, to their matches this registers as not only a lack of interest in the date, but also potentially an extreme lack of confidence in their own ability to have a successful date in a more conventional environment.

Showing a lack of interest in the date is a good way to increase the likelihood that said date is cancelled before it even takes place. And, once again, if the date still occurs as scheduled, it may be for all the wrong reasons, like boredom or pity. Remember, you get what you give. If you express your excitement in the up-coming date, you will get excitement in return. If you downplay the date or ghost your match, you’re only making yourself invisible.

Advice: Make a date that requires a bit of a time investment and get pumped up about it.

#3 You made her pay for her own admission (or the like).

Who pays for the bill at the end of the night? That awkward song and dance is part of every first date experience. Once again, the majority of singles in today’s market still hold to the tradition that the man should pay for the first date especially if he wants a second date, and so, when you’re playing the odds on Tinder, you have to default to the mass majority.  And this goes both ways. While some women are very adamant about paying their own way and total equality, some men are conditioned to believe that if a woman doesn’t let him pay, then it is because she isn’t interested in him.  And so, the issue of who pays can quite easily cause damage to whatever was growing between them during the course of the date.

Unfortunately, in some first-date situations the check comes before the date even begins, which means that you haven’t had enough time to feel out the possibility of a future relationship let alone the appropriate payment breakdown for the date.  When money needs to be exchanged before the date even begins, like when buying movie tickets or having a drink at a cash-only bar, making the woman pay her own way is a dangerous gamble since society still strongly favours more traditional roles. In the event that your date is also one of these dating traditionalists, then the second you forced her to pay for her drink she put you and the date on a timer. A timer that is going to go off the second she finishes the drink that you made her pay for. And, let’s be honest, you’re unlikely to win her over in those 20 minutes, and that’s if she’s even taking you seriously at that point (which she probably isn’t).

Also note that women continuing to opt for the more traditional dating roles often doesn’t have to do with greed or the endless pursuit of a sugar daddy, but rather with the message that is being put forward by the male users of Tinder. “If you don’t look like your photos, you’re buying drinks until you do!”  This unoriginal “joke” is featured prominently on an overwhelming number of Tinder profiles, and the message is clear – I only spend money on attractive women. And so, making her pay for her own drinks/movie ticket/whatever may be telling her that she’s not desirable and not worth the effort. You can thank the douche bags of Tinder for that!

Advice: Put on your big boy pants and pay for her drinks, or stick to activities that send you the bill at the end of the date and not the beginning.

#4 You knowingly made yourself unattractive to her.

You’d think that good hygiene was a common practice on date night, but apparently not everyone’s adulting skills are what they should be these days. Did you forget to shower, brush your teeth, wear cologne? That’s probably the first thing your date noticed about you, which she will either interpret as you not caring enough to make an effort for her, or that you are simply just gross. Let’s be honest, one of three things will happen at the end of a first date: 1) you will like each other and go out again, 2) you will have fun, hook up, and remember each other fondly, or 3) you will realize there is no future, no attraction and you will never see each other again. By being smelly when you arrive to your date, you’ve ensured in those first few seconds that your date is on a crash course to option #3 and there’s no stopping it.

Other examples of how you can make yourself unattractive on a first date – smoking when your date is a non-smoker, being rude to an innocent, such as, your waiter, discussing a controversial issue in a non-open minded way (especially when you don’t know her stance on the issue), just being stupid, and etc.

Advice: Get some Old Spice, chew some (Nicotine) gum, and don’t be gross.

#5 You employed the “bro code” when referring to her ex.

Talking about past relationships is a new relationship no-no, but on Tinder it seems that when two matches are seeking common ground, they generally default to Tinder itself as a topic of conversation. “Why are you on Tinder?” being a prevalent Tinder ice-breaker. And, well, naturally a failed relationship is one of the more common reasons people create Tinder profiles. So, attempting to suss out how fresh those post-relationship wounds are is vital to understanding and uncovering your match’s possible hidden agenda. I mean it’s generally helpful to know if your date is on the rebound and/or on a mission to sleep with a whack of guys to get over her ex, right? However, having an early discussion about her ex is not the time or place to play Devil’s advocate or employ the bro code. If you want to actually go on a date with your match, then her ex-boyfriend better not be anything more than the scum of the earth as far as you’re concerned. Telling your Tinder date that you’re sure her ex had a “good reason” to break up with her via text or sleep with her best friend is a good way to A) get punched in the face and/or B) get unmatched instantly. Not only do you seem like an insensitive prick, you are also suggesting that you have no problem treating women (and especially her) in the same devastating way her evil ex-boyfriend did.

Advice:  When talking about exes, never take the side of her ex. And if you really want to score some brownie points, tell her that her ex’s loss is your gain.