My recent reintroduction to single life has taught me several important things: the importance of remembering my keys ... that a six-pinter of semi-skimmed milk can go (very) off before you have time to finish it ... that if I want a dessert I'm gonna have to just order one cos I can't do that trick of "no, I'm totally full thanks but YOU should have one." But there is one area in which I feel my learnings could be particularly useful to others: namely, the complicated science of using Tinder.
After a lot of practice I've got quite good at it (who knew I'd have a talent for judging people by appearances?) and sharing is caring. So, over the next two blog posts I will be publishing what I'm calling The Gay Idiot's Manual to the Practice of Tinder Initiation in Today's Society, or GIMP TITS for short.
Part One - Getting 'matches'
When you start exploring certain things quickly become clear. The majority, who can be quickly swiped left, are either old or ugly. And by old, I of course mean over 30. And by ugly I mean fugly. I mean let's not get too choosy at this point or we'll be here all day.
One tribe you'll quickly encounter are the shirtless (and occasionally headless) folk. Tempting but best avoided. If a six pack is the most interesting thing about you, get yourself back on Grindr where you belong. Swipe left.
Then there are the spiritual ones. They've basically read a few Paulo Coelho novels and they think they're Wittgenstein. They can be spotted by their 'about' sections, which will usually be written in quote form, often of lyrics from Enya. Obviously, swipe left.
The next tribe are the people who write in imperatives as to what you must be: "Be spontaneous and fun. Be funny and clever." or worse, what you must not be: "Don't be needy. Don't be too into yourself." It will take all your self-restraint not to message them saying "Don't be so frickin choosy - there's a reason you're on Tinder." Don't be mean. Do swipe left.
Then there are the People Who Are Not From London. Like almost all of us who live in London, these people are not originally from London. But unlike almost all of us, these people have chosen to define themselves entirely by this fact. So much so that when asked to write a few lines about themselves they've opted for "Northener, living in't London" / "Irish fella looking for some craic in London" / "Welsh lad in Lyndyn" / "American, new to London - awesome!" Swipe left.
Every now and then there's a girl who's got confused. Or Perhaps she's just an über fag hag. Put her out of her misery: she needs to find a real boy before she becomes Karen Walker. Swipe left.
Likewise, people from Essex who set their distance settings wrong. Do you really want to commute to Billericay for dates? Swipe left.
This should have covered about 95% of your Tinder experience. This is a marathon, not a sprint. Hang on in there.
We come now to the ones who, at first glance, could go either way. These require examination of further photos and careful consideration. By which I mean at least one and a half seconds.
The first lot, and by far the most abundant, are the one-hit wonders. "Ooh," you think, looking at their cover photo, "he's cute." Then you swipe to the next photo. *Shudder*. "How do they do it?" you ask yourself. "So attractive there but so much like Madge Bishop there." Fact: anyone can take one good photo. It's an optical illusion. Swipe left.
The next lot are your classic Monets. They know they look good from a distance and hence have uploaded five photos of themselves on the end of a distant peer / waving from the top of a tower / on the other side of the road / in a pool - at the deep end / sitting on top of one of the Trafalgar Square lions. But perhaps knowing they'd be pushing their luck with all six, the last photo reveals the truth close up: they're no oil painting. Impressionism may be a good first impression but that's all. Swipe left.
Of the remainder the vast majority will be either Ants or Decs. Like Ant and Dec they are, at first sight, almost attractive. But on closer inspection they fall neatly into one of two camps. The Ants (or the Decs - who knows which is which?) are kindof handsome but when you really study the images you realise they're actually about five feet tall. Like Nicholas Sarkozy (or Ant or Dec ... or whoever he is) they have carefully staged all photo opportunities to make sure they look like a normal-sized person, but a trained eye will notice you can never see below their waste lines and they're never stood next to a normal-sized person.
The Decs (or the Ants) on the other hand, are all forehead. It's something to do with selfies. These should be swiped left. Life's too short. And so is Ant. Or Dec.
Following these simple guidelines you'll soon find there are a handful of people from the hundreds you've scrolled through that you haven't swiped left. Assuming you haven't made any of the above errors yourself it's possible that one or two of these haven't swiped you left either. Congratulations, you have 'matches' (haha). Now here's where the really depressing part begins: the chats. And these I shall deal with in my next post. Until then ... keeeeeeeeeeep swiping.
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