What lies behind the scenes at Tinder?
Well the fact is in principle Tinder is very, very simple . You see people to your criteria, and others see you if you are in their criteria. A simple bit of SQL programming and in a local small country server, not very intensive on bandwidth or CPU time. So you have space for quite a lot of photos.
However the Gods of Tinder have put a weird little twist on this with an algorythm which serves up the most liked, ie popular, people first in any search (discover window) :
Why this somewhat "lookist" approach? I am a bit baffled. Like the Rich getting Richer, the more attractive get shown more often.
This maybe for Tinder to get shot of the attractive ones asap. Low server load after an initial peak, as they enter reality land and dating. They themselves feel Tinder has been worth while, not paid for it,
Or is it a more insipid approach, to make the lonely, lonelier? To make them cough up for Tinder plus or Tinder Gold in order to get more likes from people, well , around their own level of attractiveness.
Perhaps it is simpler. The populist algorythm makes Tinder as a whole seem like a more fabulous pretty people night club? And this is the simplest means of sorting , let the punters do it - more CGM, consumer generated prioritising of prettier people.
Well here is a little old club trade secret. At night club launches and first weekends open, or when they are performing a little lack lustrery, they hire in models (usually hiring girls for hetero clubs) to make the place looks sexier. Sort of also ran models, and descreet escort agency girls and any common or garden pretty student they have managed to press gang. Does Tinder pay for Trolls or have AlgoBots with fake profiles ? I doubt it very much indeed. Margins per customer are like the distance between subaatomic particles, they are pico wafer thin. They rely on volume, and that it is a consumer generated media. They aren't going to pay people to troll you.
So perhapsTinder is most likely trying to shine with the glossy people first, making the poorly liked feel poorer. Relying on the old thing that attractive people don't have to pay to play, but the uglier ones have to buy lots of drinks for themselves and their would be squeezes, so that they feel they have invested in something. Cynical ? Well hey, they seem to make hee haw money from Advertising I guess by the paltry number of ads for a free app in outset, so they are trying to make as much as they can for their share holders as any other company. Attractive people are like your advertising budget, you don't know how much is wasted, but you need an image which sells.
Now how about another little oddity I noticed. It does seem that Tinder seems to serve up new people fisrt, but possibly people who have turned off their profile become new too. Personally I think that Tinder rations how many folk you see, because when I run dry of new people, I switch firstly my profile off, then wifi off, and within a minute I am back on in reverse order only to find one or two new and often hot profiles.
I also like switching it off because then I believe that vice versa is true for my profile, and I get served up more often. Which can be a disadvantage come-to-think of it, because then you look like a desperado, always appearing in the in box !
TInder does do one thing though which is annoying, it stretches the distance search above that of your criteria when you go dry, and serves up people who have hidden their distance in Gold. THis is an irritation, because there is no way I am having a relationship with anyone over an hour away.
IS TINDER GOLD WORTH THE MONEY ?
Why do you want to hide your age? Why do you want to Hide your Location?
These are both no-no's for me, although I have tried it and then when I get matches, put either one I am sort of testing, up, or both to then show my cards to my matches.
Also there then is the changing location. You can search anywhere you like. I tried Buenos Aeres having heard of the hot (my type) Brunettes there, and was not disappointed. THey also really look after them selves and look ten years younger ! But that was just tom foolery.
However if you are thinking of moving to a place or just like a place a little outside your daily life radius, then that is a good feature. TO be frank I don't think I ever wangled a date out of it, and I have been on maybe 6 physical dates, the firth producing a year long very nice relationship ( other wise there would have been more dates, sthupid) . So I don't know.
Then of course there is getting to see who likes you. Now at first this seemed exciting, then I was shocked at how far away , even arboad, many lived and also how many divorced immigrant ladies with terrible grammar there were. I am not hooking up with a cleaner from Venezuala thank you very much. There were the desperadas and the pictures of landscape 'shy trolls' .
It does look very like another little trick of Tinder is that your latest "like-you" profiles appear number two and three in the next round of profiles once you have been off a while.
So I paid for somethign I kind of get anyway, but Amongst them all, there were some gold nuggets. So gaily, sorry, straightly, I venture into engaging them all in Chat. BIG Mistake
CURE FOR CHAT OVERLOAD
More than Two Chats becomes total overload. In fact you are better with one at a time. It jut gets too much of hearing what they do, where they live, how many kids etc. I go right in with "what is a nice girl like you...:" or just "Why are you on Tinder then ?"
So, the strategy is to use Tinder Gold and pick out, one by one your likes. You can totally avoid swiping apart from this. It is a waste of swiping away if you have paid to see your likes first. You may as well carry on and let folk like you, by switching off your profile for a few days at a time.
Also here is a little kind of trick. You can research which pictures get most likes, or just vary the type of appeal you capture, homely, sporty etc, and see who likes you, using this approach. See what is most popular. Tinder does regurgitate your non likes or previous matches, or used to at least, at some point down the line.
Now there is another wee benefit of Tinder gold, see your likes. You can put all the like you's, whome you don't likr, who would otherwise turn up like bad pennies. But that doesn't happen so often now. Maybe Tinder is popular enough that no like means just that, bye bye.....until of course you delete profile.
Patience is a virtue.
How many can you realistically expect to date at the same sort of time, initially? If you live in a metropolis then maybe it is easy to line up some speed dates at a Starbucks down town, but if you live in less than huge place, then you are most likely going to end up with one-date-at-a-time or long waits around coffee shops for the next one, getting stood up too.
Impatience on Tinder is risky though. This is where we get into Super Liking and Chance. Both are sessentially forced matches, because some Superlikes go straight to match apparently, and chance matches are just out of the blue, usually with someone with a fairly new and quite popular profile it seems. I had one very, very my type super like me on my new round of Tindering recently.
Also when you have apparently 'ghosting' matches, if they look like genuine profiles and they are ghosting you, then make a quality decision. In agreement with a friends attitude, I regularly dropped them after saying "hello, nice to match" and waiting a day. But people are busy and also they are working their way through the list of matches, which in ANY attractive females case will be long as they get bags of superlikes. Let them weed out the one-night-standers, perverts, married men/women, fake profiles and economic catastrophe divorce victims before they get to you, a golden nugget !
Also I ghost too. Often now, because I find that girls who really have the spark for me, make contact very soon. Whereas girls who don't and offer a look warm reply, just want to chat and be impressed by your chat contra the dozens of other men theyt have chatted too, but dare not meet up with (because they are shy, or inhibuted, dammaged or in a relationship)
SO IS GOLD WORTH IT?
Well you can use Tinder Gold in different ways for different objectives, but if you plain and simply want to meet a local partner , or someone you really like the look of further afield, then it is a bit of a waste of money most likely. If you like the 'relocation' feature, fine, and it can be used in combination with hidiing your distance such that you pop up early in their profile show reel and they maybe choose you instead of thinking you are too far away.
As for Hiding Age, well that is a big rich, if you hide age and distance and have an iffy Tinderhandle then you promote a kind of bad image of yourself without realising it perhaps. Evasive and not quite honest. You can simply lie about your age if you want to appear younger , or older.
Seeing your likes? Well that is an interesting feature for doing research because you can go in and see them, maybe even google them if they have a rare name for the location, and take your time to match them. You can be patient and work your way through them one by one too, only matching when you want to, and making an effort to think about a nice first and second date on neutral ground.
My main recommendation is not how you get as far as matches, but what you damn well do with them. Chatters avoid the issue of dating, they want to chat, and move over to snap to chat, and FB you, soon as you know it it has all been for nothing. People in the market for a date need to be asked out after an initial preamble and some humour. That is the besty point to do it actually, crack a wee joke , maybe poke fun at yourself, then say, sooo, would you like to meet up for a coffee?
If they chat-zone you at this point, to get-to-know-you-better, then be wary, and if they avoid the issue, then they are just there to waste your time, perhaps revenging an unfaifthul spouse by being naughty - flirty but safe .Whatever, after a move like this, chat a lot less. Ask a few questions about what you want to know, and maybe avoid answering their questions. Then talk about what you like doing more, what might be a perfect first date, or perfect romantic second date. .....then pop it again.
After that it is best to either just say, sorry you are not interested in meeting me and getting to know me as the real person, goodbye. Or say you have met someone, dating them , and like one at a time. Chat next week ? Or say you are not very good at chat really, and ghost them. I wouldn't bother taking them to Snap chat because you can share more pictures with them, privately, by hiding your profile and putting them up on Tinder. They appear in Stream and they can and will see them believe me. Go to snap or Messenger AFTER you secure a date, or the principle of a date.
My ex came out the closet to me as a "chatter". She is too embarressed and inhibited to go on dates, She likes the attention and someone new to talk to, but has no intention of going further, even with VERY attractive men who have great luxury lives and expensive stuff, and are nice and kind it seems. What a waste of space.
How long should chat go? Well someone who is a bit wordly wise and been on some Tinder dates will be ok with a little half hour chat max, then arranging to meet. If they seem to have a real profile then you can exchange telephone numbers, or move over to messenger or Snap. Telephone numbers these days are really good, because you can instantly find out their full name and then FB search them and Linked in Etc to profile them for old picturing (GOD GIRLS STOP THAT ! BE HONEST) or massive attention seeking on Face' and Insta'
There are some very shy, or dammaged people out there who despite being genuine and not **chatters** want to spend time on line getting to know you. Some will hold you to Tinder because it is safest, most anonymous. That really is difficult, because they appear just like a chatter. But the way round this is to ask if they are painfully shy, saying sorry do you mind me asking? I did this recently with a really pretty German girl, and she said, absolutely not LOL...so I kind of knew she was just pissing about, not interested in a date.
At the end of the day, good old biochemistry has it ALL to say really. You can build up a false prospect on line, and find out they are odd, or have really old pictures out on Tinder or so on. BUt meeting someone and the first glances, body scan, smile and then laugh and hey, that is what it is about.
Tinder and all the dating apps can't subsittute that, they just facilitate more meetings in person, and you should drop Chatters asap.
