Sally Explains: Tinder Done Right

Written by: Sally Paton Pictures by Campbell Milligan and James Hartley

Sally Paton, who we introduced here, is an Australian born and NY-based model. She is a great friend of Style.No.Chaser and she is a straight shooter. Other than her beauty, she can disarm you with truth. She has a recurring series in our magazine speaking her mind about various issues mainly affecting today’s millennials but also applicable to the general population. She speaks from a feminine perspective and her tongue-in-cheek style presents truth wrapped in cynicism and humor.

In the past few weeks, she was very busy with New York Fashion Week gigs, but she now has a little breather and will be more of a constant presence. Below, she talks about the blatant (and sometimes sad) mistakes that guys are making in their Tinder (a dating app) profile. Listen up and pay attention GUYS!

“Showing off your material assets will only attract gold diggers …”

When I heard about Grindr for the first time, I remember thinking to myself ‘that would never work for straight people’. Well, when the creator of Tinder came out in March saying 1 billion matches had been made via the app so far, I then thought ‘boy was I wrong’. Living in New York City, a majority of my friends have Tinder on their phones and hearing “I have a tinder date” is becoming as common as “what should my next Instagram post be”. With more and more people joining Tinder, it is becoming more important to have a great Tinder profile to guarantee that rightward swipe. In the past few months, I have been a recreational user and avid spectator of the questionable, hilarious and downright disturbing profiles my friends have discovered in their adventures down the Tinder hole. With an application where your chances of finding a match are based solely upon a few photos, it’s imperative to make the right choices when putting together your profile. From the turn-offs to the cringe-worthy, I offer my wisdom and female perspective on how to improve your batting average when playing this curious and exciting game of Tinder. Men, don’t take it personal, just pay attention…

Let’s get this one out of the way first, the all-important ‘Melfies’ – these are VERY VERY hard to pull off. The word itself rolls off the tongue with disdain similar to Jerry Seinfeld cursing Newman’s name under his breath. Mirror selfies (Melfies) where the guy is blatantly posing make me very uncomfortable. Swiping through consecutive selfies where the guy is making the same expression with a slight change of angle and lighting is very annoying. And when on top of that you’re shirtless – Sweet Jesus – Yuck! I would rather watch my dad shaving his back than swipe through any further.

Next, stop trying to use women as a status symbol! I don’t care how hot the girls in your photos are. A picture of you with your arms around babes will not make me want you more. Also, pictures of you looking affectionate with a girl are a little premature…. It feels a little early in the relationship for you to be trying to make me jealous.

Ok, seriously now guys. We need to talk about the tigers. It’s a phenomenon I cannot explain. How are there so many men with photos of themselves with a baby tiger?? Stop it! Stop it now! Animal photos are acceptable if they tell me something about you. We only have 4-5 photos to paint a picture of you and if there is more than one photo of you snuggled up to your puppy I’m going to start thinking you won’t have enough time to snuggle with me.

Another common sense point I think you should already know is – showing off your material assets will only attract gold diggers. If that’s what you want then great! We want to see YOU not your big shiny I-have-small-dick-mobile. Just be real. I would assume that if you’re showing off your things before we’ve even met, you don’t have else much to offer.

I love seeing pictures of guys showing what they do for fun; their hobbies or just playing sports. It’s great to have an insight into the person as opposed to photos of you trying to be the biggest babe.

ALERT: A sense of humor will get you everywhere. Photos of you being funny or even a hilarious Photoshopped photo will win me over. I just came across a guy who has Photoshopped his face onto all of the girls in his profile. Seeing this dude sitting intimately with his long haired double was hilarious and a handy solution to aforementioned problem of women in photos. Swipe right ensued!

Finally, LESS is more. If you don’t have enough recent decent photos to post, just post a few! If it’s more than two years old, get rid of it. Start with best and end with your second favorite! Leave a sweet taste in my mouth for that swipe right feeling.

Follow Sally on Instagram @ohsallycinnamon_

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