How to ace at Grindr when you live in the countryside and there is literally no one Robert Firth Follow Apr 19, 2017 · 5 min read

Anyone out there? Hello? Someone?

Grindr boasts three million daily users, but if you live outside the city you’ll be lucky if ten of these three million are within fifteen miles of you. Once you factor in age, body, position and ability to hold a conversation without interrupting it with a closeup of their blistering erection, you’re going to be hard (haha too funny) pushed to find a match.

I’ll just check in at the local monastery forever then I hear you say. No, at least not yet. I’ve been in this position myself and found a solution. Now I can hardly change the bed sheets fast enough before the next sculpted Adonis comes knocking at the door. Okay I’m exaggerating a bit. What I do have though are some experience based tips, that if luck is on your side, mean you’ll spend one or two less nights hunched over a laptop cursing at the buffering logo over a video entitled ‘Big dick muscle gay fucks Latino stud.’

Pick your photo carefully

Is this my best angle?

It’s tempting to think that since other guys nearby have so few options, your photo needn’t make you look like a 8/10 when you’re closer to a 6. Problem is it’s unlikely you’re going to want to get naked with any of these guys too. Yet when that hot French tourist passes by for the weekend (you dream), you’re unlikely to want your pasty Christmas pudding filled body be the first thing he sees. Don’t worry about your picture being one hundred percent realistic, everyone looks better in person than on a phone screen anyway.

Be inclusive

Living in the countryside shouldn’t mean you have to lower your standards, yet living in the countryside also shouldn’t mean that you have to end up being friends with people who you have bare minimum in common with to keep up a conversation. This isn’t your Instagram feed. In the city you might nonchalantly pass over a guy with a cute face but mediocre body, because there’s a second guy with a cute face and great body just a few feet further away. Here, that second guy is at least five or six miles further away. You’ve got to take what you can get. Think about it another way: game all the evenings that guy two has been lifting weights, guy one has probably been mastering his sex game.

Leave the house

You’re out in the city and you notice a guy is less than a hundred feet from you. You message him “Hey you okay? We’re so close.” Scenario a. he replies “And?” since there are about twenty others who are just as close. Scenario b. he blocks you without checking your profile due to a misplaced fear that every other person in the city is a potential serial killer. Message a guy that close in the countryside and you’ve probably already made eye contact with him over the rolling hills. You can be pretty certain he’s going to have a chat with you or at least have to have a chat with you.

Buy a Car

If having a smart phone which supports Grindr without crashing every five minutes is your first investment, then this should be your second. There’s nothing more soul crushing than hitting it off with someone ten miles away, only to find out they can host but not travel. It also makes survival much easier, like being able to travel to the supermarket to buy food.

Delete Grindr

Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell you to go into the local pub (which probably closed its doors years ago and is now someone’s sitting room) wearing your rainbow t-shirt and get up and dance on the bar top when Cher comes on (why is Cher playing it’s 2017?). Just know why you’re using the app and stick to using it for that reason, only.

It’s all to easy to load it up at midnight on a Friday after you’ve drank half a bottle of red wine to yourself and you’re feeling alone, alone in this wretched world and start sending totally unsuitable people your photo and when they don’t reply shedding tears about how you must be so ugly that no one no one ever could possibly want you, ever. Likely, you’ll fall asleep soon after because that’s exactly what you actually needed, what your body was telling you, you needed all along.

If you’re feeling horny and want fun, go ahead use Grindr. If you want friendship though you’ll be better off elsewhere, or at least be upfront about that on your profile. It’s never nice to wake up on the Saturday feeling like your throat has been sucked deep into your body, and then have to systematically block all the guys you spammed with your photo the previous night.

Last but not least, have fun. Being gay in the countryside is difficult and Grindr, despite its drawbacks, allows you to realise you’re in fact not the only gay in the village and whilst there may be countless more options in the city, less can sometimes be more and at least the views are better.