Hacking Online Dating

Online Dating Aussie Style

We’ve got a bit of a hackathon today when it comes to online dating. So we’re going to be giving you some short, swift effective techniques to get through the brutal modern mess that is Tinder, Happen, Once and Bumble. If you are interested in improving your online dating presence or getting a better return on effort, this is the right place for you.

As you probably know I’m a huge fan of teaching skills to meet women in real life, to become more charismatic and have more sex appeal on your date. And also form better healthier relationships. But for today we’re going to tackle the millennial minefield that is the online dating app.

I’m being joined by Ben from Super Fit Dad, who is a personal trainer, blogger, father. I’ve just been having a little chat with him. And he’s got some badass tips for online dating as well.

The Interview

Hayley

Hi Ben! You have been in London for about a month and you said at the beginning that you hit the online dating scene with some enthusiasm.

Ben

Hi, Haley. Thanks for having me on the show. I’ve been here for a month and when I arrived, I gave it a little nudge. Yeah, that’s fair to say.

Hayley

And what was your first comment or experience on how you found it?

Ben

Look, it’s a minefield, that’s for sure. It’s highly disposable. And what I’ve found over the years is that by honing a set of techniques or tricks, you can make the process less time-consuming. Which as a dad, as a busy guy is quite important.

Hayley

Right, I think men and women have very different issues when it comes to online dating. I think for the guys it can feel like a lot of effort and labour just to get some date out of it. There’s so much drop off in the process. Right, so you match someone they don’t get back to you. You message a bit. It never turns into a phone number. Women cancel on dates.

So it can feel that even we were talking about this actually before we started the podcast, the illusion that online dating is so much easier than meeting people in real life. However, I think that the once you get the ease of the match, converting that into live breathing redbud of women on the other side of a cocktail table from you is a whole other story.

Ben

100% agree with that. I would say the I dread to think about the percentage of dates that come about after an online dating match, I’d say it’s in the less than 1%.

Hayley

Wow, we should survey that. That’d be interesting. But you did. I have to share this with you guys. We’ve got an amazing hack. Because I’m going to make you share even though it’s going to be taking away your secret gold which is awesome. But I have given you a few beers so that that can be the trade. You have got a really good icebreaker. Now. Do you want to maybe talk about your reasoning behind having a standardised icebreaker for online dating?

Ben

Yeah, absolutely. I think the volume is going to be problematic. Particularly if you’re over the age of 16, consistently and repeatedly typing or coming up with new introductory messages is an absolute time drain. I don’t think anyone’s got the time for that.

Hayley

And it can be hard when women dive right into on their online dating profiles. So that gives you a lot to work with. Right?

Ben

Absolutely. So I think to a certain extent, it’s a sad state of affairs, but you do have to play the numbers with the nature of the beast, unfortunately. However, I listened to some advice from a computer hacker, believe it or not, who had hacked the online dating world. And he posted with complicit approval of a female friend. He set up a profile as a female or as her and analysed statistically the responses that he got. And from that, he was able to construct his responses to significantly improve his chances of having an initial successful first encounter. So I’ve tried to bring a little bit of that into what I do when I am online dating.

Hayley

Okay, thanks for your statistic, can you share your icebreaker with us?

Ben

I’m a little bit loath to do that, but it’s working on the principle that the majority of females when they are approached in an online dating environment, particularly after writing. I think the majority of approaches they get will be something along the lines of “Hello smiley face”, or “Hello winky face”.

Hayley

I’m not a huge fan of guys using tons of emojis, by the way. And what I would say there is a simple principle that you can think about is if 95% of men are likely to send this form of message, how can you be in the 5% of at least doing something different? I also know that whilst you won’t tell us exactly you know, I won’t ruin it for you. I won’t share without your permission. The content of Ben’s opening message essentially acknowledges what it’s like to do online dating. So it’s a statement to that effect.

Ben

Absolutely. So it’s fully cognizant and fully recognises the fact that 99 or 95% of these initial matches aren’t going to go anywhere. And what I’ve found is that by acknowledging that, recognising it and bring it into the opening gambit, there’s a particularly enhanced chance of a successful initial response.

Hayley

So you could say ‘Hey’, or you could say ‘So’. I think sometimes ‘So’ sounds quite assertive. Maybe a nice three dots. I always think three dots is much sexier than an emoji. If you want to personalise it, you can put their profile name in, that’s pretty easy to do. Then you can maybe make a statement about the process of meeting people online. Or you can make a statement about the likelihood of you guys ever going out on a date. You can make a statement about what kind of interaction is likely to follow.

Why this is witty and good, is just like when you’re on a date and maybe you say something and you recognise that that did not go down well. You have to say something about it because if you don’t, you’re a doormat. By acknowledging what’s going on in an interaction you appear sociable, current, witty.  

Also, a good thing to do is if you can throw out an unusual word, I’m going to put it out there. If you can just replace the words. Good, bad, nice, or how’s your weekend going? or How are you, hon, if we can just scrap that and just go to the source calm and find a different word because you’ll be set up so funny. Like, even when I’m getting guys to approach women in real life, if they’re able to use words, like, eclectic, and they just chuck it out there. Immediately, you’re starting to differentiate yourself from the rest of the dating pool. And it’s a simple technique to do.

Ben

I think that’s right, Haley. I mean, I think if you can be erudite (to bring a nice word into the conversation), then absolutely, you’ll differentiate yourself and that applies to guys and girls.

Hayley

So from there so you see you’ve got a and by the way, Ben reckons 70% response rate on his first message, which is powerful. That is good. After that, the other big drop area I want to talk through with you is the nature of women just trying to it all fizzling out. And that is annoying, isn’t it?

It’s like if it never moves offline, and I have to say, guys and be real with you. Now, a lot of the time this is straight-up your fault, or you co-create that situation a lot. By simply not moving on. I’m just reading all these like pages and pages and messaging, and no point there’s a suggestion of the date, the phone number or anything else.

Ben

I think that’s a great point, Hayley, I mean, to follow from my opening gambit, which is along the lines of no conversation or no date will ever come of this. So many times the response has been from the girl or maybe we’ll just talk for a bit and then you’ll ignore me forever. So I think guys were guilty of this as much if not more so than women. And we were talking about it before off-mic. The minute you engage in conversation, your next step has to be talking about how can you get it off the app. message and get that first date arranged.

Hayley

Right. And remember what your intention is. Women generally on the app are there to meet a guy as well. However, because it is an app on both sides, male and female, you’re going to get some time wasters. Some people that are maybe in a relationship and just want some kind of extra stimulation, maybe they’re bored. Maybe they struggle with the confidence or they have no real intention of meeting people in real life. You do not need to meet these people.

So actually by expediating, the rate at which you ask for something or not even asked state that a contact detail exchange could go down. The people that you lose through that process are not likely to be the most open to dating and the best candidates anyway. So it’s a way that you start to streamline things I always suggest after a few good messages and a bit of banter back and forth. Just say hey, you know, I’m not saying I’d much prefer chit-chatting in real life or I’m not a huge fan of chatting on here. Send me your number. And I’ll drop you a message on WhatsApp.

Now at this point, if someone is not going to give their number out, I’d start to question why are they using the online dating service anyway? If they offer a realistic objection, like, I just don’t know you that well enough yet, at least then you have something to work with. And you can say, Okay, cool. Well, let’s do three questions back and forth. You can ask me anything ama, and see how you feel by the end of that. So again, you put I would rather that you push sooner, got an objection, work to the objection, solved it and then got the number rather than endlessly chatting to someone who gets this. He tried even though is a real person.

Ben

Completely agree. I think you have the initial opening gambit, you get one another on the hook, if you’ll pardon the phrase, and then it’s down to due diligence and you can package that up however you want. You can be overt and say I’ve got to do a bit of due diligence. First.

Hayley

I like to use the phrase due diligence because, again, it’s suggesting you have standards and that you are looking to qualify her. I’ve asked men what they’re looking for in a woman, they either know someone who’s pretty and cute or who’s nice. You have to demonstrate that you are looking for beyond physical attraction.

In the very superficial world of like Tinder or online dating, suggesting that you have standards and other things that you qualify women for before you would invest your time on going on a date with her first of all should be true. And secondly, even if it isn’t true for you right now, I’d like you to make that a reality. And by saying something like I need to do my due diligence, is suggesting that even if she’s really attractive that you wouldn’t simply go on a date with her purely based on looks which directly counteracts most womens negative assumptions around online dating.

Ben

I agree. One of the key issues with all of this and you can call it due diligence, whatever you want, you’ve got to ensure there’s some common ground. It’s not just based on pitches. I don’t think the reason most people don’t go on dates with people they match is that it’s very superficial. So you need to get into the weeds. You need to find out what they’d like to do in their spare time. You need to find out what their favourite book is, whatever the question is, it’s making sure there’s some commonality there. And you’re on the same page and that it’s worth both of you investing your time and going out on a date.

Hayley

Exactly. I think it’s important that you embody and you have that mindset and it also genuinely helps you to direct your conversations. Whether you’re on day or just chatting somebody online. So if you haven’t done so already, think about what kind of personal qualities you would like the woman to have. 

Ben

I think all too often guys are very permissive or submissive of situation, and really don’t drive it towards what they’re looking for. And again, that’s why you can have a could be a message conversation could even be a couple of dates, but then they drift off and that’s where the ghosting occurs. And that’s why all of the girls are saying we could chat for a few weeks and then you could just disappear and I never hear from you again. You need to be a bit assertive with it. You need to steer the conversation the way you want to go, and also just trying to find out if there’s that commonality and that common ground there.

Hayley

I think Ben’s actually got some well sensible advice when it comes to online dating. He’s also got a pretty awesome blog. So I’d really encourage you to check it out.

If you want to hear more of my advice, I would really encourage you to check out my Club, take some action and you know, have some accountability for yourself. So don’t be passive and start thinking of that awesome online dating hacking icebreaker. You can totally stitch together the clues that we’ve laid out for you within this podcast.