The Guy
fix this before you fix the text game
tldr: The counterintuitive texts only work if your life is already dialed in. Before you fix your text game, get your career, your fitness, your style, your social circle, and your emotional maturity in order. Those are the foundation that lets you text like a disaster and still win.
Every dating coach wants to sell you a magic line. One perfect opener and the girl of your dreams finally responds. It's a nice story. It's also wrong.
I built The Guy App to fix your text game. And I will. The texts it gives you work. But I need to say something first, because if I don't, you'll download it, send one message, and blame the app when it doesn't land.
There's a foundation under all of this. If the foundation isn't there, the texting won't save you. So before we talk about a single word you send her, let's talk about the guy sending it.
why won't good texts work if my life isn't dialed in?
Here's the part nobody wants to hear.
The whole philosophy of The Guy App is Signal Inversion Theory. The texts it recommends are counterintuitive. Sometimes they'll look like a disaster. You'll read one and think, no way I'm sending that.
I was that guy. I had everything else handled and I still wouldn't hit send. Now I don't even think about it. I just send it.
But here's the catch. You can only text like a beautiful idiot if your actual life says otherwise. The absurd text works because it's an inversion. It signals a guy who has so much going on that he can afford to be playful. She reads the text against everything else she can sense about you.
If there's nothing else there? The text isn't an inversion. It's just you being a disaster. Women pick this up from the moment they see you. There's no line that hides an empty life.
So fix the life first. Then the text becomes a weapon instead of a confession.
do I actually need my career figured out to date well?
Yes. And no, you don't need to be a founder raising a Series A.
You need a career you're into, one that pays your bills, one that lets you show her a good time. That's it. Aimless is the problem, not "not rich enough."
I read a book called Sextinction recently. Uplifting title, I know. The author's point stuck with me: the number one cause of divorce is financial hardship. Roughly half of marriages end in divorce. Get yourself stable and you strip a mountain of stress out of every relationship before it starts.
But it's deeper than money. Your career is where your confidence as a man comes from. Not from a pep talk. Not from a mirror affirmation. From building something and being good at it. That confidence bleeds into everything, including how you text.
This is why the six-figure guy with zero matches confuses everyone. He has the career and still fumbles. I broke that exact paradox down in why the six-figure salary gets zero matches. Short version: the career is necessary. It's just not sufficient. It's the floor, not the whole house.
does dressing well really matter that much?
I'm recording this in Denver, so I have opinions.
About seventy percent of dudes are walking around in sweatpants and athleisure. It's not attractive. And it's the easiest thing in the world to fix.
You don't need to be a Ralph Lauren model. You need the basics done well. Chinos, a blazer, leather or suede sneakers. Put that on and you're the best-dressed guy in almost any room in America. That's not an exaggeration. The bar is on the floor.
The rule I use: dress like a European, not an American.
I'll admit I suit up on the first date. That's extreme. I'd recommend it but I get that it's a lot. You don't have to go there. You just have to clear the sweatpants bar, which most men refuse to do.
Grooming counts too. Good haircut. Get a tan if you can. Presentation is how people clock you the second you walk in, before you've said a word. Women understand this instinctively, which is why they're dressed well everywhere they go. Match the effort.
how much does fitness affect my dating results?
More than you want it to.
Get to the gym regularly. If you're not sub-fifteen percent body fat, that's your number one project. Not your opener. Not your profile. Your body.
Because if you're not in shape, not dressed well, not groomed, you haven't cleared the bare minimum of presenting yourself as attractive. And once you've failed that, it does not matter what you say over text. The best message in the world lands on a guy she already wrote off.
This is the same trap as trying to impress her after she matched. Guys skip the real work and try to make up for it with words. It never works. The words are supposed to sit on top of a solid guy, not replace him.
why does my social circle matter for dating?
Because a woman wants to slide into a life, not become one.
Build a strong circle of friends and family. I know family is partly out of your control. But friends aren't. When you have a full social life, she gets to join something that's already good.
When you don't, you're quietly asking her to be your entire social world. That's an impossible job. It puts strain on the relationship from day one. Nobody wants to be your only person. It's too much weight.
A full life is attractive on its own. It also gives you the exact energy that makes playing it safe feel unnecessary. When you're not starving for the match, you stop texting like you're starving for the match.
what does emotional maturity have to do with text game?
Everything, and here's where it connects.
You can't be butthurt. The dating market is hard for everyone. You need resiliency. You need to not spiral when she takes six hours to reply. You need to send the risky text and not check your phone every ninety seconds afterward.
We built The Guy App because we kept watching this exact thing. Attractive guys. Career, fitness, style, all of it dialed in. Still fumbling the text game. Still shooting themselves in the foot on iMessage. The foundation was there and the texting undid it.
Here's what that undoing looks like.
BEFORE
Her: haha you're trouble
Him: Hi Sarah! I really enjoyed our conversation last night. You seem like a genuinely intelligent and thoughtful person and I'd love to take you to dinner Friday if you're free. Let me know what works for your schedule!
AFTER
Her: haha you're trouble
Him: absolutely not. i'm a delight. this is slander
The "before" guy has the career, the blazer, the gym membership. And he still torched it. He wrote a cover letter. He put his whole résumé in one text. He treated her like a hiring committee.
The "after" is the same guy who finally lets his life do the heavy lifting. He doesn't audition. He plays. That only works because everything underneath it is real. The playfulness reads as abundance, not desperation. I wrote about this professional-brain problem in more depth in texting her like it's LinkedIn, because the résumé instinct is the one that ruins the most matches.
so what should I actually fix first?
In order: career, presentation, fitness, social circle, emotional maturity. Then the texting.
None of this is breaking news. That's the point. It's boring, obvious foundation work that most men skip because they'd rather hunt for a magic line. There is no magic line. There's a solid guy sending a good text, and the good text only works because the guy is solid.
Once the foundation's there, the texting will feel like an LSD trip compared to how you communicate now. Completely different perspective. The messages The Guy recommends are so counterintuitive you won't want to send them at first. Send them anyway. They work because you've earned the right to send them.
Do the boring work. Then let the app do the fun part.
try The Guy at asktheguy.app. paste your conversation, get the version that actually works.
video transcript
Fix this before you fix the text game. So many online dating coaches will have you believe that you're just one great pickup line, whether in person or over the apps, away from finally landing the girl of your dreams. But quite honestly, that's just not how it works. So the couple things I'm about to talk about real quick are just foundational things you need to have in place before you can really have the success you want on the online dating landscape, and even the in-person dating landscape.
So I just wanna talk about this real quick because it underlines the entire philosophy of The Guy app, which me and my co-founder just launched. It's helping guys navigate the text game online, land dates with the girls of their dreams, and most importantly, just get out of their own way so that they can finally have success online.
Now, first thing we need to talk about, and this kinda goes without saying, guys, but you need to have your career dialed in. Now, we're not talking about you needing to be a startup founder raising, you know, Series A seed money. Um, but you can't, you know, be aimless. You have to have a career you're passionate about, ideally.
One that pays the bills so that you can have an affordable lifestyle, and then also one where you're gonna be able to show the girl you're with a good time. Um, and I just read this book called Sextinction. Very uplifting title, I know. But basically, the author talks about how the number one cause of divorce is financial hardship in the marriage.
So-- And, you know, about half of marriages un- these days unfortunately end in divorce, so if you can just, you know, establish yourself well financially through your career, you're just gonna take so much stress out of the relationship. Step two we need to talk about, and this is extremely relevant in Denver, where I'm recording this, but you need to be well-dressed and well-groomed.
I don't really think I'm breaking news here, but it... you would be surprised just how, I would say probably about seventy percent of dudes are just walking around in sweatpants or athleisure wear, and quite honestly, it's just not attractive to women. And you're really doing yourself a disservice, because if you simply...
I mean, you don't need to be like me, suiting up on the first date. I'll admit that's kind of extreme. I would recommend it, though. But I do get that's kinda crazy. But really any city in America you go, if you just put on a pair of chino pants, a blazer, and some leather or suede sneakers- You're gonna be the best dressed guy in basically any room you walk into.
So that's huge. You wanna present yourself well. That's just how people are going to naturally clock you from the second you walk into the room. It's super important. Women understand this. That's why you'll see them regularly well-dressed no matter where they go. So when it comes to your sense of style, listen, you don't need to be like, you know, set in...
You don't need to be like, you know, a Ralph Lauren model here, but you have to do the basics well. One way to think of this is dress like a European, not an American. Second thing is you have to have your grooming in. So get a nice haircut, try and get a tan if you can, and most importantly, and this kind of is the third thing, but you need to have your fitness in check.
So that means going to the gym regularly. Honestly, if you're not sub fifteen percent body fat, that needs to be the number one thing you are focused on. Because if you're not in good shape, and you're not dressing well, and you're not grooming yourself well, if you're not putting in just like the bare minimum effort to present yourself in an attractive way, then it just doesn't matter what you say over text or how good your profile is.
You're not gonna be able to have the success you want. Because once you download The Guy app, which check it out, link in the description if you do, um, I do guarantee you it will revolutionize your text game. It has for me. I can tell you that from first hand experience because I was the guy who had all this dialed in, yet I was still shooting myself in the foot over text, whether on iMessage or on the dating apps.
But the key thing is you really need to have this all dialed in because without it, you're just gonna be at a distinct disadvantage. And ultimately, at the end of the day, the texts The Guy app will recommend for you are so counterintuitive that number one, you're probably not gonna wanna send them. I get it.
I was there at a certain point too. Now I just send it. I don't even care. But you can't text like a disaster in an absurd fashion if you don't already have all your... If you don't already have your entire life dialed in, and women are gonna be able to pick this up from the moment they see you. So that's why it's super important to present yourself well, and that's why it's super important to have your career dialed in, 'cause that's where your confidence as a man is going to come from.
And then last, and maybe even, you know, they're all very important here. The last thing you have to have, that's two things actually, are gonna be number one, really strong social circle with friends and family if you can as well. I know that's kind of out of, you know, many people's control. But you wanna have a strong social circle of friends and family because that way you're gonna build a great life that a woman can naturally slide into versus you needing the woman to be your entire social circle, which is just going to put more strain on the relationship than necessary and kinda gonna be an impossible task for her to fulfill ultimately.
So you have to have your social life dialed in. All this is kind of interrelated hopefully you can see. And then last but not least, you have to be emotionally mature as well. So you can't be butthurt. You have to have resiliency, especially in the dating market. It's not easy for anybody. And that's kind of why we made The Guy too, because we saw so many people, so many attractive dudes with everything I'm talking about here, still fumbling with the text game.
So this is why this is just a little preamble before all the other content we're going to be putting out on this channel that is going to essentially be, if you think about how you're approaching the text game now versus how you will be if you just start watching these videos we're going to put out, it's literally going to be like you just went on an LSD trip.
And afterwards, you're going to have a completely different perspective on how you should be communicating over text with women. So hopefully this video was helpful. Again, check out The Guy app, link in description. The landing page will tell you more about the philosophy. The videos, of course, on this channel are going to be dovetailing deeper into everything you need to know.
So this way you don't just copy and paste messages without any understanding of why they work. You really need to understand the underlying psychology here of why it works. So let me know if you have any questions. We'll answer any comments you drop. So shoot us a message. We'd be happy to answer it.
Otherwise, subscribe to the channel and you see if you follow this, your text game is going to change forever. Peace out, guys.