the dumber you text, the more likely she'll respond
tldr: Smart, polished openers make you blend in with 50 other guys in her inbox. The dumber, more absurd texts create a gap she has to respond to, which flips the dynamic so she chases you instead of the other way around.
nobody was worse at opening than me.
I did an embarrassing amount of research. I read the guides. I studied the "high value" scripts. I crafted openers like I was submitting them for peer review. And I got nothing. Match after match, dead in the inbox.
Then my co-founder and I built The Guy App, and while we were building it we fell backwards into the thing that fixed everything. The dumber I texted, the more she responded. Not a little more. A lot more. It made no sense until it made total sense.
why do smart, polished openers get ignored?
here's the text I used to send. see if it looks familiar.
you: hey! saw you like hiking. have you done any 14ers? i just did quandary peak last weekend, the views were incredible
her: haha yeah it's pretty up there
read that response again. "haha yeah it's pretty up there."
that's not interest. that's the reply you give a coworker making small talk in the elevator. she gave you four words because you gave her nothing to react to. your opener was a hiking resume. she read it the way she reads every other resume in her inbox, which is to say she felt nothing.
this is the exact trap of referencing her bio. you saw hiking, you mentioned a specific peak, you thought the detail would set you apart. it didn't. it made you the 40th guy who also loves hiking and needed her to know it.
she gets 50 matches a day. the polished, thoughtful, research-based opener is the default setting for every one of them. when you send it, you're not standing out. you're filing paperwork.
what actually makes her respond?
every exchange that ends in a number or a date follows four phases. and it starts with a gap.
your opener has to create something she can't ignore. a confession. an accusation. a story with no ending. something absurd enough that she has to react. because the second she reacts, the dynamic flips. suddenly she's the one asking questions, following up, probing for details. you stop chasing. she starts.
back to "haha yeah it's pretty up there." you've got maybe one message left before this match dies. most guys panic here. they either double down and become her personal AllTrails assistant, or they smash the eject button with "so what else do you like to do for fun?"
both are interview questions. both hand her all the work. here's what I'd send instead.
her: haha yeah it's pretty up there
you: pretty? i lost feeling in both legs
that's it. no question mark begging for a reply. no new topic. she tossed you a nothing response, and now you're the guy who sacrificed his body on that mountain and got dismissed with one word. she has to either laugh or explain herself. either way, she's investing more than you.
you're scared to send that because there's no question in it. you've been trained to believe a text without a question is a dead end. it's the opposite. the question is what kills it. the question is the interview. the absurd little bit is the thing she actually wants to answer.
this is why the best guys have the worst text game. the more impressive and articulate you are, the harder you try to prove it, and the more you sound like everyone else.
why does the "impressive" version keep failing?
here's another one I used to send. dream girl, photos from Japan, and I go in with my best material.
you: that's a great photo! where was that taken? i love traveling. just got back from portugal actually. have you been to europe?
oh brian. a compliment, a travel resume, and three interview questions in a single message. every guy on Hinge is sending some version of this right now. she feels nothing reading any of it.
if you ran that by The Guy App, it would stop you before you sent it and tell you exactly that. because The Guy isn't a pickup line generator. it's a texting coach. you paste the screenshot, it reads the dynamic, and it walks you through what's actually happening and why she went cold. we want you to get good at this, get a girlfriend, and get off the apps. not pay us forever like Hinge wants you to.
so what would I send to the Japan girl instead? something in this family.
you: my lawyer told me not to swipe right on you. he wouldn't explain. i did it anyway
that makes her the threat and you the idiot who ignored professional advice. she has to respond to that. there's no version of reading it and feeling nothing.
why does texting like an idiot work when it makes no sense?
this is the whole thing my co-founder and I stumbled into building The Guy App. we named it Signal Inversion Theory. everything that makes you successful in real life is quietly sabotaging you on the apps.
your job made you competent, articulate, and impressive. those are real assets. in a boardroom they win. over text they make you sound like her uncle. the polish that gets you promoted is the exact thing getting you ghosted.
think about the Japan example in person. if you were standing next to her and said, "oh you were in Japan? nice, I just got back from Portugal, was surfing out there," that works. that's normal. that's charming even. the medium is what scrambles it. in person she gets your tone, your face, your timing. over text she gets words on a screen competing with 49 other guys who wrote the same words. the digital medium strips out everything that made you interesting and leaves only the resume.
that's why so many guys who are genuinely great in person bomb on the apps and give up. they're not broken. their signal is inverted. the fun, ridiculous version of them that their friends love never makes it onto the screen. instead they send the LinkedIn version, which is the fastest way to get ignored.
the fix is to text like the idiot toddler version of yourself. absurd. unbothered. carrying a bit instead of pitching a deck. you're not Don Draper walking in to close her. you're a stand-up who walks on stage, throws out something ridiculous, and is prepared to carry it.
how do you actually close it out?
once she's laughing, probing, and flirting, the dynamic has flipped and you're on solid ground. that's when you take it offline. and you don't ask for her number like every other guy. you build something in the chat good enough that she wants more, then you drop your number, continue the bit, and tell her to text you. do it right and she does.
but that's a later problem. the opener is where 90% of guys die, and they die because they're trying too hard to look good. stop treating the match like a job interview. the whole thing is supposed to be fun. that's the part everyone forgets.
I woke up at 4am in California, flew to Colorado, and I'm writing this in the afternoon when I'm normally done for the day. because I was exactly where you are not that long ago. now I text like an idiot toddler and I'm having more success than I ever have. it's not your fault nobody told you the rules were inverted.
try The Guy at asktheguy.app. paste your conversation, get the version that actually works.
video transcript
All right, in this video I'm gonna walk you through how to actually open successfully on the dating apps. Trust me when I tell you nobody was struggling more than I was when it comes to this exact issue. You would not believe the amount of research I literally did, and it wasn't until my co-founder and I developed The Guy app, link in the description here, that really things finally started to click with me.
And it must be that I just fumbled so many times that we eventually came to the exact format that is gonna give you the most amount of success on the apps. Obviously, no strategy is ever gonna be 100% successful, but if you wanna maximize your chance of being successful, this is the arc you want to follow when it comes to opening on the dating apps.
Now, first of all, I hope you are sending a message with your match. If you're not doing that, you're gonna get buried in the inbox, so I assume already if you're watching this video, you're already doing that. If you're not, I don't even know what to say. Start sending a message. But you're gonna wanna watch this whole video because if you just start sending a message, you're gonna blend in with every single guy on the apps.
You're gonna sound, um, just like her uncle or her boring boomer coworker, right? And that is not what is going to be able to help you create spark and sexual attraction on the apps. Now, here's what you have to under- extend. Every exchange that ends in a number or a date follows four phases. Okay? First, the gap.
Your opener has to create something. It has to create a spark. It's something she can't ignore. It's a confession, an accusation, a story with no ending. Okay? And if this sounds very confusing and philosophical or very high level, don't worry 'cause I'm gonna give you a couple specific examples by the time this video wraps up.
Now, once you say something ridiculous or absurd or unhinged or funny, then that's when the dynamic will start to flip in your favor because instead of you needing to overly invest in the conversation or chase her with paragraph long messages, instead you're gonna flip the dynamic. She's gonna be the one who starts asking you questions, who follows up, who probes for details, and in a second I'm gonna show you exactly what this looks like.
Now, third, after a while, then you can actually get some buy-in with her, and then you can actually kinda like get to vibe on the apps, right? Like, she'll start laughing, she'll start probing, she'll start flirting. That's when you know the dynamic has flipped and you're actually now on solid footing. Okay?
And then obviously when you take it offline, you wanna continue the bit. So that means dropping your number. You don't ask for her number. That's probably a whole separate video. But every other guy is asking for her number. You want to build up something so good in the chat that leaves her wanting more, and just in that moment, that's when you drop the number, continue the bit, and tell her to text you.
And if you do this right, guys, she absolutely will. Um, but here's what you have to understand. Most guys are doing the thoughtful bio research-based openers, right? So they're going with something like, "Um, hey, I saw you like hiking. Have you done any 14ers? I just did Quandry Peak last weekend. The views were incredible."
And then she responds with, "Ha ha, yeah, it's pretty up there." And then what are you supposed to do? Now, most of you guys would panic. You either double down and go all in on this hiking rabbit hole as if like, you know, she wants you to be her virtual AllTrails assistant, or you desperately try to change the subject.
You go like, "Hey, what else do you like to do for fun?" All of this is just boring. All of this also really puts the work, the onus on her to do all the work to carry the conversation. Instead, flip the dynamic. Here's the thing. Most of you guys, again, you show up to the match and you're treating it like a job interview.
Like you need to still pitch, like you're Don Draper, except you're not Don Draper. You're pitching in the worst way possible. A mindset shift you can start to make, which will kind of wrap up this whole mindset shift, if you will, is that you wanna be almost like a stand-up comedian who's just going on stage, throwing a bomb out there in a good way, throwing s- just saying something absurd, ridiculous, and you're prepared to carry the bit.
Obviously, you need her buy-in, but that is a much more effective way to start, to start the interactions every single time All right. Unfortunately, I lost where I am, so we're gonna pick up here. So now let me give you an example. So she said, "Ha ha. Yeah, it's pretty up there." What would you say to that? Most of you guys would panic.
Now, here's what you should do. First of all, you need to check out The Guy app, link in the description, get a free trial. And going forward, when you're in a situation like this, where you're about to panic and fumble and completely blow the match... 'Cause I would say in this situation, when she says, "Ha ha.
Yeah, the views are great up there," you've got one message left, maybe. So you need it to be your best message. If you were to send that to The Guy app, The Guy app would tell you, "She gave you nothing because you gave her nothing to work with. Your opener was a hiking resume, and she responded the way you respond to a coworker making small talk in the elevator.
She's not uninterested. She just has zero reason to invest yet." Exactly. "The move now is to stop being the hiking tour guide and become someone she actually wants to talk to. No more trail reviews. Pivot hard into something that makes her react. What are you thinking of replying?" So as you can see already from that example, The Guy is a, is a texting coach.
It's not some AI pickup line generator. Rather, every time you provide a screenshot of what's going on in the chat, whether it's the dating apps, whether it's over iMessage or WhatsApp if you're European, it's gonna give you an analysis of exactly what's going on, and it's going to aim to coach you through the interaction.
'Cause we want you to actually get better at this. We don't want you, unlike Hinge, unlike match.com, unlike eHarmony, we don't want you guys paying a subscription to us in perpetuity. We want you to get a girlfriend, get off the apps, and start h- and start, you know, living your best life, quite honestly. So that's why it asks you, essentially, long story short, "Why, what are you thinking of replying?"
Now, you guys would probably say something like, "What else do you like to do besides hiking?" Like I said. Now, The Guy would tell you, before you send that, The Guy would tell you, "That's another interview question. She gave you four words, and you want to reward her with more effort. You're chasing." If you handed me your phone, I'd send you one of these.
Number one: I almost died up there, but that's okay. Number two: Pretty, question mark. I lost feeling in both legs. Three: You are alarmingly unimpressed. Number two actually made me l- laugh as, as I prepared for this video. And it says, "I'd go with two. She tossed you a nothing response, and now you're the one who sacrificed his body on that mountain and got dismissed with one word.
She has to either laugh or explain herself. Either way, she's investing more than you." Now, you guys are afraid to say something like that, so ma- so statement, so matter of factly, 'cause you're worried that if you don't have a question, she's not gonna continue the chat. But guys, you have to change the mindset.
If you ask her boring interview-like questions, it's not going to work over text. And what you also need to understand is that, yeah, in person, if you were to be like... Here's another example I have for you. Right? So This will tie into what I was about to say. So another example. Say you see she was like, um, traveling in Japan or something, right?
You go and you would go to match and you comment on the photo. You say something like, "That's a great photo! Where was that taken? I love traveling. Just got back from Portugal actually. Have you been to Europe?" Now, guys, that was the exact types of messages I was sending myself, and it got me literally nowhere.
Now, and now after making the guy app with my co-founder and going on this entire journey where we fell ass backwards into the signal inversion theory, the idea that everything that makes you successful in real life is actually sabotaging you on the apps, uh, that actually you should text like an idiot virgin toddler if you wanna have the most success on the apps.
The most ridiculous things that you would never think would work actually kill it on the apps, and it's these mindset shifts that you need to make and go back to the start of the channel and watch the videos if you are coming here for the first time 'cause it'll all make sense, but you need to go sequentially in order.
When you make the mindset shifts, that's when you'll understand the philosophy, okay? So then if you were to se- if you were to run that text before the guy... Say you come across your dream girl on the apps and you're like, "I gotta get this right." You ask the guy, you run that line by the guy. The guy would say, "That's not going to work.
You just complimented her, handed her your travel resume, and asked three interview questions in a row. Every guy on Hinge is doing this right now, and she feels nothing reading any of it." That's what you guys gotta understand. You'll just blend in. You're not gonna stand out. She's getting 50 matches a day, guys If you handed me your phone right now, it's in one of these.
One, my lawyer told me not to swipe right on you. He wouldn't explain. I did it anyway. Number two, I matched with someone last week and she filed a restraining order. I still don't know what I did. Or number three, a judge said I need to socialize or I lose custody of my plants. This is my first attempt.
And then it says I'd go with number one about the lawyer bit. It makes her the threat and you the idiot who ignored professional advice. She has to respond to that. All right, guys. So hopefully that starts to make some sense to you. Hopefully you can see why that might be so much more interesting than just asking her these interview questions and submitting your resume, okay?
So again, if you need help with the text game, the link is in the description. You made it this far. You owe it to yourself to check it out. And actually, you don't even need to sign up for an account. There's a free trial and you can fix your text game overnight. And guys, it's not your fault you don't know how to text women on the apps.
Because what I was getting back to is that that would work in person. If you were to say, "Hey, like, oh, you were in Japan? Oh, that's awesome. Like, I just got back from Portugal. I was surfing out there." Portugal's the best place to surf in, um, Western Europe or Europe in general. "I just got back from surfing."
That would work in person, but it's the digital medium that scrambles the signal. And it's why the fact that you might even be great in person. I know so many guys like this who are great in person, but they say on the apps they just bomb and they don't even try anymore. It's because that, it's because everything that made them successful and interesting and social and having fr- fun friends and stuff is what is actually quietly sabotaging them on the apps.
And so that is what The Guy app is helping you do. It is helping correct the signal so you can actually be the same cool, funny, authentic, you know, ridiculous version that you are with your regular friends on the apps. You can stop chasing. You can stop putting on her, putting her on a pedestal and really just start having fun, because that's what dating's supposed to be, guys.
It's supposed to be fun. All right. If you have any questions, drop a comment. I'll get back to you. If you like the video, like it. If you dislike it, dislike it. Otherwise, I'll see you in the next one. Guys, literally I woke up at 4:00 in the morning today in California time, flew to Colorado. It's now afternoon.
Normally I'm done working by this time. I still got out here to make the video. That's how passionate I am at the moment about helping you fix the text game, because I was in your exact shoes not very long ago. Now, because I'm texting like an idiot toddler, I'm now having more success than I ever have on the apps or in, just in person.
I'm primarily meeting ladies in real life, which is something we'll eventually talk about on this channel. But it applies. The Guy app will help you, will help you get through any interaction, whether it's on the apps or in person, all right? Guys, that's it for me in this one. I've rambled enough. I'll talk to you in the next one.
Peace out. Bye.
The Guy