The Guy
the more impressive you are, the worse you do on dating apps
tldr: The traits that make you a catch in real life read as try-hard and needy over text. Dating is a software problem, not a hardware one. The impressive guys lose because they keep auditioning after the match already closed the sale.
you think dating is a hardware competition.
how tall you are. how much you make. what you drive. the job title. the six-pack you're two years away from.
so you grind. career, body, social life. you built a resume a woman should want.
then you step outside and watch a bald guy in cargo shorts walk past with someone gorgeous. no visible assets. no plan. and it makes no sense to you.
it made no sense to me either. i was that guy. impressive on paper. dead on arrival in the chat.
here's what took me too long to figure out. dating isn't a hardware competition. it's a software one. and software beats hardware every time, especially over text.
why do impressive men fail on dating apps?
you passed the hardware test the moment she swiped right. that part's done. the vibe was there. she was attracted. the sale closed.
and then you kept selling.
that's the crash. the match starts and you're still auditioning. still acting like you have something to prove. she already bought and you're still doing the pitch.
every trait that made you successful in the real world turns against you here. discipline. thoroughness. the instinct to prepare. the habit of putting your best foot forward. all of it. over text it reads as try-hard, desperate, a guy with no options.
think about your job. you're precise. you follow up. you close the loop on every email. you proofread. that behavior gets you promoted.
now you dragged all of it into her inbox. and it's killing you.
this is what i call Signal Inversion Theory. the thing that wins in your professional life is the exact thing that loses in her chat. same effort, inverted result.
what does "software beats hardware" actually mean?
your hardware is everything on paper. your body, your income, your car, your face. it got you the match.
your software is the text game. the app conversation. the iMessage thread after you got her number at the bar.
you spent years on the hardware and zero minutes on the software. and the software is where the whole thing lives or dies now.
the good news is the timelines. losing 30 pounds the right way is a year, maybe two. a better job in this economy, another year. picking up golf or boxing to a level worth mentioning, six months minimum.
the text game can be fixed today. that's the part nobody tells you. it's the fastest fix available and you're ignoring it.
why does interview-mode texting kill the match?
here's what you're doing right now.
you open the chat in boring interview mode. thoughtful questions. learning more about her. referencing her bio like you're not the 49th guy to do that this week. this is the same reason referencing her bio is a trap. it feels tailored. it's actually identical.
or worse, you fake value.
YOU: Hey, I just got back from surfing in Portugal. I see you like to travel too. You look like you could keep up with me on a surfboard.
oh no.
that's not a text. that's a LinkedIn headline with a flirt bolted on. Portugal. the humblebrag. the "keep up with me" line doing the work of a guy who needs her to know he has stuff going on.
every word signals the same thing: i have a lot riding on this. and a guy with a lot riding on it is a guy with no other options. that's the kiss of death.
now look at what The Guy App wrote for me this week instead.
YOU: someone put a note on my card that said i deserve this and i think it was you
YOU: i got into a fight with a vending machine on tuesday and i lost and i think you should know that before this goes any further
YOU: i just found out my blood type has been wrong my whole life and i'm blaming you until someone proves otherwise
your gut reaction is she's going to think i'm weird. she's going to ghost me. why would i ever send that.
i had that exact reaction. i was wrong.
why do absurd openers actually work?
it's not what the lines say. it's what they signal.
that vending machine line isn't information. it doesn't tell her anything about you on paper. what it communicates is louder than any fact: this is a guy not taking it too seriously. funny. chill. comfortable being his own weird self. a guy who isn't attached to whether she responds.
that's the whole game. sub-communication. energy transfer. the Portugal text signals need. the vending machine text signals abundance. she reads both in half a second and only one of them makes her want to reply.
and here's the part that reframes everything. on the apps you're not filtering for compatibility. you think you are. you're asking about her family values and where she grew up like it's a background check.
you don't need that yet. you get all of it on the date, in person, in twenty minutes.
what you're filtering for over text is sense of humor. can she play. is she fun. will hanging out with her be a good time or a job interview. absurd openers filter for exactly that, instantly. she either fires something back or she doesn't. either way you learned more than any thoughtful question would've told you.
this is the whole idea behind texting like a virgin. low stakes. no strategy. nothing riding on it. the guy who isn't trying to win is the one who wins.
what about going red pill instead?
i get the temptation. the hardware analysis makes you bitter. you did everything right and it's not working, so you retreat and decide the whole game is rigged.
that logic holds up perfectly in your apartment at 2am watching videos.
then you step outside and it falls apart in about four minutes. because there they are again. the average guys with the great women. no strategy. no resentment. just good software.
red pill and blue pill both lose here for the same reason. i broke that down in why red pill and blue pill both fail. one hides behind resentment, the other hides behind niceness. both are still auditioning. both are still attached to the outcome.
what should i actually send?
send the text your brain rejects.
if you think a text will never work, that's usually the exact reason to send it. the polished one you're proud of is the one every guy sent. the absurd one that makes you nervous is the one that stands out.
this applies past the apps too. you got her number at a bar and you're about to send this:
YOU: Hey it's Jack from [bar name]. It was great meeting you last night! What did you get up to the rest of the night with your friends?
that's not going to cut it. that's a customer service follow-up. i wrote about why your first text after getting her number kills the attraction for exactly this. the safe reintroduction resets you to stranger.
the fix is the same everywhere. stop proving. start playing.
you already have the hardware. you built it over years. that part's not the problem and it never was.
the problem is you never installed the software. you've been running a job interview on a machine built for a bar.
the short version
impressive men lose on the apps because they treat the match like it's still up for grabs. it isn't. the swipe closed the sale.
everything you do after that to keep selling reads as need. and need is the one thing that repels.
drop the resume. send the vending machine text. filter for people who can actually play instead of interviewing candidates for a role you already gave away.
if you want the software installed on the hardware you already built, that's what i made The Guy App for.
try The Guy at asktheguy.app. paste your conversation, get the version that actually works.
video transcript
You think dating is a hardware competition. How tall you are, how much money you make, what type of car you drive. But guys, look around. Step outside. Touch some grass. You'll see that there are men who are out of shape, bald, and couldn't put together a stylish outfit to save their life regularly with beautiful women.
Why is that? Well, it comes down to the fact that for whatever reason, in today's modern dating landscape, software beats hardware, especially over the long term. So you have the hardware. The problem is your software. While you were neglecting, while you were grinding on the career, the body, the social life, everything that makes you an attractive match on paper, you completely neglected the software, which is the text game, okay?
The text communication, both on the dating apps and when you get her number in real life and are texting over iMessage or WhatsApp. And so I want to talk about why in this video hardware or software beats hardware and how actually, thanks to the discovery slash invention of The Guy app, link in the description, free trial, you can literally just download the software onto your hardware and start texting like the catch you are.
Free link, free trial link in the description.
So guys, what you have to understand is that you pass the hardware test when she swipes right or when you approach her in real life and you can tell there's a vibe and you can tell she's attracted. But the software demo is where you crash. The software demo is when the match starts and still for whatever reason, you're still auditioning, you're still acting like the sale isn't closed when the sale was already closed and yet you still audition.
And all these traits that make you a high value man in the real world, like your job title, like how good a shape you are, all that type of stuff, that's what actually sabotages you on the apps because it's all the traits that made you successful are what hold you back because on the apps it reads as try hard, desperate, like a guy with no options.
And trust me, I was this exact guy not very long ago. It's only because my co-founder and I developed The Guy app and everything along with it, the signal inversion theory like I just outlined. And now once you understand that, then what you actually have to do is the reverse opposite. Literally start doing the opposite of what you think is going to work on the apps and when you text and you will see a total change in how you are received.
If you're not thinking, if you're not thinking when you're about to send a text, which is what The Guy app will recommend you, The Guy app will recommend texts that you are going to think on first impression will never work. But that's exactly why you should send it because it's only the most absurd, unhinged, unfiltered texts that actually work in today's online dating landscape for whatever reason.
That's just how it is and you can either adapt or you can sulk and you can go totally red pill, which makes sense in theory, right? Going back to the hardware analysis. That makes sense in theory when you're just in your apartment all day watching YouTube videos. But like I said, step outside and it all falls apart very quickly because you'll see guys with gorgeous women who on the s- on the surface don't seem like they have a lot going on for them, right?
And so let me give you an example of how you should actually be texting on the apps, right? Because right now you open the chat and you're in boring interview mode trying to either learn more about her, ask thoughtful questions, reference her bio as if you're not the forty-ninth guy to do that already or you're just, you're just like faking, you know, value essentially.
You're saying, "Hey, I just got back from surfing in Portugal. I see you like to travel too. You look like you could keep up with me on a surfboard." Something like that, something insane, right? Now, what you should be sending, here are some openers that The Guy app literally just wrote out for me that you could use in basically any situation.
One, someone put a note on my card that was, that said I deserve this and I think it was you. Two, I got into a fight with a vending machine on Tuesday and I lost and I think you should know that before this goes any further. Or three, I just found out my blood type has been wrong my whole life and I'm blaming you until someone proves otherwise.
Now on first glance, and I get it because I was that guy myself, you would think those are never gonna work. Why would I ever send that, dude? She's gonna ghost me. She's gonna think I'm weird. Now here's what you have to understand. Number one, you want to test on the apps for sense of humor. It's all about the sub communication.
It's not what the lines themselves say. It's about what they imply and what they signal. The lines I just read for you with The Guy app signal that this is a guy not taking things too seriously, that this is a guy who's funny, who's chill, who's not afraid to be his weird, authentic, absurd self. And that is incredibly attractive on the dating apps.
Conversely, when you lead with the interview LinkedIn energy Excuse me. When you lead with the LinkedIn interview energy, it signals that you're very attached to the outcome, that you have a lot riding on this, and because of that, you probably don't have a lot of options, and it signals that you're needy.
All the kiss of death on the dating apps, okay? So it's not what the lines say, it's what they communicate, it's what they signal. It's the vibe, it's the energy transfer. And what you have to understand is on the apps or over text that you're not going to filter for compatibility, quote-unquote, with shared hobbies, interests, you know, where you grew up, your family values, and all that type of stuff.
You can get to that on the date in person. But what you need to focus on on the app, the best way we have found to actually communicate, build a vibe, and filter for people who are actually gonna be fun to hang out with in real life is through the sense of humor, and that's what The Guy app does, 'cause it gets you out of your own way.
It takes your hardware, which has the potential to win, and it installs the right software. That's the key. So I think that's pretty much all I wanted to cover in this video, and guys, that's the best news, is that all the hardware items, right? Building a body. Say you need to lose 30 pounds of weight and, you know, start actually lifting some weights to build on some muscle.
We're look-- You're looking at, like, a year or two to do that probably, the right way. Say you wanna get a better job. In this economy, probably another year-long process as well. Maybe you wanna take up hobbies like, you know, golf, tennis, boxing, whatever. It's gonna take you six-plus months. But the text game could be fixed instantly if you just check out The Guy app, link in the description, get a free trial, paste in a new match, or tell it about a scenario of where you met a girl out in the wild and you don't know how to open the text.
'Cause let me tell you, "Hey, it's Jack from bar name," is not gonna cut it. Or, "Hey, it was great meeting you last night. What did you get up to the rest of the night with your friends?" question mark, is not gonna cut it. Only the most absurd intros or the most absurd openers will cut it, okay? So hopefully that all makes sense to you.
I think I've done all the damage I can do in this video. Guys, if you wanna fix the text game, the link is in the description. That's all, that's all I've got for you, all right? Link in the description, free trial. What the hell do you have to lose? If you're watching this video up until this point, probably not much.
All right, guys. Subscribe, five videos a week. Any questions or comments, drop a comment and I'll get back to you. If you like the video, like it. If you dislike it, dislike it. That's cool too. Talk to you later. Bye.