The Guy
trying to impress her after she matched is the worst thing you can do
tldr: when she matched with you, she already decided you were worth a shot. she saw your photos, your job, your height, your hobbies, and swiped right. trying to impress her after that reopens a sale you already closed, and she feels the desperation in every polished text.
she matched with you. that means she already saw everything.
your photos. your job. your height. your hobbies. the six lines in your bio you spent twenty minutes editing. she looked at all of it, took about four seconds, and thought "sure, i'd go out with that guy. let's see if he's cool."
that's the whole transaction. she already bought.
and then you open the chat and start selling.
why does trying to impress her backfire?
think about the last car you leased. you signed the paperwork. you have the keys. you're walking across the parking lot, and the salesman jogs after you.
"hey, you sure about the color? you want to look at other models? you comfortable with the financing? you really want to go through with this?"
thirty seconds ago you were confident. now you're doubting the whole thing.
that's what you do when you match with a girl and immediately start auditioning. she already decided. then your first three texts unwind her decision for her. you reopen a sale you already closed.
i did this for years. i thought the match was the starting line for a job interview. polished questions. polite tone. compliment her profile. keep it clean. i was auditioning for the opportunity to maybe, if i performed well enough, earn a date.
she could feel it every time. and it's the exact thing almost no dating coach talks about. everyone obsesses over the opener. nobody tells you the auditioning energy is the problem, not the words.
what does auditioning actually look like in a text?
let's use the most common bio on earth. i live in denver. eighty percent of the profiles say she loves hiking.
here's the before. here's what i used to send.
before:
her bio: loves hiking
you: hey! i saw you love hiking. what's been your favorite trail around here? i've been wanting to check out some new spots
her: [nothing]
now sit with why that dies.
you made her do work. she has to think about her favorite trail, why it's her favorite, and type out a thoughtful answer to a stranger. you also became the fortieth guy today who "loves hiking too." you thought referencing her bio would set you apart. it did the opposite. i wrote about why referencing her bio is a trap if you want the full breakdown.
here's the after.
after:
her bio: loves hiking
you: i need to know right now if you're a mountain person or a beach person because this will determine everything going forward
notice what changed. you're not asking to be let in. you're qualifying her. you're acting like the date is already secured and now you're deciding if she makes the cut. that's the buyer's mentality. it's more confident, more fun, and it flips who's auditioning for who.
what about when she matches but never messages?
this is where the grandpa energy comes out. here's what i used to send.
before:
you: hey Sarah! how's your week going so far? love your profile by the way :)
oh brian. brian brian brian.
that's a text her grandfather would send. it's warm, it's polite, it's completely dead. "how's your week going" is the conversational equivalent of a firm handshake. here's the version that actually works.
after:
you: i have a confession and i need to get it off my chest before this goes any further
how is she not responding to that. you've created a tiny cliffhanger. you sound like a person with a personality, not a customer service rep. you do need to follow it up, but the door is now open.
this is Signal Inversion Theory in one text. every trait that made you successful at work, the conscientiousness, the polish, the thoroughness, the double-checking, is exactly what's sabotaging you in the chat. you're bringing your LinkedIn self to a place that punishes it. i broke that down more in why texting her like it's LinkedIn gets you ignored.
what do i do when she gives a low effort response?
she says "haha thanks." one word past a laugh. we've all been there.
most guys panic. you feel the low investment and you scramble to rescue the conversation.
before:
her: haha thanks
you: so what do you like to do for fun? are you from Austin originally?
the subtext of that text is loud. it says: i am panicking at how little you gave me, and i am desperately trying to steer us toward a real conversation. she reads that instantly. women read subtext. men read the literal words. that's the gap.
here's the move.
after:
her: haha thanks
you: that level of enthusiasm is concerning. i'm going to need you to calm down
you're teasing her for being low effort by pretending she's way too into it. the exaggeration is the joke. it's flirtatious because it shows you noticed and you don't care. you're not chasing. you're playing.
one more. she says "your profile is interesting."
before:
her: your profile is interesting
you: thanks! yeah i try to keep it fun haha. your profile is great too, that Italy photo caught my eye. where exactly was that?
way too much information exchange. you complimented back, you referenced her photo, you asked a logistics question. it reads like a form. try this instead.
after:
her: your profile is interesting
you: proposing already? girl we just met. i'm not ready for this kind of commitment
why does being polite actually hurt me?
because the politeness is gaslighting.
think about it. if you dated this girl for six months, would you text her "how's your week going so far? love your profile by the way"? never. it would be bizarre. formal, stiff, alien.
so when you text like that at the start, she feels the mismatch. it's not what the words say. it's the vibe underneath them. the energy. and the energy says: i'm terrified of your opinion, i'm hiding some red flags, and i'm treating you, a total stranger, like you hold my fate in your hands.
the funny part is that acting a little unbothered and even slightly scared of her lands better than the polished version. i covered that exact paradox in why acting terrified of women is attractive, and it sounds insane until you see the texts side by side.
but isn't there a real power imbalance on the apps?
sort of. and i won't gaslight you here.
yeah, there are more men than women on most apps. yeah, she gets more matches than you. some of the structural stuff is real.
but here's what you're missing. your messages put you in the weaker position automatically, every single time. before the app does anything to you, you volunteer for the disadvantage. you position her above you with your own thumbs. you hand her the power and then complain the game is rigged.
reframe it as equality. two people with a lot to offer, seeing if there's a spark. you're not applying for a job. you're not auditioning. she already swiped right. the sale is closed. stop reopening it.
until you get this, you'll keep paying hinge fifty bucks a month to lose slowly. i'd rather you fix the energy than fund a corporation's yacht. this connects to a bigger pattern i wrote about in the more impressive you are, the worse you do, because your resume is not your problem. how you deploy it in the chat is.
she already said yes to the date. your only job now is to not talk her out of it.
try The Guy at asktheguy.app. paste your conversation, get the version that actually works.
video transcript
One of the most important things you need to realize if you wanna have success on the dating apps is that when you match with a girl, it is not an invitation to start auditioning for the opportunity to maybe take her out on a date. What you need to understand is that when you get that match, she swiped right too on your profile.
She already saw what you're interested in, your hobbies, your career, what you look like, how you dress, how tall you are. She's seen all of it. She took a quick look and was like, "Sure, I'd go out on a date with that guy. Let's see if he's cool." But so many of you guys view it as an opportunity to start auditioning, and when you start auditioning, she can feel it.
I'll show you some examples before and after of what some of our customers were routinely sending before they finally downloaded The Guy app. Link in the comments here, in the description, and you'll see the difference for yourself. But I first need to illustrate some of these fundamental key concepts before we dive into that.
So, so many of you guys are essentially reopening the sale once you've already closed it, and it's sabotaging you, and this is the type of advice that very few dating coaches I see go over on the internet. Think of it like you just bought a car, and you signed the lease, you got the keys, you're walking out to the parking lot to drive away with it, and the car salesman is following you asking, like, "Hey, just wanna make sure, are you...
Do you like the color? Oh, hey, are you sure you don't wanna consider any other models? Oh, hey, are you sure you really wanna go through with this? Are you cool with the financing?" All that type of stuff. Imagine if a car salesman did that. You would automatically start completely doubting your purchase decision even though thirty seconds ago you just had total confidence in it.
That's exactly what you're doing when you start the chat with these overly polished, overly polite interview-like questions as if you finally have the opportunity to now interview for the job. So I asked the guy a couple examples of before and after, what this looks like, 'cause I think the examples are key to illustrate this concept to you.
So let's say her, her bio says that she loves hiking. Typical, right? I live here in Denver. Trust me, eighty percent of the profiles say that. So before, a typical guy would probably say something like, "Hey, I saw you love hiking. What's been your favorite trail around here? I've been wanting to check out some new spots."
Now, yeah, a year or two ago, totally something I would've sent. Now that's boring. Requires her to do work, uh, to think about what her favorite spots are and why. And then also note that, like, you know, every other guy's gonna be asking that, so it's just not gonna land anywhere. Instead, what would be better is if we say something like I need to know right now if you're a mountain person or a beach person because this will determine everything going forward.
So right there, we've set the stage where we're kind of in this buyer's mentality of we're unsure about her, we're acting like we've already got the date secured, but now we're starting to qualify her. And ultimately, this is just a way more confident and fun and flirtatious way to start the conversation.
Different scenario. Let's say she matches, but she hasn't messaged. So before, many people, myself included, would have said something like, "Hey, Sarah!" Exclamation point. "How's your week going so far? Love your profile, by the way." I mean, guys, this is something like her grandpa would say other than the profile part.
What would be better is if you say, "I have a confession and I need to get it off my chest before this goes any further." How is she not going to respond to that? Now of course you need to follow it up. That's why I recommend checking out The Guy to help guide you through these conversations. Totally free.
Link in the bio and you'll see for yourself how well this works. Now, let's say you get like a low effort response like, "Ha ha, thanks." We've all been there. So most guys would probably say something like, "So what do you like to do for fun? Are you from," insert city like Austin originally? Low-key, the subtext of a message like that is that you're panicking at the low investment and you're desperate to change the conversation to, you know, have a more substantial, substantial conversation going forward.
What you should do is say something like, "That level of enthusiasm is concerning. I'm going to need you to calm down." 'Cause you're poking fun at the fact that she is actually not putting much enthusiasm, but by you amplifying this, that's actually what makes it funny and flirtatious. She says in another example, "Your profile is interesting."
"Thanks. Yeah, I try to keep it fun. Ha ha. Your profile is great too. That Italy photo caught my eye. Where exactly was that?" I mean, just way too much information exchange here, guys. What would be much better is if you just say something like, "Proposing already? Girl, we just met. I'm not ready for this kind of commitment."
So hopefully those are some examples. What you need to understand from all those examples is that the politeness is actually gaslighting because that's just not how people... For example, say you go on to date a girl. Six months in, would you ever be communicating like that? No, of course not. It'd be super weird, super formal, just totally unnecessary.
So she can sense in the messages. It's not what the messages say. It's the vibe that they give off. It's the subtext beneath them. It's the energy that they are communicating. That's what she is picking up on. I would say women are far better at picking- up on that. Whereas guys, we just read what it actually says and we look at it from a logical perspective.
So it's the energy you're giving off and it just comes across as just like way too formal, like you have red flags, but you're just trying to hide them. Um, like you're very concerned about her opinion on you, even though you've never met and she's a total stranger. And so many guys, to kind of bring this back, so many guys will complain about the power imbalance established by the dating apps because they say there's way more men on the apps, the women get way more matches, so they're always in the position of power.
Now, some of those structural things are true. I'm not going to gaslight you, but what you need to understand is that your messages are putting yourself in the below weaker position automatically every single time. You're giving yourself a structural disadvantage, which is going to make it almost impossible to succeed on the dating apps.
You're gonna be stuck, you know, um, however much a Hinge subscription is now, I think it's like almost $50 a month. You're gonna be stuck paying Hinge, this giant corporation, $50 a month until you can finally figure this out. So that's why it is so key. Reframe this as equality. You're two equal people with a lots of brings to the table, and ultimately you just don't wanna be po- positioning herself way above you with your messages.
So that's where so many of you guys are going wrong. And until you make this fundamental realization, along with all the other concepts we're talking about in this series on this channel, such as the signal inversion, the signal inversion hypothesis theory, where essentially all the traits that make you so great, like your personality, your work ethic, your conscientiousness, your hobbies, everything that has made you successful is what is sabotaging you on the apps.
And when you approach the match like a job interview, like you're auditioning for the opportunity of a lifetime, trust me, that is what's sabotaging you in the chat. Hopefully, you got some value out of this video. Now guys, if you are struggling with the dating apps or maybe you're having success, but you're at a point in time where you don't know what's going on in the conversation, you need a line to help you move forward, check out the guy link in the comment description area here.
You don't even need to sign up for a trial. You can just start chatting with it right away, paste a screenshot, get an analysis of what's currently going on or where you maybe even got-- went wrong, and then find a, or receive a message where you can actually get things back on track. So that's it for me.
Drop a comment if you have any, and I'll see you in another video soon. Bye.