The Best Tinder Pick-up Lines

The last 10 years have seen a huge increase of single men and women jumping into the world of dating apps, especially with COVID-19 impacting how we meet and connect with people. In just one year, from 2019 to 2020, the number of dating app users jumped from 250 million to 270 million, and this number is continuing to grow. It makes sense that the most commonly asked questions we get are,

To the latter, I always come back with the same answer: pick-up lines don't actually work. Despite many reputable websites claiming that they work for most men. I know you're probably disappointed hearing this because you thought I was about to give you a list of the top 10 best Tinder pick-up lines, but I am going to do you one better. You’re about to learn some techniques so that you can come up with your own creative openers that will give you more success than a tacky pick-up line.

Let's start off by taking a look at some examples of heavily advertised, cliché pick-up lines, and analyse what doesn't work and why, before I share with you what does work.

Typical cheesy pick-up lines

Heard these before? Maybe you’ve even used these before. These are some typical pick-up lines you may have seen in YouTube videos for pranks or even day game pick-ups. Most of the time you'll see the girl laughing in response and assume that’s a positive reaction. Don't get me wrong, laughing is a great response, but are they laughing with you because of an instant spark of attraction? Or are they laughing at you?

When you apply this to a Tinder context, you take the same risks but with the added difficulty of not being able to gauge their response.

Puns on her name

This example came from a website claiming this approach would yield high success rates on dating apps. Let’s break this down.

It's great how the guy tries to be creative with her name in a fun and playful manner. However, I’d suggest steering clear of the obvious. Imagine for a moment you match with a girl called “Paris”. Sure, the first thing that jumps out to you is that iconic name. Could you imagine the thoughts every single one of her other matches had when they saw it? I can guarantee that almost all of them made some cheesy or cliche remark about her name. In fact, I once had a girl called Sydney thank me for not mentioning her name.

It's almost always best to try and get creative. Make a reference to something in the girl's bio instead. Maybe if the guy in the above screenshot had taken time to read her bio, he would’ve known she is a marketing student and avoided the embarrassment...

Ultimately, if you want to get someone’s attention, try to stand out from everyone else.

If you look at her first reply,

she’s already telling him that he hasn’t stood out to her. He’s been grouped with all the other guys before she’s even spoken to him. She hasn’t given him much to work with to escalate the conversation either. This is the first indicator of low compliance and low interest from her end. Compliance is a concept we use to talk about how engaged someone is in a conversation and how willing they are to further the interaction. Because of her low interest from the beginning, the guy then resorts to chasing her with very cringe-worthy pick-up lines. Of course, she isn’t going to respond to that, would you?

Again, she was laughing at him rather than with him, and she has most definitely sent all her friends a screenshot.

Low value/approval giving pick-up line

There is definitely room for improvement on this one. It's great how he starts with,

It starts a narrative and potentially gives the girl something to build on. A narrative is a story you construct with someone, and the more you can bring a narrative into a conversation, the more interest, engagement, and compliance you create. However, the issue here is that the guy then puts himself in a low-value position by putting her on a pedestal, with the rest of his message saying:

In this, he’s implying that she is one of the “finer things in life” giving her validation from the beginning without her ever having to engage in the conversation. This gives a woman, especially ones who get complimented all the time, little incentive to respond. The close-ended nature of this statement doesn’t give her anything to work with, it’s a yes or no question, and she’s given him, you guessed it, a yes or no response.

His response to that digs his already deep hole even deeper. Instead of solving his mistake by giving her something more engaging to work with, he’s shut the potential for conversation down even more.

Let’s look at an alternative.

In this example, we’ve used punctuation to make the read emotive, added a constraint (25 words) to make it feel like a challenge, and we’ve invited her to contribute at the end. We did all that without ever needing to give her compliments, or ask stale questions!

Tip: Use her bio to stand out

Another really useful approach is to make a witty remark that somehow references what she’s written in her bio. Here is a really good example:

One of my Tinder matches bios said:

This is a great bio because it’s funny and witty, and most importantly, gives you lots to work with. Most guys would be compelled to open with a comment about anyone line here with something obvious such as something about her being girlfriend material or finding out if she can really speak Czech. These are obvious, common, and overused conversational themes. We can certainly do a lot better than that. My response and her reaction should hopefully emphasise this for you.

Now compare this with the pick-up lines we looked at before. You want to approach her with a fun, witty opener that will demonstrate high value and make her chase. Not only to stand out but have her feel and think ‘oh, this guy’s interesting!'

If you’ve made it this far, I’m guessing you want to be able to increase your matches and improve your texting skills. You’ve come to the right place! If you’re serious and want to get consistent success using dating apps, we’ve got a detailed guide that will give you the tools to sharpen your text game skills.