A few months ago, I decided to let my Indian mother use my Tinder profile as an experiment to see if 1) mothers really do know best, and 2) to give her an insight into the modern world of dating.
One of the things that took her by surprise was how some men on Tinder were sending demeaning messages and being aggressively persistent. She was even more shocked when I told her that this was a regular occurrence for many women using dating apps.
For example, this was her conversation with a guy called VJ.
For many of us, when describing the men who send these types of messages, the very eloquent term "fuckboy" springs to mind.
my dude is scraping the bottom of the 8-month old barrel for his friday night bj
But what if the tables were turned? What if I used fuckboy tactics on them? Would they be offended? Would they be shocked? Would they like it?
From my own personal experience, that of friends, and stuff people have posted on the internet, I identified 10 common tactics being used.
I then employed these tactics myself, and this is what happened:
Tactic 1: Go from 0 to 100 real quick, like the lovely Andrew here.
*Masturbating. It's OK, Andrew, we know you had your hands full at the time.
However, when I tried this approach no one seemed at all fazed.
Like, seriously.
Tactic 2: Pay them a really lovely compliment, like lothario Aaron here.
When I attempted this, guys reacted really positively.
And did not seem to care that I was only interested in their sexy bits.
Tactic 3: Demonstrate your sexual prowess early on in the conversation, like total babe Alex here.
When I tried steering the conversation to my err, magical genitals, Tim did not seem to mind at all.
Tactic 4: Use an unusual chat-up line, like the very witty and charming Michael.
When I tried this approach it set a "playful" tone.
And some guys were even impressed.
Although it didn't go down so well with one guy...
Tactic 5: Do something completely idiotic to get your match's attention.
When I tried this on Nick and Lorin they were both just pretty patient and didn't seem to even notice what I was trying to do.
Tactic 6: Go straight in for the kill, like foodie Sean here.
When I did this some people thought I was joking.
Although others were 100% game from the get-go.
Tactic 7: Be excessive with flattery, like Mr Smooth here.
Both men I tried this on were not at all put off by my cringeworthy lines.
Tactic 8: Be persistent and use lots of emojis, like Tylere.
When I tried this, like Tylere, I did not get a response.
However, losing the emojis and just repeating yourself like you've forgotten you've already started a conversation previously does seem to elicit a response.
Tactic 10: Woo them with your incredible poetry skills.
When trying this, I decided to take it up a notch.
Which men just did not find to be that disturbing.
In addition to the above tactics, I also noticed that guys are pretty fond of making assumptions about girls' sexual preferences based on arbitrary things, so I also decided to give this a go.
Which didn't go down well with everyone.
I did notice though, that a lot of guys were dubious about whether I was actually genuine.
And thought I was leading them to a porn site.
And some were initially taken aback but were clearly intrigued and left wanting more.
Some guys were understandably less impressed with my approach.
And some guys were totally like, NOPE.
Overall, an overwhelming percentage of the men in this experiment reacted positively to my fuckboy tactics.
Many were spurred on by how forward I was, and they certainly didn't give a single fuck that I wanted to shit on them or that I led with a chat-up line about farting.
In conclusion, as we could probably have predicted, many straight men on Tinder simply don't give a fuck.
