Recently I got a bit of an online dating makeover - a couple of female friends gave me recommendations on photos and bio text. Of course, that was just on the regular apps. Honestly, at first I was really impressed with what a big difference some female input can have. When I opened Tinder again a week later to show my friend how bleak it is for guys, she got like 15 matches before using up all the swipes. Mind blowing.

It helped that they curated the photos, even taking a new one for me on the spot because what I had was apparently so bad.

They also gave me advice on what to say, for example, where it said 'occasionally' for weed use, they said to remove that response. They said that knowing me, they didn't think it was a big deal, but in the abstract, it was a big turn off.

It has made me realise just how much people play up their strengths and gloss over their shortcomings when presenting themselves to strangers online, however I have always felt more comfortable with an 'underpromise and overdeliver' approach, so I have tried to be as frank and honest as possible.

I am guessing a lot of the same people read each post, so I am writing fresh posts each time, and so it is veering into a more conversational style. I'm less interested in telling you everything you need to know, and more interested in allowing you to see how I think in order to get a sense of what type of person I am.

It's as if this is some sort of blog now.

Interestingly, my other use for this account, posting on r/dirtypenpals, seems to benefit - I'm not sure why, but since having r4r posts in my post history, I am getting more responses over there. However, it also makes me second guess what I post there because now I am also thinking about what you might be reading into it. I can't help but assume that I would get more messages here if I didn't have those others in my post history, but why hide, right? We're both adults, we can differentiate between fantasy and reality.

So what's the lesson here? I am getting more matches on the apps, but most of them are still uninteresting to me, and the apps themselves give me the ick. Feel that way too? Let's chat. The most likely outcome is that we aren't a good match, but I'm sure we can have fun asking each other personal questions and learning new perspectives.