6 Tinder/Online Dating Rules For Guys in 2025 (Essential Tips)

Watch the video version of this article:

Alright, you wanna get balls-deep into 2025 and get balls-deep into a few women. Let’s do it. First stop is obviously my massive Tinder guide – or if you’re a virgin, our Get Laid in 6 Weeks guide.

Once you’ve started making your way through those, here’s 6 mindsets that’ll help a ton while you’re on the path to building yourself that sex life you’ve always wanted.

1. Give yourself permission to suck. Progress, not perfection.

You probably won’t be great at online dating at first, and that’s ok. I wasn’t great. Most of my coaching clients aren’t either. Hell, I got absolutely no matches (literally zero matches!) the first time I ever tried Tinder. So believe me, I know what it feels like to start from the bottom.

If I can improve and build a pretty awesome sex life, you absolutely can too.

You might also be extremely nervous. That’s ok too. Truth be told, I was freaking terrified when I first started trying to take my sex/dating life seriously. Most of my coaching clients are scared too.

The mission here isn’t to be some big badass “alpha male warrior” who feels no fear. The only goal is to just focus on doing your best, getting some experience under your belt, and just gradually improving over time, a little each day/week/month/year. I promise with time you’ll eventually get good at the whole getting laid thing, if you just keep at it.

Progress, not perfection.

And along with that, focus on playing to WIN, rather than playing “not to lose”. By that I mean do your best to not get too caught up in all the flakes, the “rejections”, the girls who don’t keep talking to you, or the conversations that die off. Don’t worry about “the one that got away”. Don’t focus on “I should have said this instead, what the hell is wrong with me??? I screwed up!!!”

Yes, learn from each conversation/date. Yes, try to do better. Yes, aim to improve. But focus on those things – learning, doing better, improving. Don’t sit around beating yourself up for what you “should have done”. Focus on what you CAN do next time. Focus on the future, not the past.

Focus on winning, not losing.

This process will be a whole lot easier if you do.

2. Have solid pics

Good pics = good online dating results, it’s as simple as that.

A lot of guys have an overinflated idea of how “good” their own profile is, which I’ve talked about here:
Why Your Tinder Pics Suck (and What to Do About it)

Once you’ve gone through that article, use the Tinder guide for tons of references on what pics to take, as well as this inspiration article.

As an example, here’s the profile I’m currently using (as of 2025)

You don’t have to have elite pics right away; just focus on doing one or two photoshoots a week. Aim to shoot a LOT of photos each time (at least 200 photos each time you go out) – most of them will suck. But if you take enough photos (200+ each time!), some of them will turn out pretty decent, almost by accident. Getting good photos is absolutely a numbers game; you need to shoot a ton of photos for some of them to be decent.

Go shoot more photos.

3. Play the numbers game

Let’s just get one thing out of the way: Not every woman is going to sleep with.

Or even talk to you.

In fact, the vast majority of them won’t.

Of all the matches I get on dating apps, 9 out of 10 of them don’t end up meeting me or having sex with me. In fact, most of the matches I get don’t even respond to my first message – or, if they do, it’ll only be 1 message and then they’ll just never reply again.

But who cares that 9 out of 10 matches don’t sleep with me; I’m too busy meeting and having fun with the ones who do.

I know at the start it can feel a little frustrating when conversations die off, especially when you don’t have a ton of matches to begin with. In that case, go back to point number #2 above; improve your pics so you have more matches, and then you won’t care so much about the ones who stop replying.

You can also put effort into building a kickass life for yourself, outside of the bedroom, so you’ll naturally be a whole lot less bothered if women stop replying to you. Throw yourself into your hobbies (or try new things if you don’t have any hobbies yet). Go spend more time with your mates and people who care about you. Explore the world, do cool stuff. Spend time on your career, or building a business if that’s what you wanna do. But spend time on stuff outside of dating, so you’re not constantly bummed out each time a woman doesn’t want to meet you.

What we’re talking about here is abundance mentality; having things outside of sex/dating/women that you really care about. And of course, that has the nice little side effect of making women even more into you; people love people who have an interesting life going on, and women are no exception to that.

Go play the numbers game, go talk to more women, and if you run out of matches on the dating apps, remember you can always go outside and approach women (there’s infinite women out there for you to approach!)

Remember: Your mission is not to make every single woman like you. Your mission is just to find the ones who do.

4. Get off the app and onto a date ASAP

The goal of dating apps isn’t to sit around on the dating app, it’s to get the hell of the app and onto a face-to-face date, ASAP. Your mission is to speedrun that process, putting in enough effort that you’re not being lazy, but always moving things towards a face-to-face date.

In other words, what I’m saying here: Put some effort into your texting, but don’t sit there for weeks and weeks and weeks, having conversations where you try and “build rapport” because you’re too afraid to actually ask her out.

As an example, here’s an average Hinge message of mine:

You can see I’ve put some effort into the texting – I immediately say what I want, right up front (BDSM and 3somes with me + my girlfriend Immy).
I ask about her hobbies, and share some of mine.
I give her a couple compliments and don’t hold back with letting her know I (and Immy) are into her.
I share a bit of my personality.
All of that is done in 3 or 4 messages, and then I jump straight into “You seem cool, we should grab a drink. What’s your number?”

Once I have a girl’s number, I’ll sometimes send her a few BDSM/nude photos of myself + Immy, and then jump straight into organising a time for a date.

Or, for something more vanilla (for those of you who aren’t as kinky as I am), here’s a few text screenshots that are a bit more “normal”:

Another example:

You can see I’m not really wasting any time on the apps or over text, instead jumping straight into organising the face-to-face date. Nice and efficient.

Something to keep in mind is that you can’t really get to know someone over messaging; they’re literally just pixels on your phone screen. So aim to get out on a date ASAP.

As for any women who say “I wanna talk more before I give out my number”, here are my thoughts on that. I’m here to meet with people who also want to meet.

5. Improve yourself a little each day/week/month/year.

I’ve said it a million times; when it comes to online dating, improving your pics will make the biggest difference (along with improving your mindset).

Improving your pics will get you more matches.

Improving your mindset will help you focus on winning (rather than getting bothered by every “rejection”, and wanting to quit).

Talking to more women will help a ton; after all, this is a numbers game. It’ll also improve your confidence; the more women you talk to, the more confident you’ll be in your abilities. After all, confidence is just competence. Become competent at talking to women (by doing it a lot), and the confidence will come.

Along with all of this, work on building your self-love and stoicism, so you’re ok when girls stop responding to you. Work on being happy in who you are, without needing a woman/women to complete you.

The more of an independent man you are, the more women want to meet you.

6. Keep going. Don’t quit.

For some of you, this is the most important item on this list. I get that dating can sometimes feel frustrating. I get the temptation to be angry about “it’s much easier for women and it’s so hard for men!” I get all of that.

I’ve coached literally hundreds (thousands?) of guys at this point; believe me, I understand the frustrating feelings dating can bring. I went through all of that myself.

I have an entire video on what to do when you’re not happy with the results you’re getting.

I promise you if you really apply yourself to these principles I’ve laid out above, and go hard on taking action with my Tinder Guide, you WILL succeed.

Remember to focus on progress, not perfection. Take at least one tiny little baby step every day to move forward towards your goals.

You got this.

BONUS TIP: Get some accountability

Accountability is mandatory; either my coaching, or any decent forum where other guys are working on their dating life, or in-real-life friends. Just get someone to push you, be there for you, and help you on this journey.

Working on your dating life and self-improvement in general are not things I would EVER recommend you do alone; that’s just playing on nightmare mode.

Everything I’ve ever achieved has been with the help of other people. Friends, coaches, forums, and more. I’ve never done anything alone; that would be insane. If you team up with other people, you’ll make 100x the progress, with 100x less stress, 100x less drama, 100x less confusion and frustration.

Seriously. Do NOT work on your dating life alone.

If you have absolutely nobody to push you, support you and help you, go onto my YouTube channel and leave a comment on a couple of recent vids and ask other people if they’ll be your online accountability buddy.

Or if you want help from me personally and want to just speedrun this whole process and pay to win, there’s 2 options: