Ladies, ladies, ladies…to those of you who heeded my advice and revised your Tinder profiles for optimal eligibility: congratulations. You trusted that I would not steer you wrong and now are in healthy relationships as only a mobile app can facilitate.

But there are others of you whose dating challenges are apparently more chronic than your now happily coupled sisters. In the last installment of Tinder Tips, my polite reminders clearly did not resonate with you at all. Thus, it is clear that a more brusque approach is required. Please understand, lovely bachelorettes, that I am only trying to help you find ‘The One.’ And, as always, who better to guide you toward finding a good man than a heel like me, who knows all the tricks and triggers that you hopeless romantics refuse to notice or try to change?

Whelp! Enough pleasantries. Let’s get started, shall we?

• Men who find septum piercings attractive probably have multiple roommates and no prospects for a stable future, so remove it if the latter interests you at all. Sure, you may be fine with your nose looking like a doorknocker, but you’re clearly inviting the wrong kind of company. Change yourself

• 

  If your main profile picture is of your son sitting on Santa’s lap, then good luck finding a guy who has money to spend on your little crumbsnatcher yet has no interest in molesting him. Harsh, I know, but what the hell were you thinking with that photo choice? YOU’RE NOT EVEN IN THE PICTURE!

• Does your Tinder profile consist of photos wherein you are in a wedding dress and kissing a man in a tuxedo? No judgment, but you really need to clarify that you are an unabashed adulteress unless you want the upstanding swipers of the world to think you’re just wasting their time. Seriously, it’s peculiar
• Tinder is no place to demonstrate artistic flair at the expense of concealing your face. Your ultimate catch would be impressed with that cool black-and-white shot where your hair’s cleverly concealing half of your head, but it suggests a guardedness with which qualified explorers of the heart needn’t bother, not the mysteriousness you think interests a good man. That mystery jive is lady business, so switch your settings to find women or get a more honest photo. For all we know, you could be half yeti under there
• Sorry to be a nag about this, but the tagline clichés have got to go. For further clarification:
  • If “work hard, play hard” is your tagline, know that your lame ass is getting swiped left…hard
  • “Live, laugh, love,” huh? You forgot one, you Oprah’s Book Club reject: LEFT!
  • Do you love to travel? Do you “want to travel everywhere?” HOW ELSE WOULD YOU GET PLACES?! Maybe on one of those trips you can figure out how to be more interesting in your Tinder tagline because if all you want in a man is a penchant for going places, then you should realize that he is probably also very comfortable with leaving places (e.g. YOU). Reflexively, if you go on and on about hopping around the world, then how do you expect to find someone who’ll want to settle down with you? Think, ladies. Think.
• Full-figured women: for the love of self-esteem, just own it. The series of close-up face shots fool no one, and the last thing you want to do is put yourself in a position to be berated by some idiot who claims that you misrepresented yourself. If you’re not comfortable with your body enough to say, “Here I am with my awesome self; take it or leave it,” then you should not be on Tinder looking for love. Only the confident and amazing deserve the privilege of this app’s magical ability to make perfect matches
• No need to emphasize with all caps the importance of your children. Most men regardless of eligibility understand the connection women have to their bundles of germs, so when your profile says something like, “MY KIDS ARE MY WORLD,” you come off as unnecessarily aggressive. Take it easy, Mama Bear. And quit shouting; THE BABIES ARE TRYING TO SLEEP!!!
• When you have nothing written in your profile, do NOT expect Mr. Right to message you. Good guys read. Good guys use what they read to inform them about how to make the innocent small talk that leads to a life of blissful companionship. With nothing written in your profile, the onus is on YOU to make contact, which for some of you is an unnerving shift in the social paradigm despite your varying degrees of feminist independence, so make the effort so that you won’t have to later
  • Warning: Creepers read, too…closely
• About the whole listing-your-height-in-your-profile thing…I got nothin.’ You have the right to choose a tall guy who ultimately disrespects you over a shorter guy who’ll go to the ends of the Earth to make you happy because he’s short and people have been underestimating him his entire life. Your call.
• Ditch the bridesmaid pictures. I know, I know, it’s the one time where your makeup game is stronger than Michelle Obama’s arms, and you want to make a flawless first impression. But what these pictures—where you’re standing with your friend the bride—say is, “I want to be next.” And while there is nothing wrong with wanting to be married, the higher quality Tindermen will wonder whether matrimony is the priority regardless of the lover you choose to take. And if we’re all being honest, that’s a determination that many of you need to consider

So off you go, women. There are many other missteps out there in the Tinderverse, but those 10 are all we have time for in today’s lesson. For those of you who require more advanced instruction, check back for part 3 of Tinder Tips, which will be published as soon as I have amassed another set of embarrassing discoveries on the GREATEST ONLINE DATING INTERFACE THE WORLD HAS EVER KNOWN.

Swipe on, warrior princesses. Swipe on.