It was immediately clear that filtering would play a crucial role in getting to potential dates, but I wasn’t sure at first just what those filters should look like and when they should be applied. Together we worked on the project in real time. Here’s how the project unfolded:

You can’t do Tinder without Facebook, and that’s deliberate. The whole concept relies on allowing you to explore matches within your social circle.

People can check your profile before they swipe, so it pays to say as much as you can with your pics. Tinder pulls first name, age and photos from Facebook, so make sure your 5 most recent profile pics are worthy. Use them to show your interests if you can. You may add a small bit of text in addition.

For Jenna, that small bit of text on other people’s profiles became an important filter. She used it to reject any profile that expressed a desire to “have fun.” She estimates that was about 15-20% of the profiles she took time to check.

2. Jenna selected her preferences in Settings.

She chose male gender, no more than 10 miles away, aged 27-35.

3. She went for volume.

Tinder is easy and fun – the more you swipe right, the more potential matches you create. Jenna dedicated a couple of hours two evenings in a row to looking at guys on Tinder. Jenna lives in a large city, and she had the sense that she would never get to the end of the list. There are a lot of people on Tinder.

If you live in a less populated area, you’ll most likely have fewer candidates. It might be worth compromising on distance in that case.

Most of the time Jenna knew immediately whether she found a guy attractive, but in some cases she was on the fence. When that happened, she looked at the profile, including any text and additional photos to help her decide.

She also found herself clicking on the profiles of guys she thought were really hot, eager to learn more about them.

One thing Jenna noticed was that after swiping left a bunch of times (no thanks) she was more likely to swipe right on a guy, even if she was on the fence. She felt badly swiping left a bunch of times in a row. This is probably common, and it required more filtering later when she had a couple of “What was I thinking?” moments.

5. Jenna checked out her matches.

After about 4 hours of Tindering, Jenna had 55 matches. She was overwhelmed at the thought of communicating with that many people.

We went into her match list to look more closely at the profiles of those men who’d swiped right when she did.

6. She unmatched any guy who was openly going for a hookup.

Six profiles that Jenna had not yet seen were clearly about the hookup. She ditched them immediately.

That brought us to 49 matches.

7. She unmatched the borderline cases.

Several guys on the match list were ones Jenna had been unsure about. Now with so many guys to choose from, eight jumped out as immediate candidates for unmatching. They were either less attractive than the others, less interesting, or both.

Total: 41 matches

8. We decided she should wait for the guys to initiate contact.

Jenna is seeking a traditional dating relationship, so she decided to respond to guys who reached out first. Because there was no risk of rejection, we figured anyone looking for the same thing would make a move.

Seven guys sent messages right away asking Jenna if she wanted to fuck.

Jenna was now at 34 matches, and we were still only at Day 3 of the experiment.

10. She began talking on the app with the men who reached out.

16 men initiated conversations that were clearly aimed at getting to know Jenna as a person. None of these men was at all inappropriate or sexual.

11. She unmatched men who did not initiate contact within 4 days.

One week after Jenna joined Tinder, 18 of her matches had not gotten in touch. She preferred to focus on guys who were motivated to get to know her.

This left Jenna with 16 matches.

12. Jenna deleted men with poor messaging skills.

5 men relied too heavily on “whassup” and “hey” or were otherwise poor conversationalists.

11 matches.

13. Jenna gave out her cell number to men who asked at this point in the process.

All 11 moved the conversation to texting via cell.

14. She unmatched men who proposed anything other than a real date.

Four guys wondered when Jenna would next be out, and whether she would like to meet up. Unmatch. One guy chatted endlessly but never suggested getting together. Unmatch.

6 remaining matches.

14. Jenna nixed the eager beavers.

Two guys barraged Jenna with texts constantly. She estimates they texted seven times for every single text she sent.

4 remaining matches.

15. She decided to invest time and effort in her 4 remaining matches.

Jenna was willing to go on a date with any of the 4 matches she was still talking with. Now a week and a half out from her initial swiping, she felt that she had a good feel for both interest and character with her Top 4. She also had a clear ranking in her mind based on the conversations so far.

16. Time for first dates.

a Jenna eliminated her least favorite of the four before the date happened:

He was using push-pull. His spelling and grammar were not great. (This had been an issue from the start, but he sure was handsome. In the end, she could not get past the your/you’re problem.)

Jenna went on a date with her second favorite, but learned that he had lied about his age and was actually outside her range. She enjoyed his company but felt that the deception was a dealbreaker, as was the age difference.

Bachelor #3 fizzled. Perhaps he met someone else, or lost interest for some other reason. In any case, he unmatched Jenna when it came time to make a plan.

Jenna’s first stands out from all other contenders. They have great convos, and it’s clear that he’s genuinely interested in more than something casual. He is also the guy Jenna was most attracted to from the start, out of all her right swipes. He has planned a fun date, and Jenna is very excited (and a bit nervous). Could this be the one? Time will tell.

Here are the key things we learned about Tinder:

Don’t be too picky up front.

Jenna doesn’t know how many times she swiped right exactly, but it was clearly more than 55 times. She included guys who were “cute” and “pretty cute” in addition to the ones she thought were really hot.

Jenna was also strongly swayed by the subject matter in the pics. Guys with dogs or children got the benefit of the doubt. She also favored guys engaging in some form of athletics in at least one of their photos.

You can always eliminate a match later on, so go for maximum results early on. It will give you confidence and give you a better basis for comparison.

Filtering is key.

About 20-25% of the guys just want sex. That means that 75% of the guys are open to a relationship. People are on Tinder for various reasons, and it’s in their best interest to make their intentions clear early.

It’s easy to eliminate the players at any point in the process, no questions asked. Jenna did not give her cell number to anyone who had not clearly indicated he was looking to date. She blocked the guy who got douchey with push-pull toward the end.

Unless you get zero matches all matches are promising.

Tinder opened up a huge number of possibilities for Jenna. She couldn’t come close to those results with a traditional online dating site, going to bars, parties, etc. But even if she’d gotten just one good match, she had still met someone new. And of course she could always do another round of Tindering.

Once you whittle down the number of guys, their faces are not as important.

Use the conversations to discern intent, character, intelligence, and other traits that are important to you.

There’s no real downside to Tinder.

It’s not terribly time consuming, and Jenna enjoyed it a lot. If her date with Top Guy doesn’t work out, she’s going to go right back and try again.

I’d like to develop this into a Tinder Strategy that people can apply easily. I would love to hear your thoughts!

Does Jenna’s experience surprise you? Have you used Tinder?

Hinge? Coffee Meets Bagel? Tell us about your experiences!