A study analysed the most successful pick-up lines on Tinder — here’s what they found

Research has found that successful online dating requires more than simply promising a “gouda time:” It’s also time to say goodbye to cheesy pick-up lines. Yes, even if you consider yourself to be “sharp as cheddar.”

A study published in Computers in Human Behavior analysed which greetings and pick-up lines worked best on Tinder, and actually uncovered a pattern: apparently, women prefer pick-up lines that are either (genuinely) funny or contain a compliment, as opposed to the old-fashioned, smarmy ones.

“My co-author, Robert Robbins, was really interested in this topic. He used Tinder to date and noticed that the outcomes were different when he used different opening lines to chat with others,” one of the study’s authors, Minhao Dai, an assistant professor at Kennesaw State University, told PsyPost. “That made us wonder about how dating profiles and pick-up lines influenced dating outcomes.”

Dai and her team’s experiment comprised 237 heterosexual Tinder users who viewed potential matches’ profiles after one of four potential pick-up lines. They then answered a series of questions regarding their levels of interest in the individuals.

The first pick-up line studied offered a compliment, but no humour: “You have a very nice smile.” The second was funny, but not complimentary: “Do you have any raisins? No? How about a date?” The third pick-up line offered a compliment and was (meant to be) humorous: “Are you from Tennessee? Because you’re the only 10 I see,” while the fourth was simply a neutral greeting:  “Hey! What’s up?”

Based off participants’ responses, pick-up lines that were humorous or complimentary were better received by women than the generic greeting. However the pick-up line that was meant to be humorous and complimentary (“10 I see”), did notdo well — especially with women.

“For a successful dating experience, do not use ‘cheesy’ or ‘cliché’ pick-up lines. Simple humor or a simple compliment works well. However, when you cramp too much into one pick-up line, Tinder daters, especially female users, found it off-putting,” Dai said of the findings.

For men, however, pick-up lines didn’t seem to make much of a difference. Their interest levels were primarily influenced by the matches’ physical appearance.

“Since the article was published, I have gotten many questions and comments from the press and people interested in the nature of the profile pictures,” Dai said. “Many were curious about whether and how different types of profile pictures would make a difference in Tinder dating. We collected new data on that, and hopefully, we would share the interesting new findings on that soon.”