Mel Greig: The ONE question you should ask your online love match

I did something that I have been avoiding for over a year, something I detest. I joined an online dating site.

Let’s rewind to last year when I wrote an article on how I felt Tinder was free prostitution, and I lasted five minutes on there after the level of conversation never really surpassed a ‘Hey’, and I found it superficial and degrading. Yet here I am one year on, and I’ve joined Bumble.

What attracted me to Bumble was that it was created to make women feel more in control online. We have to make the first move and unwanted messages or penises will not enter our inbox without being invited in first.

Gosh, Bumble puts the pressure on though. When you’ve swiped on someone you like and they match you back, you only have 24 hours to contact them. Bumble forgot the part where women are busy being awesome, and if we’ve swiped on too many people we might have 24 hours to contact 20 men.

That takes me to my Bumble fumble. Bumble doesn’t come with instructions. I need the pretty little guide with pictures and number orders. I set up my profile ensuring I was very selective in what pictures I used. No boobs and not too many selfies. I even included a photo of my fur baby and the beach. At this point I’m feeling like I’m nailing life and I’m ready to swipe.

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So, I start swiping. BLOODY HELL THERE’S SOME HOT GUYS ON BUMBLE. Swipe #gimme. Swipe #gimme. I enjoy swiping for a good two hours. It’s like online shopping, but it’s free and I’m filling my shopping cart to the brim.

An hour later I start getting matches in my match queue and I’m excited because I’ve found some rippers on there. I have a little look through but think to myself, “Who is that guy?” and “I don’t remember him”. Maybe they are just trying to match me? But I don’t even have one of the Hottie Mc-hot-hots in my queue at all - what is going on?

I started asking my friends what I was doing wrong. Turns out I was swiping the WRONG FREAKING WAY. All of my delicious items weren’t going into my shopping cart, I was swiping them away like rubbish and now I can’t get them back

WHHHHHHHY. Instead I have 60 year-old Farmer Joe, a guy with a beer keg as a gut and four potential serial killers. FML.

I waited 24 hours to clear that load out and started again and this time I only swiped a few at a time so I could attempt to have real conversations with these guys.

I had a tactic though, and it wiped out 50 percent of the options. After the third message, I would ask them for their full name so I could creep them on Facebook to learn more about them. Half refused. I had one guy who gave me his last name but said he wasn’t on Facebook. I could just take his word for it or I could just have a quick looksie boo... he was on Facebook. And he had a wife.

I won’t give up on Bumble just yet but I am inching closer and closer to reverting to my original plan of last year and just marrying a Magic Mike stripper from America and giving him a carefree Australian life as my man slave.

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