Tinder is the biggest possible waste of your time and energy if you’re looking to meet Korean girls.
It’s a microcosm of shitty American culture coming to Korea and being made even worse. Every interaction begins with you providing the girl with instant validation of her looks, which in and of itself is not a good beginning. Then 99% of the time, you have to send messages first and show direct interest, further weakening your hand. If she even bothers responding to your dancing bear intro or terrible pun, you’re in a situation where you almost have to play into her hand just to get her to meet face to face. It’s a lazy and weak way of trying to meet girls in general, and it especially doesn’t work in Korea.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with hookup apps, although they’re not really my style. I can see the appeal of them when they’re used right, simply see someone and decide whether or not you want to hook up with them. That’s all fine and dandy.
The problem is that in Korea, all the girls on Tinder are either just advertising their Instagram pictures, generally attention-whoring, or just “looking to chat / make friends.” Anywhere else, typical hamster phrases like that could be easily ignored. In Korea though, the girls seem very surprised when you suggest that you take the interaction analog and meet in person.
Then if you do meet them in person, they are incredibly awkward. I’ve been on 5 different Tinder dates in Korea and every one of them was absolutely horrid. These girls were the absolute dregs of this country, and of course looked much different in person than their pictures online. I even had one girl who, while we’re having chicken and beer, laughingly told me that the only reason she meets up with guys from Tinder is to get some free food and drinks out of the deal. I laughed along, then 5 minutes later I got up to go to the bathroom and never came back. I wonder why I never heard from her again…
In the interest of fairness however, I have heard success stories from other people who tried Tinder here. Some of my different friends have had one or two successful hookups from the app, and it’s definitely possible. But it’s also worth noting that the amount of time and energy it takes is not worth the output you get back from it, even if you get laid sometimes. I would much rather spend an hour at a bar or language exchange and meet several new women in person as opposed to spending an hour flipping through fake pictures in hopes that one might actually respond to your message.
I know that I might sound sort of jilted, having tried my hand at Tinder and not been successful, but I really don’t believe that to be the case. I think a more accurate assessment of the situation is that Tinder draws the absolute worst girls that Korea has to offer. It draws in the girls who can’t get guys in real social situations. It draws in the girls who rely on doctored and photoshopped pictures to make them look decent. It draws in the girls that are so useless, even their friends didn’t want to set them up with someone they know.
Plain and simple, my advice is this. Don’t Tinder Korea.
If you absolutely must Tinder in Korea, check out these tips on how to do it better and improve your success rate.
I agree with what you said in the last paragraph. But I’m wondering some korean girls are against dating foreigners or sometimes even being seen with them, do you think this will change in time to come? All kpop girls describe their ideal types to be korean guys but never mention any foreign men, is this to change too?
While there are some who view that as a factor, most of them don’t really. Actually this seems to be a problem exclusive to Tinder. I’ve used other apps such as Skout, Blendr, and OKCupid with much better success. I think it’s because it’s less about getting the likes, and more about actually having a chat before meeting. Tinder is just a weird version of hotornot.
I have no idea why you had such a bad experience with tinder. As for me it’s best way to meet beautiful women in Korea and I reccomend everyone to use it! I am master student in Seoul, from Europe and fluent in Korean. I always message them in Korean and they are instantly super interested. And eapecially using super like is great! Always getting a match back and girls always want to meet. Sometimes for hook up sometimes for dating but never to be friends, even they might preted they want friendahip they are still attracted to you, that’s why they came to meet you. It’s even little sad, i don’t feel so interested in going out for hunting in bars or coffee shops anymore, just in tinder
too easy. Seriously learn at least little bit of Korean, it will be a gamw changer! Both tinder and real life hook up. You will be anle to acces all those women who wants but can’t meet foreign guys cause of language barrier.
I’m glad you’re having good luck with Tinder, and there are plenty of guys who do. The reason I’m not a big fan of it is two-fold. First, I just don’t like most of the girls on Tinder. There are definitely some hot girls on there, but the type of girls I tend to like usually don’t even know what Tinder is. If I want bar sluts, which are fine but not my style any more, I can easily pick them up at a bar instead with a much lower barrier to entry. The girls I have met from Tinder don’t really spark my interest, although if you’re just looking for a warm hole then maybe it’s an alright place to go. The second reason I don’t like Tinder is because it’s almost purely looks-based. This is great if you’re a super good looking guy, but I’m not. I’m roughly in the 6 to 7 range of physical looks myself, depending on the tastes of the particular girl, but that’s not going to get me a ton of likes on Tinder. There’s a reason I learned about game, and it was because I wasn’t getting laid by my looks alone… Which is basically what Tinder is all about.
I much prefer other dating apps such as OKC, Skout, and Blendr. Those three are much better in my opinion in terms of finding the girls I want and the biggest bonus is that I can check who’s in the area and send messages directly to the girls I’m interested in without having to wait for them to match with me. In fact, they don’t even have to like me at all! If I open with a good line or something that catches their interest, they don’t even have to find me physically attractive. This makes these apps much better in terms of reaching more girls who fit exactly what you’re looking for.
For example, one time I met a hot girl off Skout by just messaging her, “Hey, long time no see! I’m out in your area tonight, let’s have a beer and catch up!” Despite the fact that I had never met this girl at all, she came out to meet me and ended up back at my place. I doubt I could pull that off on Tinder with a girl I just matched with.
As to learning Korean, I agree that it can help… but I don’t think it’s all that necessary. My Korean is near fluent as well, but as I describe here, it can make things a bit more difficult sometimes. I’m curious what kind of opening lines you use in Korean though, how about you shoot me an email or check out my contact page and we’ll chat about it to see what works for us differently. Cheers!
Checked on your comment just now, great reply! And I completely agree with you, Tinder girls are for sleeping and not for dating, of course their are many different women in tinder, but majority are just like you said not really sparking great interest, especially in their personality. And actually even really intelligent women on tinder has same bad habits like the rest, they like to sleep around with foreign guys and drink too much. Really bad girlfriend material. They will most probably let you down if you expect for them to be a special and role model girl. However as so many guys care just hook up, I guess it’s not such a big of a problem.
Also you are right about good looks importance for tinder, women same like we do care only about the looks in their. It’s repulsive but world is this way. I am also not a model looking guy but what I have is really good pictures (better then I look in real life, but still not too far from reality so they don’t disappoint) and everyone can make good pictures too, no matter how they look. Wear a suit, or jacket, or white shirts, take pictures in a beautiful or fancy locations, with good looking friends. And make sure your main picture is perfect head shot. This will sparks their interest to match you. And if you are experienced at chatting and have cool personality it will be a piece of cake to meet them.
Good to know the other programs works well! Actually I have never tried them. As for an opening line, in case of tinder I recommend to write more than just “Hello”, a guy should look friendly and interesting and also express interest in a girls personality. Start with 안녕하세요, 미국/유럽에서 온 Michael예요. 반가워요. and then add 1 sentence question about her self introduction or her pictures. About the place she traveled, or whatever, actually it doesn’t matter cause if your pictures are good she will reply to whatever 😀
And about real life opening line the best one is “Hello. How are you? or Hello nice to meet you. ” say it in English is a must and give her warm smile when say it. Seriously, this is super simple but it is the best ever in Korea. She expects for you to be a foreigner so be one, actually they get little lost if you open up with Korean, as if they forgot their mother tongue 😀 And after Hello, time to use Korean, to show that you are different from other foreigners. What to say depends on what girl is doing, if you approach her on street, or library, or coffee shop or park or foreign bar. However, general short self introduction (you name and country) and question about a girl should follow.
Actually if you are tall and white it’s enough, they will laugh from whatever stupid thing you say to them. Especially in a foreign bars. And if you can use Korean then you will be like a King. An opening and self introduction should be something friendly and not aggressive. Korean girls are terrible at meeting random guys expect for some special places or events, so making her feel comfortable, approach with friendliness is first priority. If you approach her openly she will usually think you are player guy, that pick up many girls and run away from you. If you approach her with friendliness, she will end up drinking with you and sleeping on a first time met. I don’t know why is it it’s just this way their mind works.
Most Korean girls/boys are unable to speak any meaningful English despite the obsession over the language here. The fact you can speak the lingo. helped you get dates.
Reason most are failing is probably the girl knows she will not be able to say a word, not that most have a word to say anyways.
As for social value, give me a break! Less than 10% of Koreans have any vast social worth .
I’ve noticed that the language barrier isn’t actually that big of a deal since most of them can at least get by in English. Koreans love to travel internationally, and those who do it without a package tour need at least passable English so there’s a rather large group of Koreans who can carry on at least a basic conversation in English. Foreigner Lovers and others who have lived / studied abroad will clearly do better in this department, but I’ve VERY rarely had a conversation completely shut down due to lack of English ability. Most of the time that a girl says “Sorry, no English,” it’s her way of soft-nexting you.
Regarding social value, I feel like we’re coming at this with a different definition of social value. Generally speaking, when I refer to social value I’m talking about the girl’s connections or network that may help you to advance in a particular field or otherwise make you look good. I’m not speaking about entrenched family power or social dynamics of the upper crust here in Korea, I have very little experience with those women and didn’t particularly care for spending time with them.
An example of what I mean by social value: When I was climbing the tree as a musician here in Korea, I dated a girl who was in a K-pop girl group. She was cute, yes, but her social value was more meaningful to me than her looks. I ended up getting a few introductions at a party that led to a contract offer a couple of months later. Another example may be if you’re trying to build a social circle game, as I’ve seen some guys on the forum mention. In that case, the Party Animal will provide you with great social value as she will link you to other people in the field of the ‘see and be seen’s here in Korea.
I’m curious what it is that you mean by social value? You also seem to be quite sour on the girls here, in saying that they don’t have anything to say. I found that to be true a lot of the time, but certainly not all of them. Usually it’s the Tinder girls who have little to say, as they’re only around for a very specific thing, and it isn’t the Hegelian dialectic.
I’ll leave links below where I’ve written about the things I mentioned here.
Sources: Language Barrier – https://www.theseoulplayer.com/game/dealing-with-the-language-barrier
Foreigner Lover – https://www.theseoulplayer.com/types-of-korean-girls/types-of-korean-girls-the-foreigner-lover
Party Animal – https://www.theseoulplayer.com/types-of-korean-girls/types-of-korean-girls-the-party-animal
That’s really thnkinig out of the box. Thanks!
You can tinder in Korea. Just skip over the girls who have the pic combo of them in a cafe, exotic location, in a cutesy pose and or with a non korean.
nice post, tinder isnt what it used to be anywhere in the world these days but it sounds even worse in seoul
definitely not the hook up app it was intended to be anymore
Lol what ever you published there is absolute bull shit. That’s all I can say.
But damn I want to say more. You are probably worst person when it comes to breaking ice , your friends are in the same category . That’s what I think when you wrote all the bull …. Don’t be mad on tinder lol. Just be better at this game.
Can’t play … Get out , And don’t complain about your failure with the app like little kid.
Cheers mate. I wish you good luck and plenty more wisdom.
There are many different kinds of people here in Korea. If you only found horrible people, maybe it is about you. No offense.
Good luck
I agree, there are many different kinds of people in Korea. My point is that on an app like Tinder, you’re much more likely to run across the worse types. In person with day game, or even night game, you have a much better return on time and energy that you spend in finding people who are actually fun to be around.
korean girls dont like being seen in public with foreigners. It lowers their social status. google LBH and korea and you will see why tinder does not attract the cream of the crop girls
Agree or not, I don’t think that has anything to do with Tinder. Cream of the crop girls don’t need Tinder, so why bother using it? Simply using Tinder would hurt their social status more than being seen in public with a foreigner. On top of that, for a 4-7 girl being seen in public with a decent looking foreign man will likely raise her social value.