Author: Mark Bittlestone
Move over Tinder, kids these days are sliiiiiiding on in.
This week’s blog is gonna tell you how to (and how not to) do it in style. A reminder that this is a gay blog for gay needs (and, indeed, gay knees) so hang up the phone right now if you’re straight babes. Here are my top five tips…
1) The emoji one.
The weakest of the lot to be honest. A lazy 
or 
emoji is hardly likely to inspire a Shakespearean sonnet of love in response. I am guilty of this myself and it’s pathetic. It’s a cop out. It’s the equivalent to building up the courage to talk to a guy in a club and then just… walking past him and assuming he’ll catch your eye and be like “I love you” (to be fair I do this a lot, so the joke is on me).
2) The obvious one.
This is slightly better than 1, but not by much. I am guilty of this one (today’s theme: I’ve done them all). A boy was selling tickets to a gig in his story and I replied saying “I’d be keen to buy them” to spark a conversation. We had a short, transactional chat and then about an hour later I said “actually sorry I can’t go any more” to which he replied “ were you just looking for an excuse to talk to me?”. BUSTEDDDD. That said, I did actually end up dating my first boyfriend with this exact technique, so there’s 50% success rate I guess.
3) The honest one.
This is my preference. Whatever is on your mind just say it when you slide in. Pick between “Hey I think you’re hot”, “can I take you for a drink?” and “please may we get married?”.
4) The private profile one.
To be honest, if you’re gonna slide into someone’s DMs with a private profile it’s probably not worth it. All they have to go on is a thumbnail of your face, and even then your profile pic might be from afar or have mates in it etc etc (these are both big no no’s btw but that’s for a separate blog). I have, much to my embarrassment, occasionally followed someone just to “see if they were fit” and then unfollowed them seconds later 
. Je suis un “terrible person”.
5) The desperate one.
I’ve both done this and received it (can say that about a few things though wheyyyy). There are a few guys I fancy whose inbox I’ve slid into on a few occasions with no reply and it’s both hilarious and tragic at the same time because you can see techniques 1-3 in action BUT WITH NO REPLY 
. So the first one is like “” then it’s “oh I know a good barber’s near there” and finally it’s “hey I think you’re super hot wanna go for a drink sometime”.
Basically, what we now know – what we’ve learned from this is – literally do not follow my advice when it comes to sliding into someone’s DM’s. Hope this helps.
Mark Bittlestone is a stand-up comedian. He is also very gay man. Just a very gay man, doing a lot of straight-up gay stuff.
He’s on social media too! Follow Mark on Instagram here and check some of his latest videos below: