How to Get a Girlfriend with Connell Barrett - You’re Making a HUGE Mistake on the Apps—Fix It Now! + Steal My Hinge Prompt for More Matches

Episode Date: September 3, 2025

If you struggle on the apps, dating coach and bestselling author Connell Barrett reveals the big mistake that costs you matches and dates—and how to fix it. Plus, Connell shares his best Hinge prompt ever. Then he unveils the 3 must-have prompts every profile needs to FINALLY make online-dating work for you.Highlights of this Episode:01:00: Online Dating is NOT Dating—Here’s What It Is03:01: The Real Reason You Struggle to Get Quality Matches05:18: What Don Draper Knows about the Dating Apps07:42: Connell’s #1 Hinge Prompt—and Why It Works18:47: The 3 Prompts You Need on Your Hinge, Bumble or Tinder ProfileBOOK A FREE CONSULTATION WITH CONNELL TO LEARN ABOUT 1-ON-1 COACHING: http://www.DatingTransformation.comEMAIL CONNELL FOR A FREE COPY OF HIS BESTSELLING BOOK, “DATING SUCKSBUT YOU DON'T”: [e-mail]

Online dating isn't dating. Online dating is just marketing. It's advertising. It's digital marketing. Welcome back to the How to Get a Girlfriend Podcast. I am your host, dating coach, Connell Barrett. I am here to help you flirt with confidence, get more dates, and get a great girlfriend. And do it by being radically authentic.

No sketchy pickup artist. needed. It's about understanding that your most attractive self to women is you when you're being authentic, confident, your true best self. And today I want to give you what just might be my very best hinge prompt ever. I want to share with you my favorite hinge prompt that I think I've ever written. It's working really well for me. And it's working well for my clients who use a variation of it. And I'm going to share that with you in five minutes. First, I want to to, I want to bust a myth for you about what online dating is. A lot of people are under the understandable misapprehension that online dating is dating, but it's not. Online dating isn't

dating. Online dating is just marketing. It's advertising. It's digital marketing. At least up until the moment when you meet that woman in real life and start getting to know each other, then of course it becomes dating. But until then, online dating isn't dating. It's online marketing. It's just digital marketing. And it's important to understand this differentiator because for you to get good online dating results, you have to be a fantastic marketer, an advertiser of sorts because online dating is so competitive. There are roughly two and a half women for every man on the dating apps. That's nationwide on all apps. And depending on the app that you're on, the ratio is even more against men. On Tinder, depending on the city, it can be three, four, sometimes five women

for every man. Even in New York City, where I live, and dated for almost 20 years, in New York City, it's roughly 65% men on Tinder, 30-something% women on Tinder. And New York City has more single women than men. Yet, there's a lot more men on dating apps than women. And of course, most men are swiping on the most datable, desirable, attractive 20 to 25% of the women. So think about this. You've got two or three women for every man on a dating app. And 80% of the men are swiping on the most desirable 25% of women.

No wonder it's really hard to get matches, to get dates with online dating. By the way, this is fixable. I want to help you fix this. Part of why I do this podcast is I want to help you get dates from the dating apps, from approaching and other resources. But I just want to paint a picture for you for the context of why online dating is so difficult. There's just a lot more men on the apps, and women are way more selective. I just saw a stat.

I found this in, I think this is the Pew Research Center. Women are far more selective on the apps than men are. Studies show that women swipe right on between 4 and 15% of the men's profiles they see, while men swipe right on over 50% of the women they see. so there you go that's why it's so difficult and then we add to this online dating problem that you probably have how competitive it is we also add to the mix a profile and prompts in a bio that doesn't know how to market yourself to women then you're struggling then you're struggling and so today i want to talk about how to start to fix that i want you to help you fix your online dating profile

by fixing your marketing and a lot of men don't look at it this way right um they think oh you know what i'll do i'll just jump on the app i'll write a few things down about me about what i'm looking for what i want uh i like long walks on the beach i like the office and i want somebody who's who's fun and it has a good sense of humor well that might be true but you're not marketing very well if your profile says things like that. Because guess what? Everybody likes the office. And instead of telling women what you want, what we want to do is show women what you offer. We want to show women what's in it for them. I like to look at online dating through the lens of great advertising, great marketing. In fact, I'm going to play a clip for you

from one of my favorite TV shows ever, Mad Men, great show, one of my favorite shows ever. Here is none other than Don Draper talking about what advertising is from the pilot episode. Take it away, Don. Advertising is based on one thing. Happiness. And you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It's freedom from fear.

It's a billboard on the side of the road that screams with reassurance that whatever you're doing, it's okay. You are okay. Get it? Advertising is about making people happy. And to Don Draper's point, we can use this idea and ask, you can ask yourself, how can I make women happy? on my profile. How can I write a prompt that makes her smile and laugh? That'll make her happy. How can I paint a picture on my profile of what a really fun first date with me would be like? That will make a woman happy. How can I share something about myself, something specific and

authentic that's attractive but also real that can paint a picture for her of the man I am and that will make her happy to think about being with you or at least meeting you. So we want to approach online dating, a lot like Don Draper approaches advertising. Let's make women happy because if you can make them happy, if you can make her smile, make her laugh, make her feel the romantic feelings. of what a sexy fun date with you would be like in the right wine bar, the cool underground lounge you want to take her to, or the super fun date idea that you'd love to have a first date with a woman, then you'll make women happy and they'll want to swipe right on you.

So how do we do that? Well, today I want to talk about hinge and writing prompts. It's really important to have good prompts on your dating profile. Good photos are actually the most important thing about online dating success, but good photos alone probably aren't enough for you to break through and get the great matches. A woman's definitely going to be intrigued if she likes your overall style appearance, but she probably won't match with you until she reads the prompts or gets a sense of your personality. So here's how I like to do the prompts.

Before I do that, I want to give you what I think might be the very best prompt I've ever written on Hinge. Let me read it to you right now. It goes like this. And by the way, I've also had this on my Bumble and other platforms as well. Here is my Hinge profile. Sorry, my Hinge prompt. That might be the best ever I've ever written. It's so you choose the we'll get along if prompt lead in on Hinge. And then what I did is I wrote, quote, if you like tall, handsome, charming, witty, kind, fun, sexy, financially secure gentlemen who love dogs and kids, dot, dot, dot. Then you should meet my brother. Women love this.

I matched with a woman named Laura. I'm looking right now. She wrote, ha, ha, ha, I love this. A gorgeous, intriguing woman on Bumble Match with me a while back. she wrote me her first line to me was the brother line got me l-o-l is it original she was basically asking me if chat gpt wrote it for me and i wrote back how dare you of course it's original so i'll read it one more time and then we'll break down why this is so good and then i'll tell you how you can apply this prompt or a similar version of it to your profile and i'm also going to

give you three other must prompts that you're going to want to use on Hinge or Bumble or Tinder or whatever dating app that you're on so that you can start authentically marketing yourself to women in a way that makes them happy. And if women are happy reading your profile, they're going to want to match with you. Okay. So I'll read it one more time. We'll get along if. If you like tall, handsome, charming, witty, kind, fun, sexy, financially secure gentlemen who love dogs and kids, then you should be my brother so why does this work well it's doing two things at the same time that make women happy or that make her want to keep reading number one most importantly is it's funny there's a there's a joke at the end there's a twist i'm making women think that i'm about to

that i'm another guy bragging about how great i am but then at the very end i say then you should beat my brother. So it's self-effacing and funny, but it's also giving me the points that I want to get for a woman thinking of me. I want women to think that I'm tall, handsome, charming, witty, kind, fun, and sexy. But if I brag about that on a dating app, I'm going to come off like a dick, like an arrogant jerk. And that's not attractive. So this prompt allows me to get the points of being confident in myself because I'm implying that I'm all these things. But the joke is that it's my brother, my fictional, non-existent brother who fits this category. I have two brothers, but neither of them fit this guy. And most importantly,

the thing that this prompt that you use is it's funny. Makes women laugh. But it also implies I have a lot of confidence in myself. And it's also playful. It's very fun and playful. So there's a effacing nature to it, while also playing up what I bring to the table. Now, back to Mad Men, if you'll let me nerd out for you for a second about one of my favorite TV shows. In Mad Men, in the first season, they talk about a famous Volkswagen Beetle commercial from 1960. Back in 1960, Volkswagen came out with an ad campaign.

And it showed the Volkswagen Beetle, classic compact, curvy little car. And it was just a photo of the beetle, the Volkswagen Bug. And then there was one word under the photo of the car. And the one word was lemon. Very counterintuitive, very self-effacing. And this was a hugely popular ad campaign that, helped Volkswagen sell an insane number of cars, and it had everybody talking in the Madman episode where this advertisement comes up, Don and the whole team are talking about why the ad

does or doesn't work. Bottom line is it got them all talking. Now, why did that Volkswagen ad from, Jesus, 60 years ago, 65 years ago? Yeah, 65 years ago. Why did that work so well? Well, most everybody selling cars back then, we're just bragging about what a glamorous, incredible ride the Cadillac is. Beautiful, glamorous, the best car ever. Volkswagen didn't add where they called their car a lemon. Now, if you actually read the Volkswagen ad, which you can find online, you can Google the ad. The ad itself, they're not calling the car a lemon. They're calling the actual ad copy refers to the incredible detail that Volkswagen technicians put on all of their cars. And if one of them comes out, that's not perfect, they don't sell it. That's the

quote, Lemon they're talking about. So basically, it's a pattern interrupt. It's the fact that the car advertisement is saying, Lemon makes people stop and go, wait, what? And then you read the advertisement and you realize, oh, Volkswagen gets rid of their lemons and they only sell us the best cars. What I'm doing with this hinge prompt is I want to break a woman's pattern. I want her to think that I'm just another guy bragging about himself. But then at the very end, I say, oh, then you should meet my brother. And that makes her laugh and there's a self-effacing playfulness to it, which is exactly what this famous Volkswagen ad does as well. And we want to to use some similar concepts, pattern interruption. We want to give women prompts or bio

details that they're not used to seeing. And that breaks her out of her swiping pattern of yet another guy who's saying, I like the office, I'm looking for this, I like long walks on the beach, all the cliches that women are used to seeing. You struggle with dating, right? Sure, You have a good job and cool friends, but you just aren't sure how to flirt, the apps don't work for you, and sometimes women put you in the friend zone. It's frustrating. Hey, I struggled with dating too. As an introvert and a total nerd, I didn't just live in the friend zone. I owned real estate there. But I escaped using the dating philosophy of radical authenticity, which I've used to help thousands of men in 17 countries find love. It's what I wrote about in my bestselling book, Dating Sucks But You Don't. And radical authenticity is why psychology today called me the best dating coach in America. And now I want to personally help you attract your dream girlfriend. So go to datingtransformation.com and book a free call with me. On our call, I'll tell you how my one-on-one coaching will help you find your dream girlfriend,

and you'll be doing it by flirting with confidence and authenticity. No creepy pickup tricks needed. So go to datingtransformation.com. book a free call today, and let my personalized coaching help you get a great girlfriend. So how can you use this prompt or a variation of it? Now, what I don't recommend is I don't recommend you just copy and paste this exact prompt, exactly, because I was essentially describing myself, which is true. I really do believe that I'm tall, handsome, charming, witty, kind, fun, sexy, financially secure, a gentleman.

and I do love kids and dogs. I really do believe that about myself, but that's me describing me. What I would suggest you do is write out a version of this where you describe yourself in the most aspirational, almost narcissistic way, but make it true. Maybe you're not tall, but yeah, if you're financially secure, if you feel like you're handsome, if you've got big muscles,

if you own three cars, I don't know, put right out a litany of about a 15, 20 word litany of all the things that the best version of you brings to the table. And then at the very end, dot, dot, dot, then just say, then you should meet my brother, right? Okay, so yours could read something like, If you like, if you like well-built, masculine, confident, funny men who are great around the house, incredibly sensitive, financially stable, loves their mom, and volunteers once a month at a home of shelter, dot, dot, dot, then you should be my brother. in other words play up the best version of you at the beginning of the prompt and then use my little

twist at the end and you might be surprised you might be surprised how you're doing two really powerful things at once to get yourself some some good matches you're making a woman laugh and you're also conveying what you bring to the table to her in a way that isn't braggadocious. Bottom line, anything, any kind of good advertising works because it breaks up, it breaks a pattern, cuts through the noise, and it offers something of value to the audience. That's what we're talking about here. Offering something that women value. And that's what makes them happy. And that's how we can get you more dates. And there's also a playfulness as well. the frosting on top here is this is a very playful prompt you're letting a woman know oh my god

this guy's fun he's got a good sense of humor he's playful we may or may not fall in love and have babies but all right i'll meet this guy for a drink i'll meet this guy for a first date and that's all it that's all it can take with some women that's all they need to go on a date with you and so yeah play around with this idea of this prompt okay now let me segue from that to talk about the three prompts that you want on your profile. Again, think of your profile on Hinge or any app as a piece of digital marketing. What should your, there's three, you get to write three written prompts on Hinge and also Bumble as well and Tinder, I believe it's three.

But we're talking Hinge today. So what should your three prompts be? Well, they should all offer value, right? They should create happiness, as Don Draper told us, many years ago. And how do we do that? Well, I like these three prompts. I'm not going to write the exact prompts for you, but I'll show you what I do. One prompt should make her smile or make her laugh, which is what the You Should Meet

My Brother prompt does. One prompt to simply make a woman giggle and laugh. If you can make a woman smile, make her laugh, then you've got her. or at least you've gotten a great chance to have a date with her and get a match and have a date with her because humor is is it's not just people like humor of course it makes them happy but one of the reasons women don't match with a guy is because they don't feel like they'll have fun with him on a date or they fear the date might be awkward or boring women have had a lot of awkward boring dates and they hate them like the plague and so a funny

prompt lets her know, all right, we may or may not get married. But we're going to have a good time. He'll be fun and funny. So that's the importance of a humorous prompt. So make sure one of your prompts is funny. And this one certainly fits the bill. The second kind of prompt you want on your hinge profile is you want to paint a vivid specific picture of what a first date with you would be like. And it should be enticing. It should be maybe sexy. and romantic or maybe just fun and it should be it should paint a specific picture so here's the one that i've used often that got me many dates many matches and a lot of dates my first date prompt was together we could go to my favorite secret rooftop bar for strong cocktails and great

flirty conversation. That's simple. So many women matched with me. And so many women asked me, hey, Connell, so where is this secret rooftop bar? Something about the word secret created that spice, that little pattern interrupt. Ooh, wait, what do you mean secret rooftop bar? But what really made the prompt work was I didn't write, hey, let's go out and see if we hit it off. That doesn't make a woman excited or get her enthusiastic about you because it's too vague, but if you paint a picture, think about the specificity here, rooftop bar, cocktails, flirty conversation. We're painting some images that, again, make women happy. So you want one prompt that sets some kind of scene for what a first date with you would be like.

so it could be rooftop drinks. It could be together we can go to my favorite underground speak-easy for, you know, old-fashioned cocktails and listen to jazz music. It could be, you want to make sure you sell, like a good advertiser, you sell a fun first date. And the key is to make it specific and enticing. So what's not specific is we can hang out and meet up and see if we get along. No, that doesn't do the trick.

What is specific is rooftop bar or speak easy or it doesn't have to be super luxurious. It can be together we can go out and find the best cheesecake in the city and have have cappuccinos that prove there is a god i don't know something to paint a picture that would make a woman go that sounds good i want to have i want to have cheesecake i want to have dessert with a guy so you want to paint a good it can it can be sexy and romantic it can also just be fun i've had pretty good success with other first date prompts like like hey let's go to uh let's go play ping pong at uh there's a bar in new york city called spin that's like a fun ping pong slash bar let's go uh let's go play ping pong and if it becomes beer pong you know loser buys the next round so you could just paint a

picture of a fun first date and that's what your second prompt should be because we're putting bait we're putting bait on the hook letting you know women know hey here's what's in it for you here's what's in it for you if we end up going on a date. That doesn't mean you have to do the date when you meet her that you advertise on your profile or just doing this to get her attention. But you certainly can do the first thing or the thing that your prompt says. And the third prompt you want to have on your profile is you want to have, make sure you have one prompt that shares one specific, attractive, authentic detail about you. What is something you want women to know? What's something specific, but that's about you? What are you passionate about? What do you love to do more than

anything else? Do you love your jujitsu course? Do you love your motorcycle? What lights you up more than anything? I have a former client, Brian, who he's a big motorcycle guy. He loves motorcycles, he loves punk rock music. And he wrote a prompt. It's like, nothing makes me happier than getting on my Harley, driving, you know, riding down to my favorite bar, dive bar, and listen into some, you know, effing great punk rock. That conveys who Brian is. He's a punk rock dude. He's got dyed hair. He rides a motorcycle. He's a teacher when he's not doing that, and he's really painting a picture of who he is. So you want to have one prompt that says something about who you are.

What do you want women to know about you? What makes you special? And you want to get very specific here. It doesn't have to be broad. We want to avoid broad, vague terms. Like, I'm a great person with a big heart. I know you are. But that communicating that is not good advertising.

It's a little bit too general, too generic. We want to get super specific. So, for example, the profile of mine that got my now girlfriend, Jess, to match with me, it simply said, I'm a dating coach for men. I'm like the real-life hitch. A date with me is like co-starring in the movie hitch. That's very specific. It broke the pattern of what Jess was used to seeing on dating platforms.

She wasn't used to seeing a dating coach. I'm seeing a guy advertise himself that way. And the bottom line is she said, oh, I just thought it'd be fun to have a date with a dating coach. Just a fun change of pace for her. That's all it took. And now we are a couple, and I'm the luckiest guy in the world that she's my girlfriend. And all it started with was I said to myself,

all right, what do I want women on the dating apps to know? Yeah, I'm a real life dating coach. It's different. It's true. It's authentic. And it's something that makes a little. woman go, well, that's different, but also attractive. So think what makes you different, but also attractive, specific hobbies, quirks, anything that

makes you you. And it's really important that this third prompt, or that one of the three prompts, conveys something about you that you want women to know, because the bottom line is, if you just talk about what you want, then you sound like every other guy. Or if you just quote your favorite TV show or why you like The Office, you sound like so many other guys. But there's only one Brian who rides as Harley Davidson down to the local dive bar and just bangs his head, so to speak, listen into punk metal. Okay? There's only one real life dating coach hitch on the apps, or at least there was when I met my girlfriend.

And so you want to ask yourself, what makes you special? Something specific. Are you into reading? Are you into writing? I have a client who's written two books. He's written two books. So he mentions that on his profile. That's freaking awesome.

I have a client who loves doing extreme sports. Another client does, I think they're called Super Marathons. where you run like back-to-back marathons, like 50 miles in one day, I think, something insane like that. My body could never do that. But yeah, we want to play that up. So what's something unique about you, but also in an attractive way, or just in a way that will spark some curiosity in women and make her go, wait, tell me more.

I want to know more. I have another former client also named Brian, different guy, who once hosted a UFC. fight on his property. Somehow he hosted an actual UFC fight or some kind of preliminary fight. He put that on his profile. That is very different. So make sure that one of your prompts has something specific and unique about you. So again, recap here.

Remember, your profile, if you're struggling on the dating apps, it's not you. It's not that you're not enough. it's not that you suck, it's that your profile sucks. And it's not even that it sucks. It's just that you're not advertising yourself in an effective enough way to break through the noise of online dating, this very competitive marketplace to get women noticing you. And that's what this is about.

My book was called dating sucks, but you don't. And it came from a conversation I had with a client years ago. And I said, dude, you don't suck. You're awesome. He was all down on himself because he just didn't get matches. He was like, yeah, women don't like me. I'm too short.

I'm too shy. I'm just not what women want. And I said, his name is Ken. I said, Ken, you don't suck. Your profile sucks. Your advertising sucks. But you're awesome.

We just have to fix your marketing, fix your advertising. And that's what's going to get you matches and dates. And I want you to take this to heart as well. Dear listener, know that you are more than enough. I don't know you personally, sir, but I do know men and I know that you have so much to bring to the table. You have a quirky, specific you sense of humor. You have things about you that make you literally one and eight billion. There's nobody else like you in the world.

And to get those matches and to get the kind of girlfriend you want, we just need to show women a little glimpse into what makes you so special, so unique, and do it in a way that makes them. happy, as Don Draper would say. So test out my, you should meet my brother, hinge prompt. I think you might enjoy it. It might work for you. But just make it your own. Make it authentic. Make that first part you. And also, don't forget those two other prompts you need. You need one funny one, which I think the brother one counts. You also need paint that picture of what a first date with you would be like, be specific and enticing with it. Put that base. on the hook and also make sure you share one specific thing about you that makes you special because there's so many things about you that make you special but for a woman to know it first

you have to know it and you have to convey it so go out there make women happy make them swipe right on you anyway thank you so much for listening and until next time don't forget your dream girlfriend she is out there and she's going to love you she's just just going to meet the real authentic you till next time