For any human female, encountering a human male on a dating site is akin to that bit in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) when Sherif Ali ibn el Kharish (Omar Sharif) appears out of a mirage and the other two are sort of standing there like, “WTF, bro?!” This bit.

https://youtu.be/t6oFOc4COS8

It’s a mixture of trepidation, terror, and a world-weary sense of dismal conversational acceptance. The inevitability of… one to two word texted responses.

Is this all there is to your dating life now, ladies?! Well, let’s explore the topic.

The Dreaded Realm of Men Trying to Make Conversation on Dating Apps

Dear agony aunt. My name is Zarah. I am 24 years old and I live in London. I've been dating a lot this year after my boyfriend dumped me in 2022 for undisclosed reasons.

Now I'm back on Tinder but this brings with it a bane of every woman's very existence...

Men who just type one word responses.

Generally, 99% of convos on this app go like this:

bozzer89: hey
Me: Hi there xx
bozzer89: hru
Me: Huh?
bozzer89: hru
Me: What do you mean?
bozzer89: how r u
Me: Yeah, fine thanks
bozzer89: good
Me: Okay, glad you think so
bozzer89: yh

[30 minute gap at the end of which he realises the "yh" requires at least a smidgen more effort on his part if he wants my number.]

bozzer89: we're u from
Me: London. It says it there on my profile, Bozzer
bozzer89: london is big babe 😂😂😂😂😂😂
Me: Indeed it is. So what you really meant was, "Where are you from in London?"
bozzer89: drop the attitude
Me: All you had to do was spend 20 seconds more typing time to be clear in your messaging
bozzer89: lol ok 😂😂😂😂😂
Me: I'm glad you agree
bozzer89: yh

[Another 30 minute gap at the end of which he realises he still may need to put a tad more effort into this conversation.]

bozzer89: u got snap
Me: No, I don't use that
bozzer89: wot socials u got
Me: This app is just fine for now, thank you
bozzer89: give me ur number babe
Me: Well, maybe in a bit. I'm happy here for now we've not chatted long
bozzer89: why not
Me: For the reasons I outlined above
bozzer89: ok
bozzer89: give me ur no babe

[Several days pass as he attempts to woo other women, before giving up and trying his luck with me again.]

bozzer89: babe
bozzer89: u there
bozzer89: babe
bozzer89: babe?
bozzer89: u got snap
bozzer89: wuu2
bozzer89: send me nudes

[And at this point I block him to deal with the small army of other men messaging me in exactly the same way.]

I'm not expecting Prince Charming to turn up and sweep me off my feet, but it would be nice to meet a man on these apps who can cobble some semblance of interesting conversation together.

What's your advice, please? How can I spark some thrilling chat from these types? Or do I just have to accept my lot and marry a man who can barely communicate beyond grunts and text talk? Yours, Zarah

Hi there, Zarah! Sadly, this is a common complaint from human females directed towards human males.

Check out the article What I’ve learned about men from countless hours on Tinder:

“So many men on Tinder will bemoan becoming pen pals, say they don’t want their time wasted and just want to meet already, but will also think that their saying ‘Hey’ and asking you how your Sunday was, the end, should be enough conversation for you to invest $50 and two hours getting ready and traveling to a bar to see if they’re worth your night out.”

As you can see, it’s a global problem. At least with geezers in the west.

The only possible solution we can think of is for you, and your fellow human female dating app users, to form an alliance. Let’s call it the Alliance Against Entitled Man Babies Who Can Only Type One Word a Message on Dating Apps (AAEMBWCOTOWMDA). This organisation can have multiple goals:

• Block and report to the app’s admin all guys who type one word per message.
• Report all guys who use “babe”.
• Block and report any guy who just open with “hey”.

Ultimately, this will lead to 99% of the app’s male registered presence being banned. This would leave about 135 men on the app who can form coherent sentences based on interesting conversational points.

In turn, this may induce a “feeding frenzy” from the women in the aftermath.

A pitched battle in the desperate attempt of tens of thousands of registered human female Tinder users to secure one of the 135 for their familial goals.

At this point it’d be highly advisable to close down AAEMBWCOTOWMDA as your community spirit will come to an abrupt end when you’re battling for a date with Jeff (31) who looks a bit like Brad Pitt after you’ve had half a bottle of wine and likes reading Sherlock Holmes books.

When it’s you, Jennifer, Jenny, Charlotte, Emma, Ella, Alice, Amelia, Anna, Olivia, Maya, Grace, Layla, Chloe, and 1,000s of others battling it out for a date with the guy your feminist spirit will dwindle rapidly.

Chances are a fist or two may be clenched or thrown to get at this bloke.

Best of luck with all that, Zarah, do let us know how your plans to obliterate the one-worders goes.