How to start a conversation on a dating app is one of the greatest millennial struggles.

Pick-up lines rarely go down well as the object of your affections will inevitably presume you’ve used the same one on every match, but “Hi, how are you?” is just boring.

One young man, however, has discovered a way to open conversation with his Tinder matches that guarantees a reply.

This is what he does:

Quite clearly the Shakespeare of the Millennial generation, Joe Bagel creates acrostic poems of his matches’ names.

Bagel had realised that “having a bad first message is often the epistolary iceberg that sinks your romantic Titanic”, so set out to up his opening line game.

And it worked. He now receives an “overwhelming number of responses”.

In a post on Medium, Bagel explains how creating name poems has given him a 100% response rate.

The reason the technique is so much more effective than, say, a pick-up line, is it’s personal and makes your match feel special.

Some women even joined in, responding with a poem of their own.

Although the acrostics guaranteed replies, unfortunately they weren’t always positive.

You might think creating such poetic masterpieces would take hours, but apparently it doesn't: "Most only take 5-10 minutes, but the longest probably took 30 minutes," Bagel told The Independent. "Suffice it to say, I was v smitten," he added.

Perhaps for women who’ve captured Bagel’s heart more than others, he occasionally creates more elaborate, longer-form poems.

Whether the technique works just as well when used to start conversations with men is unknown.

A recent study found that whilst women respond best to food-related opening questions (such as “Better discovery: Netflix or avocados?”), men prefer bold openers like “Drinks soon?”, and are 98 per cent more likely than women to respond to such lines.

Of course, lots of people will start a conversation based on something interesting in their match’s profile, but the chances are they’ll have been asked the same thing over and over again, so being original is crucial.

Maybe acrostic poems are the answer. Although there’s every chance your match will now respond asking whether you nicked that idea from Joe Bagel...