People love apps. People
love love. People love distractions. People love immediate gratification.
People love what’s next. People love getting a glimpse into the lives of others.
People love attention and validation. People love hooking up. People love
getting over other people quickly. People love stories. People love beauty.
People love originality. People love to laugh. People love cleverness. People love to swipe.
For those fortunate enough
to not know what Tinder is or had this app play a role in your life, it
essentially let’s people in your area swipe left if they don’t like what they
see or swipe right if they do. If you both swipe right, let the messaging
begin. Since moving back to Canada in April 2014, I’ve dabbled here and there.
These are my thoughts.
We live in a crazy,
amazing, messed up world so Tinder fits right in. It’s absolutely a good way to
kill some time, share stories with friends and the possibility of meeting cool
people or more. I would say I have met just under 10 people and I never met up
with anyone a second time. I’ve never even held a match’s hand! The most
memorable Tinder quote I have was when I met up for lunch with a girl shortly after coming back from living
in Thailand (which by the way, I miss tremendously daily) and after 20 minutes
or so, she says to me “You are very uncooperative.”. She really saw to my core
that day my friends. She ended the date by saying “Do you not meet very many
new people?” My response should have been “I actually meet tons of new people
and have the best friends I could ask for so that’s how I know you won’t be one
of them” but I’m not quick witted so it ended there. Another lady told me she
could tell the second we met that I wasn’t interested. People are quite
perceptive and I’m also terrible at pretending. And as a card in Cards Against
Humanity says, Pretending to Care goes a long way.
Being a guy on Tinder is a
different world that being any woman on Tinder and especially if that women is
above average looking. I could easily have a swipe session and not get any matches.
A female doing the same could easily rack up over a 100. So if your confidence
is low and could use a little boost, a short time on Tinder might turn that
around until guys start messaging you what I can only imagine are quite sexual
and borderline offensive things. If your first message is Hi, you are dead in
the water. If you are a guy, you need to find something interesting about that
person or a clever joke. My favourite that I’ve used is “I’m 94% sure this is
how my grandparents met. How did yours meet?” Gold. However, if you are a lady,
you don’t need to worry about messaging first. He’ll message. They always do.
Other Tinder phenomena include putting your height in your profile; having 5 other people on your profile picture which makes swiping a total guessing game; guys writing "no hookups" which I find quite bold; collecting matches but not messaging or replying; being Polish and there are apparently only 4 names for women here; emojis are almost always welcome when used appropriately/inappropriately; Tinder used to be completely free but now you only get a certain amount of swipes but for over $20 a month, you can swipe forever and from different locations; there are books and dating coaches that can help people get more matches and "win" Tinder; I'd say I have lost at Tinder no doubt.
Overall, while swiping is
fun and even people in relationships usually want to swipe a few pictures just
to see what all of the hype is about, I generally feel that Tinder doesn’t make
my life any better and usually just makes me feel slightly less good
looking/fun. I’m not sure how much better looking/rich I need to appear in my
profile but I feel like there are a lot of monkeys walking around in Warsaw
with good looking girls and I have made zero friends outside of work. I have
some work to do in that department that doesn’t involve an app but I might just take my
grandparent pickup line with me.
“Two things you will never have to chase: True friends &
true love.”
There were tons of other
Tinder related pictures I wanted to post but things get dirty quite quickly. If
you are interested, just google Chive Tinder and get ready to be horrified.
Mom, you don’t need to Google anything. Church might be the right answer. For
both of us.
