Last year, I wrote an article about JSwipe and became the “JSwipe girl” in many circles. I am not particularly proud of that fact.
My experience on JSwipe was less than stellar and I left the app wondering what every Jewish mother in the tri-state area did wrong. I am quite aware that my own mother made me into a crazy person, but the men of JSwipe were a breed like no other.
After being harassed with matzah ball puns, I said that Lizzie and dating apps were not a great fit. So of course six months later I am doing it again, except this time I am doing it on a much grander scale.
I can give you a small sneak peek of what the results were: really effing horrible.
This is my friends telling me to not do this:
This is me completely ignoring them and doing it anyway because I am a rebel™ (yes, I put the ™ there just to prove how pathetically unrebellious I am. Please tell me I’m funny in the comments, I need it):
Tinder
A fun fact about me is that for the last year, I have been banned from Tinder. I thought it was funny to message the men of the Columbia community with one message and one message only: “You got memes?”
Tinder did not think it was funny. They thought instead that I was a bot. How dare they, I am a troll but in no way am I a bot. Maybe my mom was right when she said I had no personality.
As a result, I spent all of last year off Tinder, and I was THRIVING.
However, due to unforeseen circumstances, I was magically unbanned from Tinder two weeks before I decided to do this social experiment. So I swiped right into the most swiped app on the market right now.
After logging onto Tinder, I understood why people enjoyed it. You didn’t read any of the bad details on the first picture, so you could play it like a game. Not going to lie, for the first hour or so Tinder was phenomenal. The bios were either hilarious or cringeworthy, but it didn’t matter because I was laughing either way.
But then the messages started coming in, and I think my childhood officially ended in those moments. The men of Tinder are a disgusting bunch, friends. I was too caught up on swiping on every single person in my poli sci lecture to remember that Tinder was a hookup app more than anything else. And thus, the men on it would want to hook up. And they would ask in very crude ways.
I have a fun little tip: if your first message is “DTF?”, you will be unmatched. Immediately. If you decide to use a more illustrative description, unsurprisingly, you will also be unmatched. Even quicker than immediately if that is humanly possible.
Honestly, the best part of Tinder was matching with every single person I knew. Every guy from your middle school is on Tinder, apparently, and they will ask you the same three questions about your life. Yes, still have the same two friends. Yes, I’m enjoying college. No, I was never into you.
Overall, Tinder was an experience that I tried. No further explanation necessary.
Bumble
Surprisingly, the men I met on Bumble were the most normal, so that was a win. Most actually began conversations before they began propositioning you. Crazy, I know.
But I had a lot less fun on Bumble than I did on Tinder. Bumble breaks down gender stereotypes and forces the girl to message the guy first. I HATE messaging first unless I know the person. I am so horrible at thinking of something witty to say and everything I message just isn’t funny, period.
What Bumble taught me was that the ingrained sexist belief that the man needs to message first is something that has been drilled into me. Coming off the experience, I think I might be able to forgive some of the awkward or weird messages dudes sent me on Tinder. Well, I don’t, but there are probably a bunch of dudes who probably think I’m a psychopath now.
What I actually liked most about Bumble is how you could limit who is coming up on your feed. Unlike Tinder that requires you to have a pretty sizable age range, you could whittle Bumble down to just a single year and request only other college students. It made swiping a lot easier because those were things that I did not have to think about while gloriously swiping away.
I’m a bit intrigued to find out what Bumble BFF or Bumble Bizz are because I am really interested to find the clientele who are looking for friends or business partners on a hookup app. I worry for any of those businesses moving forwards.
All in all, Bumble was fine and the people there appear more interested in actually going on dates or being in relationships, so if you’re looking for that, then Bumble might be your gal.
Hinge
Hinge is the responsible friend who tells you from the beginning that you are making major mistakes in your life. As the irresponsible friend who is the person to be told, “Lizzie, no” every time I do anything, I should have known from the start that maybe I shouldn’t have even tried to be on Hinge.
Hinge is a dating app that forces you to answer questions about your life and like and comment on individual parts of a person’s profile. So you’re forced to admit why you find them attractive, and start a conversation.
That being said, if someone really wants to begin a relationship, Hinge is the way to go. If you’re trying to write a Her Campus article laughing about your horrible experiences on dating apps, Hinge might just not be for you. Hinge is flat out not a “fun” dating app. And if you are an actual adult, that is amazing.
My one issue with Hinge was how serious the people on it were. Out of any of the apps, I had the most real conversations and didn’t feel objectified once, but the people there were looking to get cuffed immediately.
It felt like some of the dudes I spoke to were looking to get engaged that night, and it felt like a lot for me since Hinge is an app.
All in all, Hinge was the superior app, but it just wasn’t for me. Maybe dating apps just aren’t for me? Why didn’t I learn this last time?
JSwipe (again)
Due to popular demand, I rejoined JSwipe.
Let me tell you that the moment I opened the app there were war flashbacks. After 18 days of inactivity, all your matches and messages go away, so it looked like a clean slate, but it wasn’t.
Apparently you can take the girl out of JSwipe, but the nasty boys remain. Once again, I received five messages about circumcision (still very confused on who told all five Bens that was something normal people say).
To the men of JSwipe, please screen your messages through someone else… or read them out loud. In elementary school, we were always told to read our assignments out loud to head whether they make sense. Maybe if you read some of the things you type, you would save me from the secondhand embarrassment.
If you are a single Jewish girl in the area, try Bumble or Hinge instead of JSwipe. They have the buttons that can limit the guys you see to only Jewish guys. The crop is a lot more normal.
I think what truly makes JSwipe the worst is that you know a large percentage of the people on the app or know of them, so when they send you messages like that, you just get disappointed.
The message of this article is that dating apps have failed me. The end.