I have been in a long-term, long-distance, and extremely committed relationship for almost two-years now. When I came to Notre Dame, I had never heard of Tinder, but as time wore on, I became curious as my friends spoke of their experiences with the app. Phrases such as “swipe right” and “swipe left”’ were unfamiliar to me, so I decided to check it out.
For those of you who don’t know what Tinder is, Tinder is an app that serves as a dating website based off your location. It also links with your Facebook but only to show mutual “likes” and friends between you and your potential date! You can also customize your preferences so that you’re only matched with a certain age group or with people in a certain radius of your location. You are given a series of pictures that you either “swipe right” or “like” the individual or “swipe left” or turn down the individual.
I created my account, set my preferences so that way creepy older guys cannot try and match me, and away I swiped. Left, right, matches. It was pretty crazy and to be quite honest, I was not impressed.
Some of the pictures that I saw on Tinder were hilarious. There were some guys who photoshopped their pictures to those with celebrities, guys with tons of girls around them, and a lot of shirtless mirror selfies (is that really still a thing in college?). All but one of the guys that messaged me were looking for a bootycall, and I was very surprised as to how direct and forward the guys could be with their intentions.
Don’t get me wrong, I am in no means a prude or a saint, and I do not think that sexuality, especially in college, is such a bad thing. I was just surprised that guys would think that a girl would be into a guy that was so forward with his intentions. Isn’t this a dating site? Shouldn’t a majority of individuals be interested in the “dating” or “getting to know” aspect of the app? There was only one guy that I talked to that I could tell genuinely wanted to get to know me, and this is an individual that I would greatly like to be good friends with. The superficiality of the website was a big turnoff for me.
So, what’s wrong with Tinder?
Well, if you’re a girl just looking for a hookup, then nothing. However, Tinder kind of sucks in terms of its so-called purpose of a dating application. It’s pretty shallow; you like a person based off of their pictures.
What about it’s ability to join interests on Facebook? Turns out, they don’t really ever match up and when they do it’s more “do I really care if this person also like Buddy the Elf on Facebook?”
Dating should be about meeting someone with mutual interests, not about picking people based off of the sexiness of their Tinder pictures. As a girl that has been used to being romanced and treated like a princess for two years, I think it isn’t too much to expect some initial class and decorum from a man. Flirt, talk a little, and then meet up and decide if you want to hookup from there.
But be safe, girls! You want to have some sort of an idea about the guy’s sexual history in order to determine if that is a route that you want to take. If not, don’t feel like you have to hookup with a guy to make him date you! You’re beautiful just the way you are, and you don’t need an app to tell you that.
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