Spring semester of my freshmen year of college I was doing what I expected of myself–focusing on getting my huge pile of assignments completed and trying to keep up a minor social life to satisfy this Grade-A introvert. I was not concerned with finding a guy to call my boyfriend or to get a late night hook up for fun. Why you may ask? Well simply put…
1. Even though relationships sound lovely, as a then 19 year old starting one was daunting and would feel suffocating and assuming it of course would end because marriage is not in the near future so like… let’s just not, k?
2. As an art major, assignments and projects literally take up my entire life so I could not focus on my studies, myself, and the feelings of another human (it is like having a pet, but they can talk).
3. And lastly because #artistlyfe, my ideal boy toy needs an artsy aesthetic and the supply of those in the surrounding area was slim to none
The task would be very hard regardless of the 3 points above because of my utter lack of any social skills with the opposite sex. Plus I already had a committed relationship with YouTube and Netflix. But on some random late night in my dorm room while working on an assignment I did something that I would never have imagined of doing.
I downloaded Tinder.
Dun, DUn, DUNNNNNNN!!!
Dating sites were a no-man’s land in my mind where cat fishing and booty calls were the only inevitable conclusions. However, my roommate and friend were having too much fun laughing at profiles and seeing who they knew on the app so I, as a nosy and curious intellectual, wanted to try out an experiment.
How would a shy and naive girl manage Tinder? Would I get any scandalous messages? How would I respond? Would I even get matches, or would my intentions for this site bleed through and no one would take me seriously?
I unintentionally made this into a science experiment and thus created my account after getting countless validations from my roommate that Facebook wouldn’t notify my friends of my recent shameful voyage into the land of swipes.
Why did I find this simple joining of Tinder as shameful? Well, I had a lot of misconceptions about it. I saw it as a hook up site and that just is not my cup of tea. Plus the word Tinder is equally as bad as the word moist in my mind– like, gross. I had never been a girl to strongly desire a relationship or knew how to flirt so it wasn’t- forgive the pun- a match in my eyes. I was not sure if my perception of dating apps would change through this experiment, but it was my hope that I would understand it more.
So here were the guidelines for my experiment:
1. TELL NO ONE because I had been very adamant on my confusion and disgust of dating apps. I had this notion that if people knew they would see look down on me…which, looking back, I know is very vain and ignorant to put a tag on someone just for being on a dating site. So the only people who knew at first were my roommate and three friends.
2. Keep the app downloaded for a whole week.
3. Swipe right on people I would genuinely be interested in based on pictures and bios.
4. Throw in a few wild cards that are so not my type for excitement.
5. Do NOT swipe right on anyone I know or that attends my school, because if we match that would be super awk considering I would never want to hang out in the first place.
6. Stay true to myself–meaning no ‘hanky-panky’ messages missy!
7. Use the app at least 3 times a day
8. Do NOT actually meet someone
I portrayed myself on Tinder how I do on all of my social media sites- loving ice cream way too much and using my most adorable selfies as my photos. The most scandalous thing I got that week was someone from USC asking “Would you have sex with me?” as his first liner, and due to the lack of creativity I instantly unmatched. I got a decent number of matches, but a very small amount messaged me and decided to keep up a conversation. I guess my persona wasn’t slide into DM’s worthy for most, but honestly not offended. All in all I wasn’t impressed with it in terms of randomly meeting guys from random places. I will admit it was highly addicting to go on to when bored to swipe, but there are really not a lot of cute guys in the Rock Hill and surrounding areas so it got boring quick.
But alas I made mistakes, I was swayed by the new online world and some of my guidelines flew to the wind. For whatever reason I ended up swiping right on some guys that went to my school and we matched. Either my thumb was going too fast to notice what school they went to or I said, “To hell with it”. And one guy actually messaged me and seemed decent, which I thought was entirely impossible to find on Tinder. *Que Beck’s song “WOW”*
So being a girl who is not used to attention and is not a people person I got to thinking about the pros to this app. On any other given day I would have never had the reason to start up conversation with this guy, I would have probably never met him or any guy unless we had a class together and he started to talk to me (this girl does not start conversations).
So for a shy introverted girl who physically can’t just meet someone at a party or in the student life center this app could be very convenient to me and others to meet people that are literally in the same vicinity as us. What an epiphany?
Before going further I needed to think over a few things about this one match.
Am I interested in becoming interested?
Hm, that is a tough one. I mean, who wouldn’t mind nothing turning into something? But hello, I have no street smarts in this area. It wasn’t until this summer I realized Netflix and Chill was code for casual sex! I know literally nothing about the relationship world!!! So I decided that if I am going to continue this it will be primarily friendship basis.
We are bound to run into each other since we attend the same small university so, what then?
Don’t talk to him, obviously, because #awkward4lyfe lol no lie. Nothing like a great first liner “Hey I’m Maggie, the friend you made on Tinder. How are you?”
This next part I will fully admit to being a typical girl about (which I hate being, but I have a vagina and boobs so I give in sometimes).
I had to think of all of the potentialities of the experiment, including what would happen if growth of interest occurred. So typically I like continuation of things. If some crazy star collision in the sky occurs and that event graces me with attention from someone of the opposite sex I’m not going to let that go easily because of the rarity of that event. So when a decent guy comes around I latch, but in typical shy girl fashion. To try to come across not crazy I try super hard to not seem latched. This balance is really hard to maintain and honestly I probably try so hard to not seem latched that I end up seeming uninterested– which is counterproductive. I’m embarrassed at how much I analyze things that I say I do not care about, but hey that is why I’m sharing this. To expose myself.
A chain of events thus occurred from matching with this guy. I did not want to be rude and ghost him once my week long experiment was over because I have morals, duh. So I broke another rule, I kept the app for more than a week.
So after the initial test week ended, tinder guy and I occasionally messaged and out of my attempt to show interest I tried to start up some of the conversations. Sometimes it would be a longer time before a response was given, but since I was trying to be realistic I was mainly just looking to be friends with this guy. Plus, the idea of meeting for a date if one would ever come up in conversation would give me shy girl anxiety and I wasn’t going to put myself through that.
It was about two week when we transferred communication over to Snapchat. I still kept my Tinder account because it had become another app I could go to for bored refuge.
Side note: I did meet another guy on Tinder from my school and we also started to use snapchat some, but I ended up ghosting him after a while because… well I really can’t think of a specific reason besides my weird feeling in my stomach talking (not “talking” talking, but still) to two guys I met on Tinder at once. Then at the end of the year my roommate ended up seeing him back on tinder with “420 Let’s get lit” in his bio so that made me feel some what savvy in the Tinder department letting that boy disappear..
My activity on Tinder slowly died down, less matches occurred and one nice, but still unneeded booty call from someone in Charlotte, NC led to me deleting the app. My experiment did not go as expected, rules were broken, objectives changed, and it is still ongoing.
So sometime at the end of the semester and the beginning of summer I decided to accept that this guy might have interests in becoming interested in me. It took me forever to see this because my reading people skills are lacking.. But I had to take a step back in my mind because if he really did have interest this girl would be in some type of new trouble because
HOW DO YOU DO FEELINGS?
Feelings for me are like the wind- and not in the A Walk To Remember type of way. You can’t see them, but when you least expect them they come storming in on you wearing a flowy dress with your hands full of books and BOOM you are flashing everyone around you and you don’t know how to stop them without having everything else fall to the ground. I can’t tell you where they come from or where they are going because they are invisible and smells are always changing from spring flowers to someone’s pizza burps. How does everyone else deal with them and manage healthy relationships through them?
I feel like I am going too much into detail of my shambled outlook on emotions, so I will start the conclusion.
Tinder guy and I did manage to hang out a few times despite me being the queen of awkward and “how does hanging out with a guy thing work” girl, but since have parted ways.
I took some time after to think about myself and if I still held some of the same values I did before I ever had a Tinder. Not so shockingly (at least to me) I still hold those 3 points very firmly in my awkward heart, especially since the fall semester is starting to pick up and my days and nights are all spent in the studios. And now I know I can semi function around guys the next time I try to attempt this relationship thing.
So it wasn’t the fairytale ending one would always expect (and it definitely was not the simple week long test I originally expected), but I didn’t need that or deep down want it. And hey, why call it the ending?
All I know is I want to be happy with myself and my choices when this experiment of life ends. So for starters I will stop calling it one. I’m no longer a scientist, regardless of what my biology professor says.