The Trials and Tribulations of Tinder


When my best friends Sofia first told me she was using Tinder I was a little taken aback . For context, if I were to imagine Sofia telling me the story of how she met the love of her life it would probably go something like this: She’s sat in the window seat of a gorgeous old library, sunlight streaming in creating a perfect little halo around her head buried deep in a book. A boy approaches and asks what she’s reading, she flips to show him the front cover and it is, of course, his favourite book. Tinder has no place in this world of romantic fantasy. Fantasy, unfortunately, being the key word there. Is it really so obscene to want to be swept off your feet instead of swiped right on or is spontaneous romance really something condemned to exist only in the whimsical figments of our imagination?


December last year I broke up with a boy who I, naively, thought I was going to be with forever. A few weeks later Sofia and I made our way to our friend Liz’s new home in Birmingham for a very much needed catch-up. That weekend those two were my very own little angels and I owe them the biggest thank you for beginning to sort out that little broken heart of mine. One of the magic tricks up their sleeve? Tinder. 


Download Tinder, Sofia said. I was hardly convinced. A couple glasses of wine later and under the absolute assurance from the pair of them that it was going to be nothing more than a source of entertainment for the night, I caved. At this point I was entirely convinced that love and romance were well and truly dead and so, what did I have to lose by surrendering myself to the void of online dating? 
Tinder was everything its illustrious reputation had led me to believe it was. We all know the user stereotypes and on this front I’m glad to say Tinder did not disappoint. The usual suspects crop up in a relentless cycle, ripped skinny jeans and bare torsos plague the profiles and a cocker spaniel is only ever a swipe away and yet despite all the garbage, I kept swiping. That night Tinder was, as promised, a welcome source of entertainment. A little bit of mischief in outrageous messages and a whole load of laughs provided by poor unsuspecting strangers on a screen. 
Of course I can’t skip over Tinder's biggest selling point, it’s ego boosting power. The gratification of a stranger deeming you attractive enough to warrant a rightward swipe, however fickle, does wonders for the old self esteem. And yes I know my worth isn’t determined by another’s perception of my attractiveness and we are worth more than our looks and so on and so forth but hear me out, in those blue post-breakup days Tinder provided that much needed assurance that I wasn’t going to be shunned by love(or at least lust) forever. 


I deleted the app the next morning. I felt it had served its purpose. Also I was coming back to Notts and the idea of ‘bumping’ into someone I knew on there was enough to shake away any remaining reservations. 
A month later that menacing little flame made its way back to my home screen. This time it wasn’t for a giggle with friends but for a desire, in fact probably a need, for that same stranger administered validation. This relapse lasted for around 48 hours, I ‘met’ a boy called Dylan and proceeded to add him on instagram given the imminent termination of my Tinder account.
As I remember, Dylan and I had organised to meet at a later date but it so happened that he was out and I was out and so we decided to cross paths. In the Uber there I kept expecting to feel that little pang of regret and yet it never came. It seems Dylan was a rare Tinder gem. Sweet, smart and sarcastic. I left that meeting, having gained a story for the pub and a dose of self esteem and lost nothing but a sock. I never saw him again. Tinder remained deleted.


Although I don’t regret my brief stint with Tinder, I know that, at least for the foreseeable future, I won’t be making a return to the app. Albeit its flaws, Tinder did prove itself as a valuable asset in the initial break-up recovery battle. It almost felt like a right of passage in the return to single life. But in regards to flaws… I think more than anything I just found the whole experience awkward. Striking up a conversation with strangers is something I usually quite enjoy and yet within this digital dating realm it made my stomach turn. Everything was so rigid, ingenuine. Of those that I did speak to, many sounded as though they were reciting a script and I imagine in a sense they were- recycling old conversations full of tried and tested small talk. A certain narrative was expected between us, given our match, and I imagine this awkward approach was a way of dealing with the pressure of that. Either that or folk really are just boring. 
Surely I can’t be the only one who finds the unnaturalness of the whole affair off-putting and so an obvious question arose, if we all feel this way then why on earth are we all still using it? Is Tinder populated solely by newly-single narcissists looking to take the edge off? Disillusioned hopeless romantics who have succumbed to the disappointments of reality? Or in fact shall we stop being so ridiculously pretentious and admit that Tinder can just be a bit of fun, a one night stand facilitator for us all and, if you’re feeling a little less cynical, the perfect platform to masterfully puppeteer a ’stumble’ in to the partner of your dreams.
Well, there was only one way to find out…


Sofia and I set aside our usual rigorous swipe selection process and matched every man we could. Little did they know that their rightward swipe would subject them to a survey of sorts, starting with the very simple question: ‘Can I ask why you’re on Tinder?’ 
(Okay. So I downloaded Tinder one last time, but it was purely for research purposes alright!?)


Some of the boys we spoke to only answered to support their clear ulterior motive, the sincerity of their response evident in their closing statement: ‘So now can I get your snap;)’ But actually, their ‘ulterior motive’ was using the app precisely for what it was made for and I was in fact the imposter with a different agenda. 
These boys were transparent with what they were hoping to gain from our exchange and assured that they were always this open and upfront with other tinder acquaintances. They were looking for a short lived fling, ‘nothing serious’.
Many touched on the fact that the shallowness of Tinder made it the ideal place to pursue one of these inconsequential affairs. A mutual physical attraction was all that was required and that was confirmed the moment Tinder notified you of your match. In the real world these boys felt they had to censor their intentions, they had found that their abrupt but honest approach had actually been a deterrent. Often in the real world, even if both parties had no intention of seeing eachother again, small talk was an essential requirement and yet in this virtual world they had found that people were much more willing to boycott all the ‘niceties’. 


Then there are those who, bless them, are searching for love. Believe it or not these hopeless romantics accounted for the majority of those questioned. These are people who are ‘ready to meet someone.’ They want ‘someone to come home to’ or at the very least someone to ‘take out on a proper date’- definetly something with a bit more longevity and substance than the afore mentioned crowd. A genuine connection is what these people insisted they were looking for and so I was intrigued as to whether they had found Tinder a successful medium with which to do so...

In my experience, I either fall head over heals the minute I meet someone or I never truly will. Please forgive me for saying this, but I do think that’s down to an innate attraction to the ‘aura’ that a person displays and that feeling is not something you can gage without physically being in someone’s presence. Of course, if things blossomed online and you went on to meet a potential love interest in real life the chemistry between you would be confirmed or disproved. My fear then is that, because this is a person you clearly like as an individual and you have invested a certain amount of time into forging a connection with that you may manage to confuse this ‘like’ with genuine attraction and compatibility. I just feel that the initial spark is key and I remained dubious that that could be emulated online. 


Many of those I spoke to admitted that they were much more likely to approach someone through Tinder than they were to approach someone they saw, say in a library… Bars and clubs were an anomaly to this, it seems buying a girl a drink is still a favourite first move for the gents of our generation. But why the willingness to approach someone they were attracted to in a bar yet a definite no in response to whether they would do the same in another environment? The answer: our favourite inhibition killers, drugs and alcohol. Under the influence the rationality of what you’re doing is forgotten and often only then do your true feelings and intentions come to light (very dangerous). But in this revelation lies a sad truth, many of us would let our own insecurities and lack of confidence stop us from approaching a potential soulmate! 
One guy commented on the fact that on Tinder the fear of rejection is void. On Tinder if you have the opportunity to message someone it is because you have already overcome the first hurdle of physical attraction which is where most people's insecurities lie. In real life you can be so conscious of your own appearance that you wouldn’t dare approach someone for fear of them rejecting you based on looks, thus feeding your inner critic.


In recent years our society has become much more sensitive and understanding of others feelings and personal boundaries, a great achievement. But this tentative new attitude will no doubt have had repercussions upon our likelihood of approaching someone with romantic intent for fear of imposing upon or offending said person. I am obviously delighted with this growing awareness we have for one another but I hope we can learn to find the balance between behaving responsibly and respectfully and still having the guts to pursue what the heart desires!

Those are two very broad categories and I’m sure entirely predictable and far too stereotyped, but regardless I found our little research stint interesting! I do hold my hands up and apologise for making such sweeping judgements and perhaps being a little too cynical about the world of online dating.

I’d like to say lesson learnt and all that but really I know I’ll always be a sucker for spontaneity, fates artful meddling and good old-fashioned romance and that’s a notion that I’m afraid I just can’t swipe away