So you wanna be a Tinder dater?
The swiping motion of the app lets you skip your finger push-ups for the day and satisfies the same addiction a slot machine does. And just like a slot machine, it keeps you coming back.
Sometimes you hit a jackpot in the muscled man studying to be a doctor or the boobacious blonde girl who loves sports and video games – mostly a jackpot for your self-esteem because “little old me looks cute and intriguing in some way to THAT person?” Still, no jackpot match is perfect until communication actually begins and lasts long enough to meet up in-person, which is never guaranteed (I’d argue, often not even expected).
“98 percent of the people I match with on Tinder I don’t even bother to message, nor do they,” said Carly Luciani, junior English major.
When the messaging turns into an actual meet-up, the anxiety really starts to kick in. Anyone could be a murderer, rapist, etc. Technology makes it easy to fake who you really are.
For that reason, the first moment of meeting is the least predictable. The second eyes meet entails a full body scan. No matter how accurate their Tinder photos are, your mind cannot fully grasp what that person looks like, sounds like or what aura they give off. Most of the time, they look better in photos, but what can make them seem less attractive to you at first can become what makes them look better to you; more human and grounded in your mind.
Or perhaps you already knew each other.
Maybe you caught each other’s eye a bit before in class or at a party, but you needed the match to confirm the attraction. A Tinder match is security. It lowers the risk of rejection. In swiping, besides Super Likes, you never know if that person has even seen you on the app yet, so not an instant match or even no match at all means nothing.
People have many reasons for being on Tinder in the first place. Sometimes, the intention is blatant sex and nothing else – a one night stand that eliminates the need to get drunk and take your blind chances at a bar. I am almost 100 percent certain some people are on Tinder only to show off their latest fishing catch. (Nobody cares). Maybe the intention is friendship.
Whatever the reason for being on Tinder is, you absolutely must learn how to survive through the jungle of genitals. Only one picture on their profile is a one-way trip to No Way.
“I once had a girl on Tinder tell me she didn’t believe in the moon,” said Gabbie Hogan, senior English major. “She gave me a long paragraph explaining in great detail why man never went to the moon and got very intense about it. Needless to say I ghosted her after.”
People nowadays focus too much on the negatives of Tinder though. Tinder has so many underrated positive features.
Although many interactions are a flop, many are not; you may truly find someone you enjoy being with, and the two of you may continue interacting for a long time.
One unappreciated and unacknowledged aspect of Tinder, beyond the expected match-making and entertainment purpose, is it lets you know the names of people around you – that person you always see briefly in the hallway three days a week after your 3 p.m. class or who always seems to eat at Geisert at the same time as you do. Sometimes it’s just nice to know those things.
Tinder has gotten such a stigma. I’ve heard people proclaiming countless times that if they meet their partner on Tinder, they will lie and come up with another story of how they met.
So, I pose this question: Why is finding a partner on Tinder embarrassing? For lifetimes before us in our own country and still a reality in other countries, arranged marriages partner humans. In this day and age and place, we have the privilege of conveniently meeting more people who you may click really well with. We get to select from a wider pool of potentials than connections your father has formed politically or um … your cousin … or sibling …
“It’s all just part of the journey within the dating world that takes you through bumps on the road and to the most interesting destinations,” said Annie Birnberg, senior public relations major.
So if you’re feeling iffy about starting up that Tinder conversation or actually agreeing to a meet-up, just go for it.
The way that I look at it is like this: the Tinder date could be bad or great or somewhere in-between, but either way you leave with a good story.
–
Every year, we publish a Valentine’s Day edition of our Voice section in order to bring the spirit of love to campus. We’re excited to bring you a number of articles (some serious, some satirical) dedicated to sex, relationships, the history of Valentine’s Day and more.
Should you plan to celebrate this day of romance with someone, be sure to stay safe and practice healthy sexual habits – and if you’re planning on cuddling up alone or with friends to watch movies and eat discount chocolates, that works perfectly, too. Whatever you decide to do, be sure to have fun.
–
