My reluctance to use Tinder was largely about it being linked to Facebook. I don't like that it shows my real name as I'd rather choose if that's something I'd like to disclose to someone or not. Yes, I know it's just my first name, but how many Joni's do you know? I've come to realise that other people aren't necessarily as good at finding people online as I am, but that also means I know exactly how easy I am to find.
But I've moved past that and have come to appreciate the way potential matches show up with their links (or lack of links) to my social network. It's fun to see the different configuration of friends that pop up and get a bit of insight into the kinds of people they might be friends with (though obviously Facebook friendships signal a very wide variety of relationship types).
I rejoined Tinder after a very busy week. I had a short turn around time to mark a bunch of student assignments, plus a surprise job interview that included doing a short presentation on my research. By the time I'd gotten through all of that, I just wanted to lie in bed and do nothing for a bit. So, feeling disheartened by the options available on OKC, and being between jobs and low on cash, I decided to give Tinder another go.
At first it was fun, getting to snoop into this little window of people's lives, looking for common connections, sharing and comparing the profiles I'd come across with friends for a laugh, coming across people I actually know, and fervently swiping through people I didn't to try and get to the profiles of those I did. Swiping became a way to occupy my time, a cheap source of entertainment that occasionally resulted in a conversation with a stranger that I actually wanted to engage in. And after finding out I didn't get the job, swiping became a reprieve from dealing with the realities of my life (which are improving, but, the semester break has been tough!)
Which is how I ended up spending about 24 hours swiping left.
This was not a great experience. In fact, it left me feeling quite gross and I've avoided going onto Tinder pretty much since then (though I will go back to it eventually).
I found myself swiping left for the usual reasons like no profile text, profile text consists of telling women how they should be, only body shots, hanging out with sedated tigers (although this seems to have been largely replaced with meditating under a waterfall), being 'down to earth' or 'easy going' or 'normal', only having pictures with groups of people, being at the Melbourne Cup, drinking in all the pictures, being a backpacker (though certainly I've used dating apps while traveling to hook up with the locals), working in finance, being really into motorcycles or race cars, or identifying as a sapiosexual. And I discovered a few new reasons to swipe left: being a 'lifestyle' coach, "never judge a book by its cover" profiles, playing hide and seek in a Holocaust memorial, carrying around the recently severed head of a large animal, and giving oneself hero status for stopping a 'junkie' from stealing meat.
I know that this is a matter of judgement, and these are things I find unappealing that other people may think are perfectly reasonable. What made me feel gross was that I had to actively pass this judgement on all these people. The thing is, Tinder shows you people you would quite possibly otherwise never come into any real sort of contact with. And this is good and bad because while it shows you people who are interesting, to get to them you've got to go through all the people you'd never, ever want to meet. And it's not like these people aren't on other dating sites too, but with OKC for instance it shows you what your match percentage is with another person and has ways of filtering out those you're unlikely to be compatible with.
To it's benefit though, people can't contact you unless you match with them. And after getting streams of messages on OKC from guys who seem to think their showing an interest in you is some sort of favour for which you now owe them, this is a very nice feature! Unfortunately, matching with someone is no guarantee that they will behave any differently once they have the opportunity to message you. As I found out from the guy who ignored my ambivalence about the conversation taking a turn for the sexual, and then demanded I send him wank bank material.
I've yet to actually meet anyone off of Tinder, which is surprising to me because I have been meeting people 'from the internet' (which, seriously, it's 2016, we're all people from the internet now) for over a decade. I think this has to do with, well, my tendency to use it for a few days and then disappear, but also with the affordances of the app. It lends itself well to casual conversations, and I honestly have enjoyed having the odd chat to a stranger who I probably wouldn't otherwise interact with. But the profile section doesn't include any sort of prompts and the culture of the app is not to write a long description about yourself and what you're interested in finding (though some people do).
Connections are meant to develop over a few pictures and a few words. Which obviously works well enough for people as Tinder has completely changed the face of 'online' dating (for heterosexuals anyways, and like pretty much everything else that change is owed to the gay community for developing Grindr). But for me, and at least for some of the people I've matched with, it means putting in a lot of work to get a sense of if there's any sort of connection there. Whereas with OKC because of the structured profiles and the huge array of personality questions, there's more to go off of when you contact someone. I can tell pretty quickly if I'm interested in meeting up with someone from OKC or not.
Obviously it all depends on what you're looking for and how you like to engage with people. Right now I'm open to the possibility of meeting people, but not really actively looking to do so. So maybe some of those casual conversations that have started will gradually build up enough for me to determine if I'd like to actually meet the person, and maybe they won't. And maybe there is a Tinder love story to be had, but I don't think fervently swiping through profiles to find it is worth the hassle.
A Special Bonus Feature For You, Dear Reader...
As you know, I believe in supporting and cultivating the feline arts. Aspiring blogger Tilly has written some of her thoughts, which I have included for you below. I'm sure you will agree that this young talent has a promising career ahead of her!
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000cx
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb98888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888bg099999999999999999999999999999999999999iiuoppouo
,.,m ,
