So I joined Tinder a little while ago and found myself fishing in a seemingly never-ending pond of eager men. For those of you who are not very familiar with this new dating-hype, let me explain.
Tinder is an App, quick to download and you can easily login with your Facebook account which enables the app to check your friends and likes. This way you can tell if you have someone in common or any interests you may share. Once you’ve created your account, set up your best picture(s), chosen the age group you’re interested in and the radius in which you wish to find your Mr. Tinder (or Miss Tinderella), you can start swiping!
I found myself mostly swiping men off to the left side of the screen towards the cross, which indicates that you’re not interested and wish to see the next potential Mr. Tinder – ASAP! In fact I got so used to left-swiping that my thumb became accustomed to it and automatically swerves to the left as soon as I reject or disapprove of a guy in real life! *just kidding
At times I got so fanatic about swiping left, that I’d swipe away a gorgeous guy and in a frantic attempt to get him back I’d do a few right-swipes on the screen towards the heart, accidentally liking men I never-in-a-million-years would choose to like. Luckily if they like you back and you get a Tinder-match there’s still the option to block them in the chatroom. How friendly I must come across…*gulp
Anyway, once you get the hang of it, you’re off and it becomes a great pass-time. You can swipe away through lunch, boring dates, in waiting rooms, and even during visits to the loo. Suddenly men become available to you everywhere and at any time of day. It’s amazingly addictive especially since you keep thinking the next guy WILL be the one – but NEVER is…
However fun it seems at first though, you soon start noticing some patterns in the photographs. For example the incredible amount of men that seem to (want you to) think they own a plane, sports car or boat, if you hit the jackpot he has all three of them neatly stacked amongst his pictures. Also, men seem to be sportier than ever these days, some guys include pictures of their skiing trips, surf jumps, sky-diving adventures, golfing rounds, you name it – they sport it! Anything just to get us Tinderella’s panting for them.
The real ‘eye-catchers’ however are the men that wear sunglasses. No matter what time of day or night, it seems they’d rather show off their newest Ray-Ban’s than grant us a quick peek into their soul. But whilst some men like to hide, others enjoy propagating what they’ve got. I’ve seen the naked buttocks, accentuated sweat pants full of dick-head, naked fat guys, naked thin guys, atrocious selfies taken in bathroom mirrors, which kind of defeat the purpose of a selfie in my opinion, but who am I to judge right?!
AND last but certainly not least, girlfriends’ husbands or partners, parading on Tinder without a care in the world, pretending they’re single and available. Just being ‘one of the boys’ trying out a new App. These encounters DO make my heart skip a beat, not from excitement but rather from bottled-up-confused-anger. It’s not up to me to judge their ‘drive’ to join this type of datingsite, but I don’t want to become someone’s bait-of-the-day in such polluted waters either! It confuses and hurts everyone involved as sometimes chats grow into conversations that may end up budd-y-ing into more of what never should have had ground to grow on in the first place.
Strangely enough I’d gotten quite used to all sorts of boundary changing 21st century scenarios, but this has jolted back a sense of right & wrong that I never expected to have lost sight of in the first place.
So to all the Tinder-seekers of the world, may your fairytale not end up turning sour at the sight of your neighbour’s current husband scantily dressed in see-through yoga pants, provocatively lying on the table you had dinner at last week.