Tinder and Online Dating

With the evolution of the digital age, we’ve had vast changes in the way we communicate. From instant messaging to video chatting and everything in between, there are more ways to contact people than ever before. So today we’re going to talk about dating and online dating. 

Meeting people can be a really daunting task whether you’re at a bar or a club or at a house party, sometimes you feel like you’ve depleted those resources and you venture into the wonderful World Wide Web to try your chances. Deciding to meet online can be really scary because with shows like America’s Most Wanted and Catfish it’s kind of hard to trust people on the Internet. Crazy stories about people pretending to be what they’re not, can keep people away.  But it seems, still thousands of people go online to try their luck at a little bit of romance.

Some of the most popular dating websites out there are Eharmony, Christian Mingle, Lava Life, Plenty of Fish and OKCupid. All of these sites have varying degrees of seriousness and each have their own reputation. Where Eharmony and Lava Life seem to be for serious relationships, Christian Mingle seems to be the punchline of all dating website jokes. Plenty of Fish is just for hooking up and OkCupid is just a smorgasbord of everything. And then we have Tinder.

Tinder is a free app that launched in 2012 and its an app that links up with your Facebook and uses your profile pictures and interests as part of your profile. With a 500 word space for a description – which nobody really looks at – that’s pretty much it for your profile. The app takes your location into consideration and presents you with users within a certain distance from you. You can set your settings to show people from 1km away to as far as 80km away. As opposed to having really excessive questionaires and essays like in the other websites. Tinder, really relies heavily on your images and that’s something it gets critiqued on a lot.

So the app is fairly simple. Based on your location your home feed with show you pictures of individuals with their name and age. So you can click on their image to see more of their pictures, their description and if they share interests or friends with you on Facebook. From there you decide whether you like them or not. Swiping left means “nope”  and swiping means you “liked” them. But the one interesting thing about Tinder is that you can’t communicate with someone, unless you’ve both mutually shown interest in each other. When two people have indicated that they “like” each other, a message is sent to both parties to tell them so and the conversation starts from there.

The simplicity of the app makes it appealing. It eliminates writing and reading long winded essays on profiles. And the barrier of not being able to talk to someone without showing mutual interest feels more safe and reduces the amount of unwanted messages. The focus on connecting with people within at most 80 km away promotes the idea of meeting in person after connecting on the app, fostering just what the app suggests.

It’s easy to get caught up in the perpetual motion of swiping either left or right. And even when you have a list of individuals that have indicated mutual interest, it seems people are still to shy to initiate conversation. So if we’re only swiping left and right and not talking, how does this app differ from sites like Hot or Not? It seems to reinforce the superficiality of dating. But just because we’re doing it online, as opposed to scoping out people at the bar, why is it suddenly have a different connotation?

Have we lost all social skills that we’re swiping left and right to meet people based on pictures and nothing else? Or has it always been this way and the new app is just the way we’re doing it now? If that is the way we’re doing it now, what does that say about us? That we only care about looks? That we’re all shallow and that anybody that ever uses Tinder is only interested in hooking up?

But just like any other dating website or app, at its base, Tinder just provides an experience for meeting people. It doesn’t seem to work any better or worse than other dating websites or apps, just another option for meeting people. Meeting other people you know can be amusing. Having your friends swipe right or left repeatedly have the potential to ignite unusual conversations. The key to any of these ways of meeting people, is the way you use them. Using these spaces to create your profile, swipe left or right and nothing else is just pointless. But asking the right questions can make or break a conversation.

If you decide to try Tinder, don’t be shy! Ask a fun question and see if you actually end up finding love.