7 Things I Learned On Tinder In 7 Days

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Tinder has become the dating/hookup phenomenon of my generation. I have lived vicariously through my friends’ profiles swiping left or right for them, but I have always refused to sign up for the app. Tinder never made sense to me. Is it for hooking up or dating? Why not just go to a bar and meet someone organically instead of playing Catfish Roulette? What do I tell people or my mother when asked how we met? The horror.

One day, out of sheer boredom and curiosity, I decided to make my own Tinder account. As easy as it was to sign up, I deactivated it just as quickly. Here is what I learned on Tinder in a week:

1. Follow me on Instagram.

Why? So you can get more followers? You are basically insinuating to me that you’re on Tinder to up your count. I don’t even know you. I’m not following you on Instagram so you can blow up my feed with selfies of your face I have never seen in person and your friends I don’t even know in real life. I already don’t like you.

2. Height specification should be a profile requirement.

He has pretty green eyes and shaggy brown hair. He seems like a decent guy over chat. He has a cute dog named Kobe. You start to consider meeting up with him until he drops a bomb on you— he’s 5’4”. Devastation kicks in and then the monstrosity of not being able to ever wear high heels overpowers the devastation. In fact, even with flats, he’s still shorter than me. That makes me feel cheated. Also probably makes me seem like a bitch.

Here is one of the many reasons why dating is different online than in real life. I like my men tall, but I’ve went out with a fair share of men who were around the same height as me. I would compromise and put my high heels away because they had qualities that made them more attractive; like a sense of humor and good morals. On Tinder, I judge you based on the information you give me, and vice versa. There is no trial period where I get to know you and fall in love with your amazing personality.

3. Seeing your guy friends on Tinder is surprisingly mortifying.

Don’t swipe right. Don’t swipe right. DON’T. FUCKING. SWIPE. RIGHT.

4. Seeing your ex on Tinder is surprisingly gratifying.

His picture pops up and your whole body freezes. Your brain goes into alert mode. You make sure your swiping finger is as still as a glacier so you don’t accidentally swipe right while you dissect his profile inside out.

The first picture, his face looks tired and his haircut is horrendous. The second picture, he’s flipping the camera off. The third picture is of him sucking on a joint. His profile only lists his Instagram. Your brain calms down and you begin to laugh because nostalgia goes away and you’re reminded of major key facts. Your relationship with him sucked and he sucked even more as a person. Swipe left.

5. Group pictures are tricky.

There is a fine line between being self-gratuitous and inconspicuous. Men either really love to take selfies of themselves or they like to hide between their friends. The problem is, which one are you? I can’t tell you apart from five guys. It literally requires me to go through your pictures to find a common denominator of faces. Also, if there is a picture of you and your hot friend and I realize you are not the latter, my interest level drops when it probably wouldn’t have had you posted a picture of just yourself.

6. Creative conversation starters do not exist.

Anything crazy just sounds like a pickup line. If pickup lines do not get you laid in real life, what makes it okay online?

7. Tinder is 90% hookup and 10% dating

My experiment with Tinder answered my own question. Most of my matches would end up asking me to “hang out”, which is typical in our era of the hookup culture where men are not required to act like men. I’m not oblivious to what hanging out at your place means, so don’t be oblivious as to why I start curving you by being too busy or tired.

The select few that have said “let’s grab a drink” or “let’s get coffee” like normal people do are greatly appreciated. However, I realize Tinder is not for me. It’s exhausting trying to weed out the good men from the bad ones, answering the same questions back-to-back, and praying to Jesus that a picture you receive from a match is not a dick picture.