Well for anyone who has missed it, TINDER is a phone app for, let’s call it, making a connection with someone based mainly on their looks and location! Already a pretty shallow way of finding your one and only, but hey, let’s not judge an phone app by it’s cover. And after all as the strap line on the Tinder website is ‘It’s how people meet’, it must be true!
The premise is, that you sign up on your mobile phone, and Tinder uses images accessed from your Facebook page for your profile on the app. This requires careful planning as many people look like a dog………..
Once you have signed up, a selection of pictures appears on your screen with the option to swipe the picture away, either left or right, according to if you ‘like’ the picture of the person, or if you think they look like a mad person; and that’s being kind.
If you ‘like’ someone, and they ‘like’ you back, it’s called a match, and a text box opens for you to begin to communicate. It couldn’t be easier really. Of course a degree of cynicism has to be exercised. Why for example do a high percentage of the men on Tinder feel that the bathroom is a suitable backdrop for that all important profile picture, oh and there’s a wedding ring, and the same lovely lady in many a mans pictures.
But JUST for the purpose of research, (of course), I dipped my twinkly toe into the red hot coals of Tinder and here is what happened!
Let’s call him ‘Jim’ clearly took a shine to my picture, and ‘Jim’ was the best out of a disappointingly bad bunch. But as I had clicked ‘like’ and he had clicked ‘like’, we were deemed to be a match and so the conversation begun.
Early one morning ‘Jim’ said ‘Hi’, and a bit later on I returned the favour. We got some pleasantries out of the way, our location ( I’m lazy, I already knew that 20 miles was way too far to go just for a coffee) and our relationship status, boxes ticked, and we both appeared to be (not) so young, free and single. RESULT!
Then things took surprising turn, and not in a good way. ‘Jim’ asked me what I did for a job. Wedding Co-ordinator I told him, and that I was just off to work. He replied saying that he would love to see some more pictures of me and was sitting in his basement at his computer, imagining me going to my office in a short skirt and high heels. WHAT!!?? My immediate thought was one that I often use in such circumstances….. Oh For F**K Sake!
Ever the realist, I burst his bubble straight away, telling him that happily it was an informal day at the office and I’d be in my comfy jeans and trainers. He came straight back even more insistently asking for more photo’s, and implying that WHEN I sent them, he was sure they would be very sexy and he couldn’t wait to see them. REALLY?!
A few more messages filtered in during the day, and I recall that it was not a particularly good day at the office, so later that evening, under the influence of a few tads of annoyance and a few glasses of Merlot, I fired back a ‘do one’ message to ‘Jim’ telling him in no uncertain terms that his messages were bordering on offensive, and he needed to rethink his Tinder strategy if he really was hoping for a LTR. (Long term Relationship in dating speak).
Fair play to ‘Jim’ he came straight back and suggested we start all over again from the beginning. Errrrr……NO I don’t think so Jim. DELETE!
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/nov/23/tinder-shallowest-dating-app-ever
This online article gives a much more indepth over view of Tinder and over a few days, I too received other messages that might have been written by a 5 year old but were supposedly from fully grown men.
However, if you do find yourself a bit bored on a cold winter evening, and need some light entertainment, sign up, if only for the amusement value of stalking men in bathrooms.
Have you ever had a Tinder experience, good or bad ?
Logo courtesy of Wikipedia.com
