If you're in college, I would hope that you've heard of Tinder by now. It has a pretty bad reputation, being known as the app where desperate people go when they really want to meet someone. Kind of like a dating website, but weirder. Anyway, I've been curious about Tinder for awhile, not in the sense that I feel the need to meet people online, but in the sense that I have always wondered what kinds of people really use the app un-ironically. So, because I am a dedicated journalist, I dove headfirst into the story and used Tinder for a week, and I have graciously decided to share my experiences with you.
Before I share the following delightful interactions, I want to explain how Tinder really works for those of you who have never used it or for those of you who know what it is but don't know how to use it. Basically, you have a profile which includes five pictures, a 500-character bio (mine was, "My dog is probably cuter than yours."), and that's it. Then, you set your qualifications for the kinds of people you want to see: all male, male and female, or all female (I selected all male), an age requirement (I set mine at 18-22), and a radius around your location (I picked 30 miles) so you're only seeing people who are relatively nearby. It's pretty user-friendly; it took me about three minutes to set mine up. Anyway, once you're all good to go, the app is pretty simple—someone's profile pops up, and you can either swipe right or swipe left. Swiping left means that you're not interested in that person, so their profile disappears. Swiping right, on the other hand, means that you like that person and you're interested in getting to know them better. However, swiping right doesn't guarantee that you get access to that person—they have to swipe right on you as well before you can get the opportunity to communicate. When you get a match, their name will pop up and you will have the chance to message them and they have the ability to do the same to you. Pretty simple, really. In all honesty, if the site weren't so sketchy, it would be a pretty cool idea. What's not to like about getting to know people in your area? But anyway, regardless of the sketch factor, I tried it for a week, and I had some interesting interactions.
Getting matches was pretty exciting at first, just because I didn't really know how it all worked. After the first day, though, it got a little more monotonous. So for the sake of keeping this interesting, I'll summarize the week. There are five real observations that I think sum up Tinder pretty well, in my experience.
1. The sketchy factor isn't nearly as high as most people think.
Of course, this is all dependent on the kinds of people that I swiped right versus the kinds of people that I swiped left, but I was generally surprised with the kinds of messages I got. We've all seen those Tinder horror stories, where girls post their screenshots of misogynistic messages from random guys attempting to flirt; so, I was expecting something similar and I was a little nervous. However, most of the guys were just straight-up nice. Some of them chose to open up with a message that referenced my bio (see above), and some of them just started out with a nice "Hey, how are you?" On the DL, I wanna be friends with some of those guys. Honestly, I really wish Tinder hadn't somehow become associated with the whole hookup atmosphere, because I had some genuinely nice conversations. It was like speed dating, but just to find someone to talk to for awhile. Nothin' wrong with that, right?
2. With that being said, there are definitely some weirdos.
Just as you would expect, I crossed paths with some guys on Tinder who weren't exactly looking for conversation, if you know what I mean. I'm sure they're lovely people, but a lot of the opening lines were straight up awful, like Wes here:
Needless to say, I didn't continue those kinds of conversations. I'm dedicated to the story, but not that dedicated. Although these were the creepy ones, they were also the funniest ones, the ones that people post online and laugh at. I'm sorry Wes, I can't resist sharing this with the world. These messages were the ones that really interested me honestly, because it's such a weird look into how people's minds work. Not to get too psychological or anything, but you have to wonder, would these people ever say these kinds of things to me in person? Probably not. So why does the anonymity of the Internet make people interact like this instead? I don't have the answer, but it's just some food for thought. Keep that in mind through these next points.
3. I tried to be funny in my bio, but I could tell that 90 percent of the guys swiped right on me only after looking at my picture.
When I was scrolling through, my biggest prerequisite for a good ol' right swipe was a funny bio. Make me laugh? Let's talk. Apparently, though, a lot of my matches didn't do the same to me, because I got a lot of messages like this:
Emojis? Really? These were almost worse than the creeps, just because they didn't even bother to come up with something clever to get my attention. I didn't pursue these conversations either, just because it wasn't worth it. My quest to discover Tinder was supposed to be about conversations, not about guys who just swiped right because they liked my profile picture. When you have the opportunity to put a bio on social media, you have the opportunity to broadcast your personality in 500 characters or less. That's a pretty big task for a social media website. Granted, most of the people on Tinder probably don't think about the significance of a bio, so maybe that's just me. But anyways, these emoji dudes weren't worth my investigation. There were bigger fish to fry, like the guy who opened the conversation by asking, "What would you do if you woke up one day as a cat?" True story. We talked for a long time.
4. Not every match leads to conversation.
I suppose this must've been a naive belief of mine, but I just assumed that all of the guys I matched with would message me. Not because I think I'm just irresistible, but because I thought that that was the whole point of the matching system. In reality, only about half of my matches ever ended up talking to me, if not fewer than that. I was pretty disappointed, honestly, because some of the guys I matched up with seemed like they would be funny. Again, I'm basing this assumption purely off of five pictures and a two-sentence bio, but still—I was looking forward to some of these conversations that never happened. Bummer. 
So many friendships I could've made. I'm heartbroken.
5. Over half of the times that I messaged first, the guy either didn't respond at all or wasn't interested.
This really surprised me. I was expecting the vibe to be that whole "girls that make the first move are cool" thing, but I was completely wrong. I tried to start conversations with the guys that had the funny bios, like the guy who said "working on my dad bod" or another guy who said "I'm not as ugly as I look" or another one who said, "Currently attending ______ University but I'm transferring to Hogwarts in the spring." When I didn't get a message from any of them first, I figured, "hey, I'm gonna go for it, they seem cool." I was sincerely disappointed. Most of them didn't respond, and the ones who did just laughed at my snide comment and then the conversation sort of petered out from there. I don't know why these guys didn't seem interested in continuing the conversation, because they obviously swiped right. I thought that I could spark up some interesting conversations by asking some weird questions like, "Would you rather make a foghorn noise every time you tried to speak or cluck like a chicken every time you blinked?" Shockingly, I didn't get any responses to this question. I guess that is not a question to use in an introduction. Duly noted.
It was an interesting week, to say the least. Overall, I was surprised. If there hadn't been those occasional outliers of the dudes just trying to find a lady friend, it would've been genuinely fun. Out of those few that I talked to for more than a day, I could see us becoming friends, and that's pretty cool. I wish that there could be a website or app that really could be used purely for conversation, because I still want to find people who will answer my weird "Would you rather?" question without judgement. I guess Tinder might not be the place for me. I have since closed down my account, but it was a fun adventure. Thanks for the memz, Tinder.
*There were some encounters that didn't fit into my categories, but they're too funny to not include. Enjoy!*
He lied about his job to sound cooler, but his made-up job was a real estate agent—way to dream big, bro.
No thanks, Irfan.
We never talked after this. My cute dog turned him off. Happens every time.
