I attend Brigham Young University- a school owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or better known as the Mormon Church. If Mormons are known for anything, it's polygamy (which we absolutely do not practice anymore), Missionaries, and young families with tons and tons of kids. Oh and Mitt Romney.
Although in actuality only about a quarter of BYU Undergrads are married, any student will tell you that it feels like far more than that. Being single in a place where it truly feels like the majority of your peers are seriously dating, engaged, or already married is sometimes really, really difficult. I went through phases of coping with it. Sometimes I was really, really sad. Other times I was determined to break the stereotype and graduate single. But most of the time, similarly to many of my classmates, I just wanted a boyfriend.
Enter Tinder.
I first started swiping, casually, in April of 2013. The guy I had been dating for the entirety of my Freshman year was getting ready to leave on his Mission for our church, I was bored and had heard about this weird Tinder app and decided to try it. A couple days before I was leaving Utah to go home for the summer, I matched with this guy named Mike and we started chatting on the app. It wasn't long before he asked me for my number. Due to various circumstances (mostly that I was terrified to meet up with someone I met on the internet), we didn't meet for a couple months - not until I came back to Provo. We stayed in touch for those couple months, and then went on a couple dates when I got back. We hit it off pretty well, but I think we both felt that I was too young for him (I had just turned 19 while he was about to turn 24).
Fast forward a year and a half, and a couple more failed Tinder experiences, I was bored and sad and lonely on a cold October night. My roommate and I had made a pact that neither of us would ever download Tinder again (a double Tinder date-turned-awkward-disaster lead us to make that decision), but decided that we were bored and sad and lonely and so we would just download Tinder for one day. A couple days, max.
After only a couple hours of swiping, who showed up on my screen but good ole Tinder Boy fromlLast summer. I remember distinctly sitting on my couch and staring at my phone for a solid minute before I decided to swipe right... because did I mention I was bored and sad and lonely? And I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but I just had a good feeling about it.
Not two minutes later he messaged me. "Fancy meeting you here," he said. "Still have my number?" And the rest is history, folks. We dated for 4 months before he proposed, and then were married 6 months after that. Now, almost exactly one year later, I am hanging out with my husband of two months on a cold October evening, where I am neither bored, sad, or lonely. Thanks, Tinder.
