I would never refer to myself as a person who has to be in a relationship all the time. I’ve dated, but at this point in my life it has just seemed much more important to me to invest my time in friendships, academics and professional growth. As a result, Tinder has never really appealed to me. Plenty of my friends have had Tinder, gone on dates that resulted from matches and lived to tell the hilarious stories of awkward encounters and bad pick up lines.
So as a result of laughing with friends and family, and a seemingly fascinating experiment, I created a Tinder profile. We swiped through some guys, trying our best to make the decision as minimally superficial as possible though it’s a difficult feat when 80 percent of profiles have either a sarcastic bio or none at all. After a couple hours, messages started coming in. I was a little disappointed that none of my matches had any exceptional pickup lines. Most of the conversations were pretty boring and meaningless though I admit that I was not completely invested in having any deep conversations.
In Aziz Ansari’s book “Modern Romance,” he discusses the abundance of online dating avenues that the 21st century has afforded single people, Tinder seeming the most accessible. Ansari discusses in depth the idea that more and more people are using online dating websites, like Tinder or eHarmorny to meet people. In a world that is growing rapidly, people are still turning to their electronics to meet more people. It seems that society is so plagued with loneliness and a need for companionship, that swiping through pictures to determine whether or not you would be interested in getting to know someone seems reasonable.
I certainly have romanticized thoughts about running into the man of my dreams while reading in a coffee shop, but I am also living in the 21st century. I know that there are so many other ways for love and companionship to happen. I have very few bad things to say about online dating. There are plenty of people that have met someone truly important to them on the internet, and I could not be happier for them. In the week I experimented with Tinder, I found out that more of my friends than I realized were using the app. They had plenty to say about the funny conversations that they had and people they had met, but they never mentioned it previously. There should be no shame in online dating. If that’s the avenue someone wants to take to find love and happiness, I am all for it. I am generally in favor of anything in the pursuit of happiness.
So Tinder’s not for me. But if you haven’t tried it, don’t let the horror stories scare you off. Since seemingly everyone is already on the app, the chances of meeting someone outside the normal circle of your life are pretty good. There’s no reason to shame online dating, because when we shame online dating, we’re shaming the pursuit of happiness, which has absolutely no place in our world.
