Like almost every woman on this earth, I want to find true love. I want to find my Prince Charming so he can sweep me off my feet and we can live happily ever.. you know the story. I want to meet someone who likes me for me. Flaws and all. Someone who wants to hang out with me at two in the afternoon rather than two in the morning. After my four and a half year relationship ended abruptly, I took time to get to know myself. I focused on school, spent time with my friends, and just enjoyed being a single woman in college. It wasn’t too long until I started to miss the presence of a young male. I missed having someone hold the door open for me and pull out my chair. I missed the hand holding, date nights and don’t even get me started on the #MCM Instagram posts. I had (and still have) male friends that were attractive but how awkward is it to confess an attraction and get nothing back?
After hearing about Tinder and what most people used it for, I was completely turned off. However, I had some friends that used Tinder and it worked out well for them where they had met a guy and actually started dating. I fell into peer pressure and downloaded the app. After setting up my account, I went through the tutorial and got the hang of the “swipe left, swipe right” feature where one swipes the picture to the right if you think they're attractive and swipes to the left if you think they're simply "ehh." I found myself in an uncomfortable position where I would see guys on Tinder that I saw on campus and felt guilty if I swiped left on them. (Small school probs.) Soon, I began to start matching, talking and eventually meeting up with some guys. For the most part, it went well. I met a few guys that were really nice and even though the relationship went no further than friends, we still talk today.
As expected, I ran into a few jerks on Tinder as well. The kind of guys that started a conversation with "Your breasts are huge. What’s your bra size?” It’s not that these guys were mean or rude towards me, it’s that they were looking for a different kind of relationship than what I was looking for (if you even call that kind of situation a relationship) and their intentions were to simply just have casual sex. I’m not saying that what they were looking for was wrong but it was wrong to make me think that they weren’t looking for that type of situation and were indeed looking for a potential relationship like I had been. Call me crazy, but for about five months, I was indeed looking for Mr. Right on Tinder. After so many successful and unsuccessful first dates, I didn’t meet Mr. Right on Tinder. However, I did manage to run into Mr. Conceited, Mr. Player and we can’t forget about Mr. No goals or aspirations. The dreaded question "Have you met someone?" or "Why don't you have a boyfriend" asked by my family during Thanksgiving dinner made me realize that I really don't need a boyfriend at this stage in my life. If the right guy comes along, great. Until then, the best route is to just keep my options and my heart open.
The important lesson learned here is that Prince Charming is NOT on Tinder. If he is indeed Prince Charming, then he thinks Tinder is stupid and a complete waste of time and doesn’t even have the app on his phone. He’s waiting to meet you at the grocery store, Starbucks or maybe even a Greek event. He likes you for you and wants to take you bowling rather than “watch Netflix and chill.” It’s a little cliché to say that our generation has grown attached to social media but the statement couldn’t be truer. I think it would be beneficial for everyone if we simply just put our phones down and talk to each other.
