As a member of the Millennial generation, you probably find yourself an account owner of some sort of swiping dating app, AND THAT’S OKAY! It’s insane how normalized these smartphone app’s have become, and how many there are! Whether it’s Bumble, or Tinder, everyone seems to have one, and you know this is true because you constantly are swiping through people are come across those people from High School that you thought you’d NEVER see again, and swipe them right just to see if they swiped you too. It’s a strange phenomenon but we all do it!
It’s no longer uncommon to talk to someone that you’ve never met before. Remember when your parents would tell you not to talk to strangers on the internet, and now you find yourself juggling messages from multiple potential suiters that you met simply because you found them attractive. You go through the awkward, “ hey, what’s up?” “Good, hbu?” conversation and awkward small talk until you can finally decide that this person isn’t a complete weirdo. Going out to meet this person might not be such a bad thing, is something you start to think to yourself. “Tinder dates” or “Bumble dates” are now a normal thing. Even though its completely out of the “norm” we were all taught. I assume it’s considered the same as a blind date that your friend may have set you up on, except usually your friends don’t know the person unless they’ve met them in real life before this.
You send screenshots of them in your group chats with your friends to see if anyone knows them, and you try to Facebook stalk your matches to make sure they’re real and aren’t Catfish-ing you. Further normalizing the weirdness that is talking to complete strangers on a smartphone app. The worst is when your friends say they matched with them too, and you find yourself wondering if the person knows you guys are friends and are talking to you both at the same time.
While some use the app’s because they’re looking for a quick fix with the hottie they swiped right for, some are finding love! We’ve all heard of the lucky ones that found their soul mates at the swipe of a finger, and were all extremely jealous, and that’s what thrives our addiction to the apps.
We’ll never really understand why this is completely normal, because talking to strangers in real life is totally weird, but for some reason we are okay with it behind our phones. At the end of the we’re the generation that’s changing all the norms, so it’s only right that this is becoming okay.
