This is probably the most meaningful thing I've ever written.

On Tinder, you're given a person's name, age and a few photos. Based on these, the app asks you to swipe right if you're interested, or left if you're not. There's usually a description of the person too, but lets be honest, no one really reads those. As soon as you accept or reject one person, another pops up. Naturally, this turns into a never-ending game as people usually flip through about a hundred of them per minute.  No one has time to read, which is why having bad pictures defeats the whole purpose.   

1. Not Pictured: When you were making your profile, it simply said, “upload a picture”. It didn’t specify what it should be a picture of, so you made your own interpretation. You like to color outside the lines, and that’s great. The thing is, I think the implication was that your profile picture should be a picture of you and not, say, a Marilyn Monroe quote, or an anime character. The most important part of a tinder picture is that it provides evidence that you are in fact the person you say you are...not an axe murderer or two small children standing on each others’ shoulders, wearing an overcoat. If you’re not willing to submit a picture of yourself, I assume one of those two things.

2. A Face in the Crowd: It’s good to see you’re a friendly person and you have enough social influence to get a multitude of people to smile next to you in all your pictures. The thing is, unless you photoshop in a big red arrow pointing at your face saying, ‘THIS ONE IS ME,’ I have NO idea which person you are. I’m left with two options: I can carefully examine the entire group of pictures, looking for the one person in each of them like a more pathetic version of Where’s Waldo; or I can do the lazier, normal-er thing, and swipe left.

3. Coin Flip: This is a more specific version of #2. Sometimes every single picture is with the exact same friend. It’s always nice to have a bestie to take dumb selfies with, I'll give you that. However (and this may be harsh), but a problem arises when all of the pictures of you on tinder are with the same friend, and that friend is of a vastly different level of attractiveness. Maybe it’s a clever scheme used by the less attractive friend, but for the person judging, it’s a shot in the dark. That may be shallow, but to be fair, Tinder isn't exactly a place to look for depth and meaning.

4. Whose Baby is That??: It’s not uncommon to see tinder pictures of someone holding an adorable sleeping baby. Without context, these pictures can mean a lot of things...well, three things really: 1. One of your friends or relatives has had a baby. 2. You’ve had a baby. 3. You’ve stolen someone else’s baby. All three of these are fine, obviously, but I’m tired of guessing which is the case every time I see a person with an infant. Please make it easier on everyone else and label your progeny. 

5. Gone Fishin': I actually don’t know if this is a widespread thing or if everyone else within 50 miles of me just happens to be really into fishing, but for some reason, half of the pictures I swipe through are of people holding fish that they caught. Are all Michiganders turned on by fine angling skills? Am I supposed to judge you based on the size of your fish? Because that's what I've been doing. 

Image courtesy of soopadoopa.org.