Going into this week, I decided that I wanted to write on a topic that I find very interesting: the sexual exploitation of social media in youth culture. In my attempt to be an investigative journalist, I downloaded Tinder for a week to observe behaviors.
In order to create an unbiased sample of the responses that I would get, I decided that I would just swipe right for every guy that came up and not pay attention to who it was. This method backfired relatively quickly when I accidentally matched with one of my TAs and he messaged me.
I can honestly say that you have never experienced true awkwardness until you have accidentally matched with your TA on Tinder.
After that unfortunate mishap, I decided to be a little more selective of the people I swiped right for. So, I set up some ground rules:
1.) No meeting up or giving my number or any personal information to anyone.
2.) If there is a dead animal in ANY of his photos, immediate swipe left.
3.) If there is a dog in his main photo, immediate swipe right.
4.) Swipe right unless he looks like a blatant serial killer.
My profile consisted of six photos of me and my first name, with no bio or other form of personal information so as to not skew my responses. As the week went on, I got a few interesting messages, but mostly guys just stuck with the tried and true opener of "Hey! :)" (some with the emoticon, and some without).
This guy would have had a decent opener if I knew how to swim and liked boats
This boy moved a little too fast and I have commitment issues. Swipe left.
Some guys just liked to get right to the point:
During my entire week on Tinder, this one had the best one-liner, you go Mike:
I mean it's a bear saying hello, you can't go wrong:
Overall, the guys were nice and fun to talk to. After downloading it, I realized that Tinder was more about expanding your horizons and being able to talk to a greater multitude of people that you wouldn't ordinarily come in contact with than just finding random people to hook up with.
Society has given Tinder a bad reputation, and I found myself being anxious about downloading it and using it in public. I was so paranoid that someone would see the icon and judge me that I hid it in one of my folders behind other apps. I attribute this to the fact that Tinder is considered a sexual platform and society seems to impress upon us the belief that it is immoral (at least for a woman) to be a sexual being.
While I don't believe using an app for a hookup is the most physically, emotionally, or sexually healthy lifestyle and it is not my cup of tea, I am a strong advocate for sexual freedom and it isn't my place to judge or feel judged based on an expression of sexuality.
That being said, I still don't think I'll ever recover from matching with my TA, and I'd prefer to just stick to Twitter, where it's safer. So, I swipe left.
