Tinder: A recipe for disaster (and inevitable soggy bottoms)
If you’re not familiar with Tinder then, firstly, have you been living under a rock? But secondly, I shall introduce you to what could be likened to a deep fried mars bar; you know it’s ridiculously bad for you, but you keep going back anyway.
Tinder is a so-called ‘dating’ app which many people would scoff at because it’s mainly used for hook-ups. It takes your pictures from Facebook and grabs your location to find everyone around you (of the opposite sex, or the same sex, or both) within a 100 mile radius. As well as distance, you can adjust age limit too. I am only 16 so I cannot ‘match’ with anyone 18 or over – my age limit is set between 15 and 17. When you open the app, you get a stack of profiles which you can swipe right or left to, right being ‘fuck me in the ass I’ve fallen in love’ and left being ‘even though my standards couldn’t really stoop much lower, you are below them’. If you both swipe right, you match, and you can talk to them. Hoorah.
Now the thing I hate about Tinder is that in one whole year, fifty two weeks, three hundred and sixty-five days, five hundred and twenty five thousand, nine hundred and forty nine minutes... I haven’t made a single long term friend. I know I may come across as naïve and you’re probably sitting there thinking ‘well, you did say it was used for hook-ups you carrot!’ but I can assure you I have made plenty of friends that I thought could last, but clearly not. They all seem to fade. They fade like the smell of farts; you think they’re never going to leave but slowly, surely, they fade.
I am convinced that it has nothing to do with the internet aspect either – many people think that an internet friend would never last, because the distance just won’t allow it. But rest assured I have human proof that they can work. I have officially known my Tumblr friend Luke for about a year now and we have never even met before. Yet, we talk to each other when we can and it’s a lovely little platonic relationship that we have. So, what is it about Tinder that makes it so difficult to form solid relationships? Is it me or the 2171 guys I’ve matched with? Or is it just the app itself?
I think it’s all three.
I am not on Tinder for sex or nudes, I want something more real. So let’s take out half the guys that want different things to me – 1000 left. Next, I am weird. An odd-ball. A strange sense of humour encapsulates my very being. So let’s take out half of my matches that don’t understand my hilarity. 500 left. Thirdly, all the guys that I didn’t even get as far as to speak to – let’s take out a good few, 100. Now, the one night stands of friendship, the guys I had a quick conversation with then realised we didn’t have anything else to say – 20 left. What about the guys who faded like farts next? 3 left. Finally, the last three. I met up with these cheeses and what happens, you ask? Our last step is to get rid of the ‘why did I ever think that was going to end well?’ bunch. 0 left.
The last three guys are where I think the app itself comes partly to blame. Due to the nature of teenagers and incessant lessons on internet safety, it’s natural to want to talk and get to know a person before you meet them. But this is the downfall. On both sides of the smartphone screen, we built up what the other person was going to be like; convinced they were going to be everything you hoped for. Alas, the meet always seemed to turn out with a soggy bottom. Not in a sexual way. In a pastry way. Bad, basically. I think we were both itching for it to work, the acknowledgement of desperation for a cute relationship – romantic or otherwise – seeped through my mind a number times (no doubt theirs’ too), only to be washed away by a wave of naivety and excitement that it could work out. If it had been only a few sentences before meeting, no emotional attachment would have to be broken after the meet, and we could just move on, hence why I think this app (especially for teenagers) is a recipe for disaster.
A recipe for disaster that I keep going back to, and will keep trying until I’ve spent all my money on ingredients so I can’t try anymore, or maybe, just maybe, the bottom of my pastry will turn out crisp one day.
Yet, the key thing to take out of this post is not that Tinder is the most ridiculous app in the world, it’s that my analogies are shit.