Is it better to have loved online
than never to be fucked at all?
I signed up for Tinder last
weekend. I could say that I gave it a shot because I've never done
online dating. Or, inversely, I could lie and say I did it
ironically, dismissing the notion that I need any help in meeting new
people. But the fact of the matter is that I did it because my
roommate wouldn't shut up about it.
I had never known of Tinder
before 2014, which is unsurprising. I've heard about Grindr before,
strangely enough, which seems to be the gay equivalent to Tinder (or
perhaps it's the other way around, seeing as how Grindr launched
almost three years previous), but it was not something that could be
useful for my needs (e.g. not gay sex). With Tinder, though, your
Facebook page feeds into your Tinder profile and it displays other
users in your area, occasionally matching your Likes and Mutual
Friends. It's like small talk without the whole “communication”
rigamarole.
The problem I have with
downloading this app is that I'm simultaneously fascinated and
disgusted with it. Having never previously participated in online
dating, the sheer number of viable mates around me was a little
overwhelming. But it turns the out the internet has not been lying to
me; there are hot singles in my area!
1. NOPE!
Despite this revelation, Tinder
brings out my worst qualities—the judgmental, shallow, hedonistic
version of myself that bases a girl's worth on her attractiveness. As
a user, you always start out with one picture of a girl which you can
then tap to open her profile. The dickhole that I am, I've
malevolently swiped past countless girls simply because their first
picture didn't meet my standards. Of course, none of these females
will ever know how quickly I dismissed them, but I still feel a deep
sense of shame for judging these girl-books by their picture-covers.
And I continued to do it. While
I could say that I grew to accept that these girls are much more than
just their Instagram-filtered faces and an affinity for How I Met
Your Mother, I proceeded to wave them off as if these fellow human
beings were not worth my time. I'm aware that I have no room to
talk—I'm no looker myself—but I keep rationalizing that no one
wants an uggo, and I can't be held responsible if my heart doesn't
flutter at every girl in the greater Grand Rapids area. Just because
someone uses a low-cut top to initiate an online conversation doesn't
mean I'll take the bait. I find certain people attractive and certain
people not. However, my ratio is very unbalanced. Maybe 5% of the
profiles I see, I like. The other 95% get rejected in one of Tinder's
cruelest features: if you pass on a profile, you swipe the person's
picture left, after which a giant stamp prints across the rejected
match's face “NOPE.”
In a world where body image
issues are staggering, the fact that anyone is putting themselves out
there is unquestionably inspiring. But I can't imagine feeling great
after opening your heart to the possibility of finding someone
special (or just someone to fuck) only to have a giant dismissal
stamped across your face.
I estimate that I've NOPE'd at
least two hundred girls in my area.
2. About Me: [nothing]
Tinder provides a space for users
to write a small description of themselves, and my About Me section
is a mess. For a person who talks about himself as much as I do, I
can't ever make a point of selling myself. I live in
self-deprecation, which in and of itself is a quality women aren't
exactly running over each other to get at. It's not that I don't
believe I have good personality traits (they're there somewhere).
It's more the fact that everything I write ends up sounding either
narcissistic or contrived—I'm either too full of myself or I'm
lying. I understand that some hyperbole is acceptable when creating
an online profile looking for a mate, but even simple descriptions
sound forced to me. Am I vain or dishonest when I call myself “fun”?
I'd like to think I'm fun, but who am I to say how other people
perceive me?
This is why I believe that your
roommate should always write your dating profile. They know how other
people respond to you. They've likely noticed patterns in your
relationship history and know what you're looking for. They could do
a better job at describing you than you would, with more honesty.
It's better than you constantly knocking on their door with your
smartphone in-hand, asking questions like “Would you describe me as
a 'music-lover'?”
Sadly, I authored my own profile
and it resembles an awkward mixture of 2nd-string high school
basketball player/obvious catfish/recently-divorced father of five.
It took at least 45 minutes and several different drafts to write 76
words and it still turned out horrible. I can't imagine a single
person reading it and going “Well, he didn't seem that great until
he described himself as 'shy.' What a catch!”
One could argue that I shouldn't
care what other people think, that I should just write whatever's in
my heart and the right girl will come along soon. The people who
gravitate toward this mindset have obviously never been single
because a totally direct About Me section would be just as
disastrous:
“Hey, um... Look, if we go
out, I'm probably going to try to get into your pants. I jump the gun
quickly because I wasn't really a ladykiller in high school so I
overcompensate for that. I fall hard, fast, and often. This doesn't
mean I won't cuddle or make you breakfast (cereal) or watch a bunch
of movies with you. This doesn't even mean we need to have sex; I
simply prefer sleeping with my arm draped over a girl's waist. I
don't have a car, I drink excessively, and I rarely have any pride in
myself or my accomplishments. I'm full of unjustifiable jealousy and
I've ended every long-term relationship I've ever been in. I've
developed a pattern for taking off my shirt at parties and have very
serious opinions about Ocean's 12. Kthnxbye.”
I've since deleted my About Me
section.
3. Start a Conversation with a
Real Person!
What I like about Tinder is that
you only know if someone Likes you after you Like them. Rejections
don't register; they simply and subtly remove the other person from
your list and the other person will never know. But if you see an
interesting profile and hit the little heart icon, and they do the
same to you, a chat window opens up and you can start a conversation.
Thus far, I have had two exchanges, which means that two girls looked
past my pictures and strange self-descriptions and thought, “Meh,
I'm drunk enough,” which is all I've ever wanted from anyone
anyways.
Both conversations were brief
because, as it turns out, talking to girls is not my sharpest skill
in the wheelhouse. People as a whole terrify me, so talking to an
attractive person basically shuts down any cognitive functions,
forcing me to start spouting words in the hope that they form
semi-coherent sentences. I'm not even looking for charming or smooth;
I'm simply working as hard as I can to respond.
And that's why man invented
alcohol.
[Quick side-tangent about me,
technology, and alcohol: as an introvert, there's a calamitous
transformation that takes place when I'm drunk and have access to my
phone/the internet. I'm like a superhero fueled by tequila, whose
mild-mannered alter ego has qualms about any public displays of
affection (kissing, hand-holding, eye contact) but soon turns into a
confident, chest-puffing douche who says things like “I want to
mount you like Rushmore.” (I'm not sure if that is a reference to
the presidential monument or having sex with a Wes Anderson movie.)
You usually have ~5 people that
you've sworn to never speak to again. The mention of any of their
names incite a riotous “Fuck them! Why were we even friends with
that dumb cooze?!” But get a 12-pack of Rolling Rock under your
belt and suddenly the only logical course of action is to rip open
old wounds in a terribly misguided attempts at reconciliation. No one
is ever satisfied by the results of drunk texting. No one has ever
woken up from a blackout to a phone full of apologies and plans to
get lunch next Sunday. It's typically a button-mashing effort at what
appears to be a one-sided sexting conversation.
And I can't apologize enough for
that...]
By the time I got to my second
conversation, I thought I was doing pretty well; the amount of girls
interested in me just doubled! I didn't think anything could go wrong
this time. I was more prepared, a little buzzed, and admittedly kind
of horny. Seen below is the entire exchange between Bernice and
myself. Out of the four things she said to me, maybe you can spot
trouble before I did:
Bernice: heya
Chris: Hey there!
Bernice: Hello .. have we
spoken before?
Chris: I don't think so. Where
are you from?
Bernice: i'm sorry...i get to
be forgetful at times! how are you?
Chris: I'm good! How are you?
Bernice: Just got out of the
shower...long week been working a lot! but i am feeling arroused!
[sic] so what's up... wanna have some fun?? =)
To be honest, part of me wanted
to respond just to see what a sexy conversation with a spambot would
be like. But I was more disappointed as I reviewed Bernice's profile
again to see that we had zero common interests and that her distance
from me fluctuated between 800 and 5000 miles. Don't get me wrong, I
like a girl who travels, but I also prefer them to me less fictional.
I was duped by a couple of cute pictures taken at Dutch angles from a
company looking to phish information out of me. Meanwhile, there were
hundreds of girls I passed up who had far less nefarious intentions.
I like to spend money on people, of course, but I would prefer to
actually meet a person rather than punch in my credit card
information for a “private show,” regardless of how soon they got
out of the shower.
(Of course, I've played with the
notion that Bernice was a real person, that there was some wet, naked
girl out there that I straight-up ignored after she confessed
something very personal: she had a sickness that only Chris's sexual
healing could cure. Then I laughed and drank even more.)
Matches are special. It's a
mutual act, something that says “I think you seem interesting and
you think I seem interesting.” There's nothing worse than putting
yourself out there and being rejected. (Well, there are a couple of
things that are worse: genocide, homophobia, the series finale of
Dexter, etc...) And even though Tinder is doing its best to avoid the
feeling of rejection—seemingly by placing one in the role of the
rejector—it still feels nice when the flame icon pops up and says
“Congratulations! Someone kinda had a positive reaction to your
face!” (Paraphrasing, but if Tinder is looking for someone to
update their text for a more realistic audience, I'm available.)
It's possible that I could get
more matches with a new About Me section (something I've thought
about adding again). I've considered the idea that girls might be
passing me by because I haven't given them context to go with my
pictures, something that says “I'm more of a winning-personality
kind of guy.” Instead of taking it seriously this time, I
brainstormed some witty one-liners or maybe a small list of my
interests. I thought about this for much longer than I should have
before doing nothing.
4. Conclusion
I have to get gross for a second,
partially for the metaphor but also because I want to be honest with
the reader. I was sitting on the toilet (were a lot of Tindering has
taken place) and I pulled out my phone to see if I could view any new
profiles. And as the loading screen pulsated, I asked myself, “Why?”
Why was I doing this? What was I even looking for? Easy pussy? A
conversation? Or had I devolved to the point of playing Hot Or Not
for my own amusement? None of my answers really rang true, as I
evacuated my bowels. There really wasn't a point, I decided. I wasn't
happy with the results of my little experiment. I didn't even have a
complete profile for others to peruse.
The more I Tinded (or whatever
the verb is, meaning “to be on Tinder,” past-tense), the more normal it all
seemed. I felt less bad with every girl I swiped left because of a
slightly-larger chin or a description that read “Only listen to
country!! [five horse emojis]” Was I becoming less sensitive or was
I beginning to realize that it's really not that big of a deal? Or
was there a worse question I wasn't even asking myself yet?
I think I can get away with
hiding my shallowness deep inside for now. I will always value a
girl's appearance—I think it's a little crazy not to—but the less
I'm aware of it, the better I'll feel about finding people I like,
and the methods I use to select possible mates. I overanalyze
everything anyways, and I don't need any technology that aids my
busy brain's processes.
When it came down to it, I
wasn't getting anything real out of Tinder. I have about as much luck
picking up girls at bars, and in that case, I get to know them
better, quicker. It might be a tad analog, but my broken techniques
aren't so broke that they need fixing. This isn't to say that
conversations with other people over the internet are artificial
(unless they turn out to be an algorithm hundreds of miles away. This
isn't a Spike Jonze film, after all). Rather, it simply doesn't make
anything easier for me. I have just as many anxieties in creating my
online identity as when I buy someone a drink. At least in real life
I feel less cheap, instead of hiding behind the almost anonymous
divide of the smartphone app. I'm often lonely, sure, but browsing
profiles of local singles on my phone doesn't curb that loneliness.
If anything, it shows how many girls are out there and not sleeping
with me—percentage-wise: 100%.
But maybe I should look at that
more as a positive. For the first time in a long time, I have
photographic proof of just how many 21-to-30-year-old fish there are
in the 10-mile-radius sea. The possibilities, while not endless, are
pretty damn good.
