This summer, I signed up for Tinder. I justified it as a way to meet people in this new city, but I must subconsciously crave sexual harassment and compliments with hidden agendas. Here is what happened:
It seemed like the perfect time. If I were to take part in this online orgy while I was at school for example, I would see people I swiped in my classes and at bars. Even worse, someone could recognize me. In a place where the only guy I know is as straight as a rainbow, I saw it as the opportunity to satisfy my curiosities.
Thanks to my best friend/roommate/enabler, I gained the courage to make a profile. Your profile is synced to your Facebook, but only displays your first name and age. It lets you know if you have any friends or liked pages in common. This is where I ran into my first problem because I never cleansed my Facebook from middle school. Here are some of the pages that appear when someone looks at my profile on Tinder:
- “Bill Nye the Science Guy”
- “I Didn’t Trip, I Was Testing Gravity. It Still Works.”
- “That Moment Of Shame When The Automatic Door Doesn’t Open For You”
- 3 different Justin Bieber fan groups
- “When. I. Read. Stuff. Like. This. The. Voice. In. My. Head. Takes. Pauses.”
- “Can Chuck Norris Get More Fans Than There Are People On Earth?”
You would think just going on Facebook and unliking these pages would be simple, but there are hundreds. Hundreds. With nothing to lose, I moved on to picking the photos for myself. My strategy for this step was simple: trick men into thinking I am skinnier/cooler/more popular/prettier than I actually am in real life. This turned out to be easy enough since I actually have a very similar strategy for Instagram. The first picture you choose is the only one other people see unless they tap on your profile to see more. The “more” includes up to 5 additional pictures and a bio. When I saw I had to write a bio, I actually heard the music from Jaws play in my head. Some people go for describing what they are looking for, some just describe themselves, and some go for mystery. I am still pretty confident in my decision to write, “In an open relationship with Dwight Schrute.”
Then, all of sudden, I was a person with an actual profile on Tinder. Who had I become? Almost instantly, I was overwhelmed and in a complete panic. To accurately convey my feelings, here are actual texts I sent to the best friend/roommate/enabler that helped me set up my account in the first place:
Quick s/o real quick to my friends in general for putting up with me! There were so many people! My match settings were only set to within a 5 mile radius and between ages 20-26, so I cannot even imagine how many more guys there would be if my settings actually equated my level of desperation. These are the kinds of people I came across:
- The absolute douche (which includes, but is not limited to gym rats with flexing mirror pics, horny pervs, stoners asking for someone to “blaze” with, and sex-crazed monsters)
- The artist/poet/sensitive type searching for a muse
- The guy that has definitely strangled 4 or more strippers
- The father/grandfather pretending you cannot see the top of their kid’s head in the bottom of their picture
- The couple looking for a third (my personal favorite)
- The semi-normal person
- The “romantic” that tells you his favorite movie is the Notebook and just wants someone real
- The dom looking for a sub (I do not care how much you liked 50 Shades of Grey. This person is dangerous. Do not meet them. Best case scenario, they will suck on your toes and keep pieces of your hair.)
- The guy that is definitely a catfish since his picture is of Channing Tatum…..
I do not know about you, but I loved my options. For those of you that do not know, you swipe right if you like someone and left to never see them again. If you swipe right and someone does the same for you, you match and then can chat. I looked for people with somewhat above-average looks, a completed or current college education, and/or the sense that they would not hunt me down to kill me. After I came to terms with my impossibly high standards and diluted sense of self, I matched with a few guys. One guy’s opening line was just, “tit pic.” I seriously cannot wait to tell our kids how we met. Other than Romeo, I met some people I did not mind. I found a lot of the guys were physically incapable of asking me anything about my life, so I slowly tiptoed away from those conversations since I am incredibly self-involved. Once, someone stopped talking to me when I told him I could juggle then sent this link. In retrospect, I understand and actually respect him more for his decision.
In all, my time on Tinder has really taught me a lot. I make poor life decisions. The only way I know how to flirt is by referencing my favorite episodes of The Office. I think everyone I meet online is a murderer or catfishing me. I prefer having the storage on my phone and living out my true destiny of staying as single as a nun.
SRTOLAND 