Browsing through the endlessly diverse gauntlet of humans bearing their soul and persona for your consumption.
He has real pretty eyes, she has a great smile, welp thats a mighty fine torso shot, fuckable for sho, not looking for a hookup? WTF are you doing here? Is that person even real? Ew, he is holding a dead deer in his pic and those guys all have fish they murdered. That one likes their truck more than the earth. Military or cop not for me. She seems cool but she has seven kids. That one doesn’t like cats. He’s seems ok but somehow lives 200 miles away. That’s just a blank screen. Lots of couples looking for unicorns (usually a female that will fuck both you and your partner), then the jerks who say they are lesbians when they are actually straight cis men, and then BOOM out of the blue someone you know in REAL life. HMM…
Imagine a friend or acquaintance coming up. You have always found this person attractive but never spoke up. Maybe you just never really got to know them.
They look super hot in these photos, fuck it, swipe right. Ok, whats the harm? Let’s see what happens, they probably swiped left anyways, oh well, here goes nothing, drumroll… IT’S A MATCH!
Holy fuck! Wait, does this mean they are DOWN? Or is it just like yo bro, what up I KNOW YOU! Like are you trying to fuck though? This is a hookup app and we are on here for the same thing right?
It’s super awkward the next time you see them. Do you bring up the match? Do you say anything? How does one put these kind of feelers out?
It’s so hard to do this face to face (like people have done for fucking centuries, hope you can hear the ironic tone there). What did people do before dating apps determined compatibility?
So you match with your super duper sexy friend on Tinder… but what now? They like you back, how do you know if they are DTF or JK lol?
It’s downright scary to approach people sometimes. Hiding behind the little itty bitty screen seems like a cop out, like it is just too scary to be rejected in person.
Swiping away on the hottest hook up app seems so second nature, it is so easy just to place judgement on those we don’t know (or want to know better) based on several photos and a tag line. It is dangerous and sad to merely say I like you or I don’t based on only looks alone, hot or not.
I really think its sad that we have come to this. People sitting next to each other in bars swiping when they should be interacting with other humans in the same room.
My friend matched with a bartender he knew, she was his friend, they always laughed a lot, but until faced with the absolute yes or no of this app he had not pondered the idea of sleeping with her. After all, a lot of people in the service industry use Tinder to bring people into their bars.
“I bet she swiped right for everyone,” he thought. She’s cute, really funny, yea, that’s something I like! So he super liked her at 4am drunk.
The next time they hung out it was obvious that the feelers were being put out on her end. He may not have been entirely serious about the super like, but is still down to fuck if she is. It came down to an awkward moment at the end of the night, she stuck around until closing time and they were the only two left.
The ball is in his court now. Now you have to go deeper than just bullshit ice breakers. You are already past this. It’s now or never, take the plunge and see if she bites.
He did not pursue, figuring that if she liked him for realzies she would have moved in. He must have not liked her that much to not ever really notice it or say it out loud, right?
An impossible filter that I wish was on Tinder is the EX’s and EX’s of your besties. It’s a real bummer to come across someone who is hot and interesting and then realize that your best friend had a bad breakup or hookup story with them. Then you come to the EX’s of your current squeezes and that builds a whole new level of crazy.
Also relatives, that just creeps me out. I would never want to come across one of my cousins on a dating app.
The moment we have all been waiting for, the other day I came across one of my crushes on Tinder. I have always liked her lots, but never felt like I was her “type” (whatever the fuck that means).
She’s hot and talented, we have an incredible friend chemistry, it’s so easy to talk to her, but I never ever imagined she would like me back. I was afraid so I swiped left. Days later she told me that she swiped right.
FUCK! I done screwed up. I told her that I didn’t even see her pop up. I lied. In that moment I should have confessed it all, but I didn’t and now I feel like the moment has passed. Now I will never know if she actually likes me or not, woe is me!
Actually, no, cut the shit, if you like someone tell them IN PERSON. My roomie saw one of my other long term from a distance crushes on Tinder and I literally swiped for two hours straight to find him to no avail. I hope I didn’t go too fast and accidentally missed him!
I won’t pay for this app, not even to go back and swipe the correct way for my future soulmate. What if I go through all of that and we don’t match after all?
Tinder keeps coming up in my regular conversations. I am new to polyamory, so this is one of my new outlets for exploration, although I have not met a single person from it, mostly just small talk.
I got called out for not messaging a friend/acquaintance I matched with. He clearly wants it. This doesn’t mean I am required to go on a date with this person. It just means that I thought they had a cute photo. I was going so fast that I didn’t even know it was him.
I put all this faith in a swipe from someone I like and then I don’t think too hard when swiping myself. There are reasons why I never pursued this dude to begin with, so why now?
Knowing that a person likes you should not be the only reason to go for it. You must like them back and be honest, I am really good at making things awkward and really afraid of rejection.
But how will you know if you don’t just throw it out there? Why are we all so goddamn afraid of rejection? If someone doesn’t like you like that then just accept it and move on. You don’t need them to find worth and love yourself.
I must learn to be my own primary partner. There will always be someone else to date! I swear.
It’s a little more weighted in this case. If you have an established friendship and then are faced with the “Wait, if they want it, do I want it?” moment then you really have to put your cards on the table before you make an irrational move.
I have had a few friendships where I thought that I was unrequited with my feeling shift for years, too scared of losing the friendship over one awkward confession. It would have been awesome to read their mind, and know that even for the moment of the swipe I was an option.
The moral is don’t be scared to tell someone you love them. Life is too short.
If you rely solely on a silly dating app for your happiness you will not be a very happy person. True love, passion, and continuous joy are sparked by real life moments: catching eyes, brushing knees, petting the same cat, volunteering at the same shelter, reading books at the same coffee shop, or just a chance encounter on the street can bring you to your soulmate of the moment.
Keep your eyes open. You never know when they might come up!
* Featured image by Denis Bocquet via Flickr via Creative Commons
