2 Weeks on Tinder

I use to think Tinder was filled with a bunch of catfish and people that wanted to hook up, but my opinion of that changed after being on Tinder for two weeks.

It all started when I had two friends that both recently joined Tinder. I thought they were crazy to be on a dating app in college. After seeing how much fun they had I decided that I would download Tinder for a week or two then write an article about it. I went through a few technical difficulties with even creating an account that made me want to not get the app anymore. Once I got the issues resolved I had my first ever online dating account.

The first few days I was keeping track of everything and was instantly intrigued with Tinder. Swiping left or clicking the red X meant “nope” and swiping right or clicking the green heart meant “like.” Also you can share moments that your matches can see which is similar to Snapchat.

Over this time period I had a friends telling me about their experiences. A few of my friends ran into several weirdos. A girl I know went on a date from Tinder and the guy looked nothing like his pictures. Also an anonymous source told me about a couple of guys that created a fake account as a female talking to guys. Some of the men they tricked actually wanted to meet the girl and go on a date with her. These men were catfished. On a positive note, I know people who went on successful dates from Tinder. People that met their boyfriend or girlfriend on the app.

Day 1: I probably swiped left for the first 20 people then after a while I started to see some decent looking guys. In order for me to swipe right, he had to have at least a few pictures to prove he was cute. He needed to have an interesting biography that either made me laugh or caught my attention in a good way. I still did not see anyone that truly caught my attention. I probably swiped right on about 5/50. I got two matches.

Day 2: I narrowed the age and distance down from 20-27 to 20-22 with a five mile radius. This is when I began to start seeing some familiar faces. As in men from Vanguard, I saw a few of my friends and people that I see around campus. That is when I decided I was not going to swipe right on anyone from Vanguard because they can talk to me at school. I continued my same plan as the first day. After this day I got 4 matches.

Day 3: I had 6 matches and I was messaging back and forth with two or three of all the matches. At this point I was starting to get bored with Tinder. A guy I was messaging wanted me to come hangout with him but I told him I was watching TV. (Yes, that was my excuse as to why I could not hang out with him.)

Day 4: In the morning, I woke up and decided I was going to swipe right until I ran out of likes. This did not last long because I was still being picky. I decided to turn it into a game swipe left three times and then I would consider the fourth person. I had to make decisions just on the pictures and not on the biography. This plan worked until later that day I got a match and a strange message. I was not sure what the guy meant in the message. I got five more matches that day.

Day 5: I woke up and I had 8 new matches! I went back to only swiping right on guys that were cute and had an interesting biography because the previous idea was not so great. I also had several more messages from matches.

Day 6-14: I began to get burnt out of Tinder. I stopped keeping track of things because I was forgetting to even check my Tinder account. The only time I checked it was when I was really bored.

Tinder is a great app for meeting people when you are new to an area. So, if single and ready to mingle, it might just be the dating app for you.