Mr. Swipe Right
I'm a woman who's both loving and seriously hating Tinder. Guys on this app mostly want to hook up, and even those who say they want a relationship are flaky, often disappearing after a single date. Sure, this sometimes happens with guys I meet in real life, but not at the rate of my Tinder dates.
--Annoyed
Welcome to the Hookupatorium!
Tinder takes all the wait and effort out of speed dating. No need to put on pants -- or pull them up, if you're on the john. You just "swipe right" on your phone to match with somebody -- and maybe even swipe 'em right into your bed 20 minutes later. Plus it's fun -- less like a dating site than a video game. "Call of Booty," anyone?
However, for anyone seeking "happily ever after" instead of "hookupily," Tinder can pose a problem, and that problem is too much choice. But...choice is a good thing, right? The more the better! It's the principle behind those "endless options!" deli menus -- you know, the ones with a page count that makes you forget whether you're supposed to decide what to have for lunch or whether Ayn Rand was a bad writer.
Unfortunately, our psychological operating system evolved in an environment where the level of choice was more like "Sir, can I bring you the grubs or the grubs?" So research finds that we're easily overwhelmed by a slew of options -- often choosing poorly and being bummed about it afterward or feeling too snowed to choose at all. Social psychologist Barry Schwartz explains that these problems with choosing are about protecting ourselves from regret -- the pain of blaming ourselves for making the wrong choice. But having a lot of options isn't necessarily unmanageable -- if we have enough information to differentiate between them and narrow the field. However, on Tinder, there's minimal info -- only age, location, pics, and a few lines about a person -- making it an endless swipestream of "she's hot" and "she's hot in a slightly different way."
Also consider that Tinder is not designed to help you find love (that lasts for more than a few sweaty hours); Tinder is designed to keep you Tindering. The psychological hook is "intermittent reinforcement." Predictable "rewards" -- like if you swiped and always got a match -- quickly give us the yawnies. But Tinder's unpredictable rewards -- the random ding! "It's a match!" -- turn you into a coke-seeking lab rat, relentlessly swiping for your next high.
You may decide to keep nibbling at Tinder's mobile-global man buffet, but dates that come out of real-life meetings are probably more likely to lead to second dates, and maybe more. At a party, you're, say, one of eight single women, five of whom a guy isn't that attracted to and one of whom he broke up with last year. And finally, there's how face-to-face meetings come with behavioral constraints that Tinder convos lack. You should find it's the rare guy at the coffee shop who immediately follows up "That a soy latte?" with a casual "Wanna see my dick?"
"Help! I'm using this app designed for hooking up, and all I can find on it is people who want to hook up!"
I don't think I would have been so patient in my response.
Chris Rhodes at March 8, 2016 5:14 PM
Not gonna lie.
When Grindr first came along I was like lol wtf such a gay male thing...straight women would never be up for it. Then comes a milder cleaner version called Tinder.
If you are looking for crazed hotties, attention whores, broken hearted sobs looking for brief distraction and the somewhat same but constantly lacking in judgement individual join Tinder.
If you want a man or woman to marry you can do the online thing but it's gotta be the old fashioned way. Join some kinda online group where like minded individuals congregate. Message boards, video games, whatevs.
Ppen at March 8, 2016 5:31 PM
I can't judge her too harshly. Tinder does advertise as a dating site, not a hookup site. She might be hopelessly naive to believe that Tinder is what it says it is, but that's hardly her fault.
Patrick at March 8, 2016 6:21 PM
But Mommy!
She sounds very immature so maybe her current initial choices reflect that.
Her acknowledging the results of her choices indicate that at first she is confused about whether it's her or them. ("Maybe I wrote something wrong in the 3 places I could enter something?")
At last, finally, eventually, she gets it and wants confirmation ("You mean they misled me?").
Ah, they grow up so fast.
Bob in Texas at March 9, 2016 5:47 AM
Just wanted to call attention to to the fact that the "Call of booty" line made me spit tea on my desk.
sofar at March 9, 2016 7:17 AM
So yeah, the problem with things like Tinder or Plentyofish is that it's easy to be a troll, playa, or lookie-lu, and there's no downside. It doesn't cost anything and the people who do it suffer no harm for doing so. You need to get in some kind of community, where people actually know each other and bad actors get bad reputations.
Cousin Dave at March 9, 2016 1:50 PM
"Just wanted to call attention to to the fact that the "Call of booty" line made me spit tea on my desk."
Turn your head. The game comes in a "Black Ops" version!
Radwaste at March 10, 2016 4:36 AM
Patrick: I can't judge her too harshly. Tinder does advertise as a dating site, not a hookup site.
Interesting. Before I read your comment, I was surprised this woman was surprised that most guys on it wanted to hook up because, from an article I'd read about it (I've never used it, nor even seen it) I got the impression everyone knew that's basically was it was being used for. But, if what you say is true, then I can see why some people, like this woman, may have had different expectations.
JD at March 18, 2016 7:34 PM
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