I have decided to try to do things again. It is not easy, but I have two doses of vaccine in my arm, I am very practiced at good protocol, and increasingly, places in my city are requesting your vax certificate at the door.
With that in mind, I also decided to reboot my dating profile. There are dozens of apps and they’re slightly different in their focus, but they’re all the same, too. If you doubt this, explain to me why I see the same faces on all of them.
Folks tell me that Tinder, that wingman of all hookup apps, is just a hookup app. I don’t know about that. I read a fair number of profiles that explicitly state they’re not looking to just hook up. When I was on OK Cupid, which is supposed to be more relationship-driven, I got messages saying “I’m not looking for a relationship but if you want to hook up, I am so down.” It’s probably true that certain apps represent certain types more than others, but I don’t think it’s to the exclusion of anything else.
Given that dating is a numbers game, it seemed worth trying Tinder purely for its popularity. I got a lot of matches very quickly. That means nothing; Tinder is designed to make it very easy to say “That dude’s hot, maybe I’ll look more into him later,” and then forget about it forever. You can have 200 likes, but fewer than ten percent will lead to real conversations. Of that ten percent, easily half will blow it in the first interaction.
Datapoint of one, that one being me, of course.
I should back up a bit.
Here’s my current profile. My photos are, I assure you, excellent.
Friends have repeatedly told me I should date younger guys. I figured I’d put that idea out there and see what happens. It worked. Nearly all my current matches are 10-15 years younger than me. Hot, right?
Sort of. And not really.
Here’s how I want things to go.
Chat online with a guy who impresses me enough to make me want to meet him in person.
Have a very casual in-person date, just enough time to make me want to meet him for a real date.
Have a real date to find out if I want to make out with him. Do *not* make out with him on that date, but go away thinking, “I totally want to make out with that guy.”
Etc.
Here’s how things actually go.
Chat with a guy who totally blows it because he:
a. …focuses entirely on what I look like.
b. …makes some kind of sexually charged remark way too early.Unmatch and start over.
I just had this conversation with a guy:
Guy: So, what are you looking for?
Me: World peace and breakfast?
Guy: Cute. Have you been with a younger man before?
Me: I don’t answer those kinds of questions before I get to know a person.
Guy: [Unmatches me.]
Me: (to myself) Well, that was a time saver.
I’ve had multiple versions of this conversation in the last seven days. I am whiplashed by the speed at which these dudes will bring up sex. It is literally in the second message they send me. These guys have not met me and I give no indication that I’m just looking to get some. And yet here we are.
This is where my pals say, “It’s Tinder, what do you expect?”
I expect better.
I’m left with questions, as always. Do these tactics work? Is that why guys use them? Or is it why they’re available — because they’re total clods? Am I uptight because I dislike being aggressively hit on right out of the gate? Is Tinder the Goodwill warehouse of dating apps where you buy raw material by the pound and sort it yourself to see if there’s anything good in there? Are other apps truly better?
And that old classic: I’m going to die alone, aren’t I?