We are the Millennials and if you have time between your 9-5, the blog you’re editing, your quirky start-up plans, the NGO you’re volunteering at, and the crippling debt you’re nursing, you’re probably crying yourself to sleep with a tub of vegan ice-cream and a re-run of ‘Friends’. In comes the hipster-approved entertainment app that lets you, with the flick of a finger, judge a person solely based on the gifts their Mama gave them. Just in case you’ve been living in a hole though, let me catch you up. Tinder is a dating app that at last count boasts of 10 billion matches, allows you say “dick-pic” in 44 languages, and according to this study by the American Psychological Association is in no way healthy for your self-esteem. But if Tinder is so unpleasant, then why do we swipe?
Well, according to this study released in 2016, there are six reasons why someone would go on Tinder: Love, Casual Sex, Ease of Communication, Self-Worth Validation, Thrill of Excitement, and Trendiness. It turns out that ‘Love’ as a reason to go on Tinder supersedes ‘Casual Sex’ and no surprises there. We live in the world cluttered by pristine Instagram wedding posts, hen party invites from the most unfortunate kid we went to school with, and the never-ending discussion about freezing your eggs. Plus, let’s be honest, most relationships that we try to form with the people around us don’t last anymore and although every 90’s romantic movie prescribes to the ‘Tale as Old as Time’ story of dating your best friend (or your kidnapper), you know that drunken hook-up was a terrible idea and it’s never going to work.
Despite the horror stories though, there have been quite a few successful Tinder stories. The Millennial Bible (Buzzfeed) even curated this massive article on Tinder success stories. I met a girl named Anna last week who’s in the happiest relationship she’s ever been in with her beau Amit. She said, “I had no intention of getting into a long-term relationship. I only chose to swipe right if I noted that they were working on start-ups or were bloggers. I’ve wanted to start something of my own and it was good to meet like-minded people. Then I saw Amit’s profile. He was an investment banker – a breed I usually judge harshly – and on his profile, he’d put the joke, “Someone told me to put a self-deprecating joke here but I’m not too good at that”. I don’t know why, but that made me laugh and once we started talking, we ended up having so much in common that we just…clicked! We’re moving in together next month and we’ve already started discussing a long-term.”
So, hey! Maybe this weekend, you could be the 10 billion + 1 match on Tinder and who knows, you might end up finding the love of your life (or at least get a blackmail-worthy genital photo you can blow up for a billion-dollar-earning modern art exhibit titled ‘My Tinder Experiment’).
Sugarlessplease