swipe swipe swipe
I recently downloaded a small handful of dating apps… The first one was for work - I swear.
The hotel I work for has a bar on-site and part of my job is assisting in marketing the bar. We decided to host a Valentine’s Day event. The event was to be geared towards singles but not positioned as “anti-Valentine’s Day”. A friend of a friend started a dating app at the University of Colorado Boulder called Qualify. I reached out to Keenan about the possibility of co-hosting this Valentine’s Day event and we got to work.
I figured I needed to download the app, you know for research purposes. I’ve been pretty anti-dating app and only wanted to date people I’ve met “organically”. I like to consider myself pretty good at meeting new people and talking to strangers any opportunity I’m given. I even surprised myself when I was thoroughly entertained by Qualify. Sooo… I decided to download Tinder.
My friends in college had Tinder and it was always more of a joke than a way to actually meet people. The amount of trashy and vulgar pick up lines I saw come through my friends’ screens was hilarious and occasionally so horrifying that all we could do was laugh. I was prepared for a similar experience and I began swiping away.
Honestly, it was was better than I expected.
Maybe because I’m not in college anymore and matching with people on campus.
For me, one of the biggest turn-offs of the dating app world was how shallow it seemed to make a decision on someone based on a profile picture. I’ve changed my mind a bit on this since downloading Tinder and Bumble. The way I look at it is that the pictures and words you choose to post and display actually say a lot about you. It shows what is important to you - the hobbies and activities that you value. I lean towards swiping left on guys with tons of gym selfies, partying pictures and bios about not liking the outdoors or that sound incredibly cocky and arrogant. I swipe right if the things he enjoys are more similar to my interests. Again, this is only based on what a person chooses to present on a profile. So it could all be a front, but the way you choose to present yourself to other people often speaks volumes about who are you.
Another discovery has been how easy it is to find people on Facebook, Instagram etc from a dating app profile. And it’s a little creepy how quickly I was able to locate someone even without a last name.
I even reconnected with some old acquaintances and friends from high school and college that I’d lost touch with. A nice surprise there.
I found my cousin on Bumble. I’m pretty sure he has a girlfriend.
There was one guy that stuck out in particular through this whole process. Not in a good way.
You can see why.
He followed me on Instagram and started commenting on everything I posted. Then sent me a DM on Instagram.
Months later, I found him again but this time under a different time. I swiped right just to see if it was really him and see what he had to say.
That was the end of that, he still follows me on Instagram.
My friend Kate met her now husband on a dating app and they are an incredible couple together. I explained my whole theory about dating apps to Kate over dinner and drinks one night and I liked her take on it as being “entertainment and conversation without the pressure of it necessarily having to turn into anything”. Overall, the dating app world wasn’t quite as bad as I expected.
I went on one date. That’s a different story for another day. It was weird.