Photo by Analyn Cuarto
The trials and tribulations of online dating
By Jessica Berget, Opinions Editor
I have a love-hate relationship with Tinder. On one hand, it’s great because it provides you the opportunity to meet and hang out with cool people or engage in the occasional sexual liaison. On the other hand, if you never get around to talking to many of your matches, it becomes a haunted house, full of the ghosts of potential matches that you never had time for or could be bothered to connect with. They serve as a reminder that Tinder is a godless land, and that you might be better off just meeting people offline.
Meeting people on Tinder is a gamble; you never really know what they’re going to be like until you meet them in person. When you do meet someone, it takes about 30 seconds to determine if you’re attracted to them or not based on how they look and how they carry themselves, something that is hard to do when you’re just looking at pictures. On the other hand, when you meet people in real life it’s much easier to get a better sense of who they are.
On Tinder, I often hum and haw as to whether I find someone attractive. Oftentimes, pictures don’t really do their subjects justice. I’ve been on Tinder dates where I thought the person was less attractive in real life than the pictures on their profile, and dates where the person turned out to be more attractive. It just goes to show that pictures don’t really show much, and the only way to get to know someone is to physically meet them.
A decisive factor for me is their personality. If I meet someone and I can’t decide if I find them attractive or not at first, I can become attracted to them if I find we have a lot in common and they have a great personality. However, that’s often hard to gauge on an online dating app where looks are a crucial factor.
It’s hard to get a sense of someone’s personality over an online dating app. Sure, you can read their bio, check out their Instagram, and maybe even look at your common likes, but people’s online persona and actual personality can be two entirely different things. It’s difficult to get a sense of a person by just looking at a couple pictures and a short bio. You get a better understanding after you message them for a bit, but you’re still never sure about who they are or what they’re like until you actually meet them.
Another frustration I have with Tinder is when people stop messaging you or the conversation becomes dry. People get busy and don’t have time for a dating app, or they just run out of things to say, and that’s fine, but it’s annoying when you really wanted to keep talking to that person. Otherwise, when you meet someone in real life they can’t just stop talking to you while you’re hanging out with them, and it’s easier to naturally keep a conversation going because physical connections are stronger than texting.
There are a lot of problems with Tinder, but it’s easy, and all it takes is a couple messages to meet new people. As much as I dislike the app, I’m too lazy and shy to meet people in real life, like most people are. I guess in the end I’ll just stick to the endless cycle of deleting and re-downloading the app.
