I’ve been against going on Tinder as soon as I heard about it. The fact that people are just looking at pictures to decide who they want to get to know is disgusting to me. As a woman, I’ve been judged–and passed over –for my looks my whole life. Shocker, I’m not conventionally beautiful. Physically, I’m not what most guys would call a”catch” or what American media and commerce has been shoving down our throats as beautiful. You’re not going to see my body type or curly hair like mine on the cover of Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit edition. Very rarely will you see a woman there with my skin color . I’m not even close to a model. So I thought, I’m not the right look for this.
But, even bigger than that was the age issue. I’ve online dated before, but an app? Sealing the fate of your love life via a series of swipes? That’s something only millennials can comprehend. There aren’t going to be any Gen X-ers on Tinder.
Then I got bored and kind of curious, and I thought, what the heck? Try it out. If no one swipes right, I won’t be any worse for it. So I made an account.
I thought this would be easy… I wouldn’t have to answer a billion questions, I wouldn’t even need a serious profile. I just need to find my best photo. Turns out, you probably should have a profile on there. At least 2 or 3 sentences of something. Otherwise, your picture really will decide everything.
You also probably need to know what the buttons do. If you can’t swipe, you can use buttons. You can send reactions that are underneath chat windows. You can report someone for being… whatever the heck they are being. Who knew? I’ve accidentally super liked people, swiped left when I meant to swipe right, swiped right when I was trying to scroll through photos. I sent some guy an explosion of hearts by accident. Just met the guy. That should scare ’em off really quickly. And since I’m not app-savvy and I am a planner/researcher type, I had to find the help and support guide after a while. Took me five minutes. But I found it.
So far, this wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I actually am getting matched (and unmatched… more on that later) and having conversations. Who knew there were other Gen X-ers on Tinder? Actually, there are all kinds of men. Maybe, I’ll actually meet one. Until then, I’m going to try to reserve judgment and have fun…for once.
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