As a single person of the female persuasion, I decided to give this whole Tinder thing a whirl. The whole thing started out somewhat innocently; I naively thought that it would be the best place to meet other single people, and so, armed with some deceptive pseudo-attractively “well-lit” and carefully-posed photos, I joined the fray. I carefully spent a huge amount of time on my bio, because, again, I naively thought that people actually gave a shit about what you have to say.
‘Nobody would ever NOT be interested in me after reading this bio,’ I thought to myself smugly as I posted my awesome profile for the world to see. ‘I’ll have a harem of men by sundown.’
And so I began to swipe.
After 30 minutes, I was wondering if I had inadvertently joined a website for fishing, beach, and tiger enthusiasts, because every single photo I had seen thus far displayed a male either holding a large fish, posing with a drugged-up tiger in Thailand, or standing shirtless on a beach.
Bewildered, I began reading the bios:
“Likes: travel, beach and fun.” (Wow, so deeply unique and interesting – it’s so rare to meet someone that likes those things.)
“Pubs Not Clubs.” (That’s such a weird thing for almost every guy to feel that they need to state in the tiny amount of space that they are given to tell prospective partners about themselves.)
“If your a chatbot or prosttute dont fucken message me.” (Spelling/grammar mistakes galore; angry guy who is sick of hot girls turning out to not be real girls.)
I began worrying that all of the men on Tinder were THE SAME. But surely even Tinder has some sort of bell-curve distribution of personality?
I continued swiping. By this point my bone was beginning to show through my thumb. Sweat was beading on my forehead as I anxiously swiped beach photo after fish photo after tiger photo. I tried to focus on my phone screen, but every time I closed my eyes the tigers, fishes and beaches were looming closer and closer in my mind’s eye. I began to panic, frightened tears streaming down my face; my now fully exposed thumb bone carving a horizontal notch into the glass screen of my phone. With every swipe, my anguished mind became more tortured. Tigers and fish became one horrific entity, a large tiger body with a fish head prowling across a beach. I passed out in sheer deranged panic, waking up hours later to find myself lying on the floor, with no thumb left and only the broken remains of my mobile phone for comfort.
Tinder: 0/10, do not recommend.