Paul F. Davis | Managing Editor
I had just broken up with my high school girlfriend of three years and I was devastated, but also interestingly at ease. The relationship was great for the majority of the time we were together but it needed to end. We started to become distant. The time we spent together felt more like a habit than it was rewarding, we were growing apart, and we weren’t right for each other — but I knew someone was.
So what were my options? Go to the bar and find the one — well, no, I was only eighteen; flirt with everyone who I ran to — obviously, but that was too slow. I wanted something fast to help with the withdrawal of touch, of intimacy, of affection. So I went to the exact place I knew I could find someone — Tinder.
I made my profile, added pictures, typed some bio that was so forgettable I don’t even remember it now, and started swiping. It was fun, I got to look at so many beautiful people in various stages of undress and it was exciting to say the least.
“Ping,” you have your first match. Dopamine rushed, I was already hooked and the conversation started off with the most interesting sentence: “hey :).” I felt like a Casanova, smooth and ready for anything, so I kept swiping and it continued to be great. I felt like this was what I had been promised dating was like — being single was great.
But weeks later, that initial rush wore off and the good feeling that app gave me in the beginning started to change. I would talk to someone and we talked about everything; I felt sparks fly. She was cute, she was smart, she was incredible by all measures. I would type well thought out responses to everything she said. Laughing crying emojis flowed like koi through a pond… I was naively smitten. I would press send and wait for a response, but none ever came. I was crushed. I felt like just another guy (what’s his name?) in a stack of cards. Reflecting back it made sense to why they didn’t respond. I was over-eager, and what did it matter if they didn’t respond to me? They could always find another person to talk to. I was part of the game and that was my value, just another step along the road. I was just as lost as I had been before joining — being single was awful.
So I became jaded but addicted and kept swiping, doing exactly what they had done to me, talking and sometimes never responding to them, making them feel just as devalued as I had felt before. But, like me, they were just another card in a deck so it didn’t matter. With time I started to say things and make decisions I wish I hadn’t said or made. I was still single, but worse, I was becoming a monster that I despised.
Tinder never made me feel any of these things directly or made me make the decisions I had made, but when you insert thousands of horny or heartsick (or both) young adults into one app, it’s doomed to happen. So for those still wanting to be a part of Tinder, or any other dating app for that matter, please discover enough self-love to know that you are more than a card in a stack. And have enough respect for the people behind those cards to know that they deserve your respect too. Ohh… and I’m still single.
Contact the author at pfdavis14@wou.edu
Photo courtesy of Paul F. Davis
