I wanted to step outside of my comfort zone and do things that make me feel slightly uncomfortable in 2014. In fact, I added the word to my vision board here. In looking over my most popular tweets I realized that people liked sharing/reading/commenting on my tweets about dating. I’ve never blogged about dating, because it makes me a little uncomfortable. But I set a goal, and I do want to talk about it more. I’m single and dating. According to Forbes, online dating is the new norm. So, over the weekend on a whim, I joined Tinder. Have you heard of Tinder? It’s an app that lets you meet people. It starts out a bit like Hot or Not by presenting photos of people nearest to you. You can tweak your age and male/female preferences. I played around with different ages. Slightly younger than me, to slightly older and the same age to see different people. The photos that you like, you swipe right on. Here’s an example.
I got this photo from Us Weekly. Apparantly, a former contestant from that show The Bachelor uses Tinder in Texas. I’ve never watched that show though.
The ones you aren’t really interested in, you swipe left. For the photos that I did swipe right on I was looking at:
– How does the guy look (of course)
– What is the guy’s name on the app?
If his name is something like “Pookey” “Master Playa Pimp Daddy Ninja” I know Tinder is supposed to be fun but yeah, he can’t be serious about life with those names.
– What is the guy doing?
Is he traveling? Snowboarding? Having a great time? Something like that is a plus to me.
Is he smoking, throwing up the middle finger, holding two bottles of alcohol? Just showing off his body? Huge negatives for me.
– Who is in the photo with him?
Some guys had photos with kids or lots of women. I evaluated those on a one on one basis.
Some guys had on wedding rings which is not cool with me and those definitely got sent to the left, to the left
Once you and a guy both “like” each other’s photo, the next step is to have a conversation. I can’t really give a ratio here because I have no clue how many photos I liked. Some I went through too fast, others I accidentally swiped the wrong way from going too fast and that sucked. The conversations are interesting. For the most part all are light-hearted and sporadic. Same as dating in person: everyone has different goals and intentions so you have to set boundaries and identify what works best for you. Not every “match” even talks right away. For the most part, I’ve found that the guys who start the conversation are more engaged. The most annoying part of Tinder so far? Guys asking me to follow them on Instagram. That’s an entirely different blog post though…since this has become a regular “thing”.
Oh, and a huge plus: Tinder is pretty supportive on Twitter and they have pretty quirky social media:
So anyway, this week I’m going on my very first date from Tinder. We are going to a fun public place and I’m pretty excited about it. I’l be back with a recap and more on dating via social media soon.
Have you joined Tinder yet? Here are a few tips from Huffington Post on how to brand yourself there.
