OK, so the app was actually called "6tin," but it's all the same crap.
What Happened
I felt surprisingly shameless the entire time. I started off wanting to be the most superficial swiper possible. The first day, I was borderline-addicted. Thought to myself, "I may have to do this for longer than 10 days!" As experimental and fast-paced as my experience was, I was doing it the wrong way. And I'm not referring to morally or tactically. I mean, like, literally.
I went a few hours without knowing you could actually press on the picture and actually learn about the person. How did I not know that? How did I not assume that? Anyways, once I figured that out, I was still loving it. Not sure why, but for the first day, it seemed like the app was working as fast as I was using it. For the next 9 days, it got slow and the became less appealing. I spent more time looking at bio's than pictures. Some of the people they were offering me weren't even in the same state. Weird.
I had heard that it's a classic pattern to just swipe right on every single person to get more matches, where you can narrow it down from there. I think I tried this once for a spree of 10 photos. Can't remember how it turned out. Most of the time, I was actually pretty picky. My reasoning as to who I'd sweep right was beyond anything theoretic. I'd swipe right I found them attractive, yeah. But profiles were super important. I made some harsh judgments. Some examples:
(poorly-angled, sepia-tone photo of girl making duck face) SWIPE LEFT
"Looking for a cowboy ;)" SWIPE LEFT
"Common Interests: Kendrick Lamar, Thomas S. Monson" SWIPE RIGHT
I noticed about half the girls on there specifically wrote the words "Not looking for a hookup." It's sad how often guys out there actually do use Tinder just for that. Yet I know 0 of these people. I think it's gotten to a point where perhaps guys and girls need to make all their intentions known. Like maybe honest profiles that state things like:
"Semi-sexually frustrated Christian male looking for make-out buddy."
"I'm here because all the girls I actually know hate me."
"I am here for sex."
Any information about your moral standing is appreciated, good or bad. In Utah, stating whether or not you're LDS is a popular thing to point out, but I suppose it's for good reason. But you guys don't want to hear my boring thoughts about how the website works. You want to know the juicy stuff!
The Matches
So the first time I got a Match, I kinda felt like this:
Hear that? It's the sound of sweet victory blended with pure luck.
A match kinda means something to me in the Tinder universe. Considering how often I swept left, I had kinda set it up so that the matches I got were with girls I actually wanted to match with. In short, they were cute girls. The match itself was always exciting, but what follows? Most of the time not much at all.
Well, here are the stats and stories! I will be leaving out names...
-12 Matches
4 of these unmatched me immediately, so I don't really count those. Technically, I got 8.
Why did they unmatch me right away? I'm not sure. My best assumption is that these girls were sweeping right for any guy and once they actually looked me up, they realized they were uninterested and hid the the evidence. To quote the Barenaked Ladies: "Can you blame 'em? Well, yeah."
-4 Matches Who Actually Messaged Me
...Ouch. I was worried at first, like it wasn't normal. Then once I started messaging more often, I realized I actually hated Tinder messaging. So in a weird way, I thank the non-respondent girls for not wasting my time (or theirs).
I had a match with this one girl on Day 2. I had never met her before, but I had actually seen her name/face a million times. With nearly 40 facebook friends in common, she pops on my facebook news feed all the time in the "People You May Know" section. Weird, I know. When I matched with her, I was going to quit right then and there. I felt like I had succeeded as a social networker! And it was somewhat of an attractiveness-confidence boost. So I messaged her and never heard anything back. I guess we'll cross paths eventually. Until then, this whole ordeal was pretty comical and I have people I can annoy about it.
As for the girls who messaged me, they all had different outcomes. One girl messaged with me for a few days and we eventually met. Another had sent me 2 messages and I was starting to get bored with Tinder, so I asked her on a date immediately and never heard back from her. That was a bad move on my part, but somewhat on purpose... I'll get to that later. One girl started off messaging a lot, then kinda faded out. The best story here is a girl who looked at my photos and told me she liked my mustache. I had to break it to her that I shaved mustache 3 weeks ago. She unmatched me shortly thereafter. Who knew the 'stache was the key?
-1 Date
It was refreshing to know I had been messaging a real person. Legit. We met on campus and had smoothies. It was a good time.
Facts + Tacts
From a video titled "What NOT to Say on Tinder" (Simple Pickup): Avoid the general and boring. It works in real life, but this is an app with specific features and you need to take advantage of that. Use the bio info! Prove that you're a living human being.
The rest of that video mention above really sucks, but I thought that this was a great point. 2 of the girls who never responded to me were greeted with a pretty boring/general message from me.
As for how to keep up the conversation, I dare say it's all luck, If you're actually attracted to other person and what they're saying, it's a lot easier. Just keep asking questions and you can learn a lot. I know that if I myself ever lost interest, I'd wait longer to respond. As members of an non-personal internet dating site, we owe almost nothing to each other. We don't have to have thriving text-ersations with everyone. Just avoid booty calls.
The Conclusion
You get to know people on Tinder via text messaging. And still, after over 10 years of being a popular practice, texting is still bad communication. I had to quit. I hate the idea of getting to know someone through texting. In comparison to doing so in real life, it's pretty stupid.
In Tinder's defense, the one immediate thing you learn about the other person is if they're attracted to you. In real life, it's the other way around. You can be talking with a girl for a week and maybe start to read some signals. On Tinder? Right off the bat, the two persons find each other cute. But it may take you an entire week to find out what their major is. I was never really sure whether to prolong the conversation or just ask to meet right away. I can see reasoning for both.
So it changed my dating life a little bit, if not my dating perspective. And not every Tinder user is totally desperate. Most of them aren't. But text messaging is bad communication. I'm done, son!
Here's my favorite song about internet dating.
