I must admit Tinder is a great piece of software. I'm a fan of OkCupid as well, but sometimes it's a little too much trouble reading all those lengthy profiles and coming up with an appropriate first message. It depends on my mood, I guess, you know I like reading. And if you don't, you do now. But Tinder is simple enough: you just upload half-dozen pictures, you don't need to write much or at all, and you're all set, then it's just swiping left and right (or not - I should let you know that I rarely swipe on Tinder, I actually go and press the buttons. When I do swipe it's by mistake). Furthermore, since you can only message people that liked you in the first place, I guess it's a bit safer for girls, although it doesn't exactly help them know what kind of people they're inviting.
Now, I am definitely not the average Tinder user. And I guess the best reason for it is that I don't get any matches. None, whatsoever. The only match I got was from a girl named Hoover, I was thrilled at the time, messaged her immediately, even told her this great joke about how we never know who's on the other side of these messages, you'd think you're talking to a beautiful girl and it turns out it's actually a vacuum cleaner! She replied "aww cute", then said a couple of ununderstandable messages and ended with "Tinder is breaking up, join me on this_other_shady_website_dot_com". My next move was to report her as spam. Yes, I had been talking to a robot. Here I am, joking about people that turn out to be vacuum cleaners and I was actually talking to one! You could cut the irony with a knife.
But yeah, no matches. But it's OK, to me Tinder is like the lottery, it's almost impossible to win, but it doesn't hurt you to buy a ticket. And that's why every once in a while I log in, check out 10-15 girls, press Heart or X accordingly, reach the "There's no one near you" message (Cambridge is a small city, I guess) and log out.
I see all the pictures and read all the profiles but, unlike OkCupid, I don't really care about what people write in Tinder. Every Tinder profile is the same: it's a happy, positive, easy-going girl who loves to travel. Sometimes they mention their height, which is most times enough reason for rejecting them (that's swipe l... left, right? I can never tell which is which...): no matter the actual height value, to me is the same as they saying "you're too short for me". Sometimes they say how many kids they have, and although that can be deterrent for some people, it doesn't bother me at all (although, I admit, teenage kids are a bit scary). Then they say one of two things: either they ask why men swipe right (right?) and then don't message, or they say they don't want a one night stand.
So let's analyse these two. I always find it funny that they sound so baffled by men who swipe right but don't message, when the answer is blatantly obvious: some (most? all? I really have no idea how many) men just swipe right to everyone! And if they get a match, then they go and see if it's worth it. I know it's totally unfair, they're gaming the system, and I'm pretty sure Tinder wasn't made for that, but that's how it is. Badoo used to send a warning whenever we liked everyone or disliked everyone (which sadly was much more frequent). Why Tinder doesn't do something of the sort is beyond me.
As for the "if you want a one night stand, swipe left" thing, guess what? Same answer! If men always swipe right, do you think they're going to waste time reading whatever warning message you wrote your profile? To me this sentence is the most irritating because even if I want a long term relationship (which I do), there's nothing I can do about it. Even if I wrote in my profile that I'm a nice guy and I'm in it for the long run (which I am), would you trust me on that? And even if you did, would you care?
Interestingly enough, the fact that most men swipe right on everyone forces women to be much more selective, because otherwise they'll just be overwhelmed with matches. Some guy even posted his theory on how swiping right to everyone is much more efficient to men. I don't think that's very fair to girls. Every other dating website has men mass messaging and women carefully selecting; Tinder was supposed to be different. It was supposed to take out the burden of choice from girls, and share it equally. Men are cheating, they're shooting in every direction and hoping to hit someone - like men have always done.
I'm not like most men. I try to be selective on my swipes - or button presses - first because I believe in the system, or its principles anyway, and second because I'd actually feel bad if I didn't message someone after I practically told them that I like them. I know it's not a good strategy, it doesn't get me many (or any) matches, but I don't really care. I'm just playing the lottery.
