I was catching up on one of my favourite television series, Glee (yes I watch Glee and purely for the music of course!). So on one of the recent season episodes, Kirk alluded to how he was going for a date having met the guy on Tinder. That was all I needed to hear for my fingers to Google the site.

A quick search online revealed that Tinder is mobile  match-making/hooking-up app available on iPhones and Androids. It’s mostly used by busy or lazy people like myself. In my opinion, I think it’s purely for people needing any form of quick fix for either meeting new people or hooking up. This is because Tinder passes all the usual formalities of trying to be nice and going on dates when the only thing on your mind is what is likely to happen after dinner.

It is also one very lazy app because it uses your Facebook profile to gather basic information like interests, first name, pictures and your geographical location. It then matches you with people within a radius (as determined by you), with similar interests and common friends as you. It also operates on the ‘no likey no swipey’ principle. What this means is that Tinder gives you the opportunity to be anonymous when you either like (swipe to the right) or reject (swipe to the left) a potential match. If two people like each other by swiping to the right, then boom, you’ve got a match and either of the party can initiate a conversation. Tinder gives you the exclusive right to determine the outcome of each match and conversation initiated by either party.

So permit me to offer some unsolicited advice especially for the ladies (I’m of the impression that most guys already know of Tinder) and probably the not-so-app-savy guys to put my two cents in on how to make the best of the app should you want to join the bandwagon! Read and thank me later 🙂 .

1. Be Security Conscious: this is especially for the ladies (not that I’m saying that there are no female psychopaths). But anyway, Tinder has tried to make you as anonymous as possible so why rush into revealing everything about yourself barely 2 hours of you chatting with a match. Yes its true you haven’t had such meaningful conversation in months and he/she is just a few meters away from your current location. But still, that doesn’t mean you have to blur everything about you in one go including your telephone number and post code. Let the dust settle before you divulge sensitive information about yourself. By letting ‘the dust settle’ I mean you should have done your ‘due diligence’ – doing background checks on your match is a good strategy to staying safe on matchmaking apps like this. Google, Facebook and LinkedIn will come in very useful at this point. Otherwise if they happen to be friends with people you know on social networking sites or mentioned something that can easily be verified (i.e. profession or employer), then by all means verify such information. It will save you time to remove the chaff from the wheat and at least you will know who you are dealing with even if their profile says otherwise. Don’t judge me… a girl got to do what a girl got to do!

2. Lower your expectations: if you think you are going to meet the man or woman of your dreams on Tinder, then I think you have set yourself up for a heartbreak and weeks of depression thinking your dream of getting married will never come true. This is because most people are there out of boredom and desperate for random chats, easy dates and meaningless sex. Assuming I wanted to rate Tinder using such criteria on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the likelihood of you finding the ‘One’, I would give it a big ‘3’ (this is me being generous). That being said, you don’t wanna get on the path of self-hurt by thinking your next match might be the ‘One’.

3. Create a character for yourself:  as you have already lowered your expectations of people you are likely to meet or hook up with on Tinder, it will be best if you also determine what character or persona you want to take on. It’s an app that lets you have fun so get on with it. The least you can do is to have an interesting persona that makes people want to swipe to the right.  Now I don’t mean you going all catfish about your online persona by claiming to be somebody you are not. That will be fraudulent! Instead, you should build your profile by writing something exciting. You don’t need to write an epistle… just something that hints “you will be pleased you swiped to the right”.

I hate people with no profile because I thinks its height of laziness for an app that doesn’t ask you for too much. Also, I’m irritated by profiles that only talks about their height. Like are you for real? What I’m I supposed to do with how tall you are? Does that guarantee me front row seat to a Beyoncé, Michael Bublé or John Legend’s concert? Or better still, does being 6/7 feet tall give me an all paid luxury holiday to any destination of my choice? Seriously, if your height doesn’t do any of the above, then don’t bother. Men should stop thinking that being 6 or 7 feet tall gives them a free pass to a girl’s heart or even something as trivial as the kind of random conversations made everyday on Tinder. Sorry for going off-target just now, but I’m sure you get my drift!

4. Don’t take it personal: Assuming you have swiped to the right (meaning you like) and the pop-up that reads “It’s a match! You and Mr X have liked each other…. Send a message” appears. You look at Mr X profile and you see that he was active 1 minute ago. It’s over five minutes and he hasn’t said ‘Hi’ or ‘Hello’. Oh well, if you really like your match perhaps it won’t be a bad idea to make the first move. Forget the idea of you not wanting to appear too desperate for your match. The truth of the matter is your well cultured and sophisticated ego flew out of the window the very moment you signed up for Tinder and started swiping right or left. And if you permit yourself to be honest about the situation, you are probably bored or desperate or both. So don’t be shy, go ahead and say ‘Hi’. Also, in case you say ‘Hello’ and it’s taking your match a lifetime to respond, it’s no big deal. Just find another match who will respond and start chatting away.

5. Don’t forget to have fun: What ever you do or don’t do on Tinder, remember to have fun whiled you are at it. You may ( like me) realise that you have some cute pictures of some guys/ladies stuck in your brain the following week. Just smile when you have a flash-wave and suddenly begin to remember these pictures. Take everything in your stride. Be whoever you want to be and make your personality interesting enough because that does make conversations interesting as well. However, when your eyes become woozy because you have been swiping non-stop for almost a day, that is an indication that you need to take a swiping break. And if you happen to be like me, who can’t keep her focus for too long, you may find Tinder a bit boring or monotonous after a while. The review I read about Tinder initially stated that it could be quite addictive. I think people like me were not included in that particular survey.

While I am yet to delete the app because I can sense that I will find a better use of my time this weekend, I don’t trust myself not to get back on Tinder one of these boring days. But in the meantime, you all should go try it out and do let me know how you get on.

Have a fun Tinder weekend!

Categories: Lifestyle

Tags: Tinder