Why Tinder Isn’t For Me (And Other Introverts!)

Tinder has been around for a while now, and I had yet to try it out until this past weekend. I wasn’t really interested in the whole aspect of it; I am more traditional in that I want to meet someone in real life rather than on a dating website. I understand the draw of it, because you are (theoretically) matched up with people who share the same interests as you. However, I like the spontaneity of meeting someone in real life and forming a connection by talking face to face. This is difficult for me, though, because I am very much an introvert, and it is hard for me to get out of my comfort zone and actually talk to guys who I’m interested in. So, I decided to try out Tinder just to experience it, and also I was curious about the obsession my generation has with it right now.

I went over to one of my best friend’s apartment while we FaceTimed our other best friend (Joycie and Rachel, as I’m sure you all know), and we made a Tinder account. This was slightly awkward, because it was like I was screening myself. I couldn’t post pictures that I loved because they weren’t “Tinder” enough: pictures have to be attractive, but not look like you’re trying to hard, smiling but not too much or too little, and you can’t post too many group photos, because apparently that is a bad thing in the Tinder-verse. I was already uncomfortable at the thought of potential dates perusing through my photos. It kind of freaked me out that guys who I had no idea even existed could look at my profile, and see a side of myself that takes me a long time to show to people. I am a shy person, plain and simple. It takes a while for me to completely open up to people, so it made me feel so strange to know guys were able to find out so much about me just from an App.

I think part of the reason why this made me so uncomfortable was because I knew guys would be initially judging me only on looks. If they didn’t think I was pretty enough, most likely they would just swipe left without any regards to what kind of person I might be. That’s one of my least favorite parts of Tinder, because it makes people super focused on others’ looks, when there is so much more to people than just how they look. I noticed myself just judging guys on their looks too, and it made me feel bad. It bothered me that guys were judging me, but I was doing the same thing! I tried to become more conscious about actually reading through a guy’s profile before I decided which way to swipe.

Back to the actual creation of my profile, there was a lot of pressure to make my bio punny (I’m sure you all know by now how much I love my puns), witty, and let guys know my interests. I kept mine pretty broad, made a Parks and Rec reference, and listed three of my interests – dogs and Harry Potter among them, of course. After that my profile was complete, and I could start swiping. This was very strange at first, and there were a lot of different kinds of guys. There were the studious ones, hunters proudly displaying their fish they had caught, and those who “weren’t looking for anything serious.” When I made my first match it was exciting, because yay! Someone liked me! I didn’t like that I had to be validated by a guy to feel good, but it was exciting knowing that there was mutual interest. Some guys messaged me, and some didn’t. The ones who did usually sent a cringe-worthy pick-up line, and then would ask me about my interests, etc. One guy asked me what my ethnicity was with no introduction, which bothered me because why should that even matter? If I didn’t give him the answer he wanted to hear, would he stop talking to me? I ended up not messaging him back, because he didn’t even send a simple hello. At one point, Joycie and I matched with the same guy and he ended up messaging us both the exact same pick up line. I mean come on use some more originality, man. There was another guy who sent a Parks and Rec pick-up line, which I thought was hilarious so I sent another one back, and he didn’t even watch the show.

While I was messaging guys, I was extremely uncomfortable. Like I said earlier, I am an introvert and extremely shy, so it felt so odd to message someone I didn’t even know. I like to know who I’m messaging, so it was really weird to be talking to a guy who I didn’t know in person. Basically, everything about actually messaging guys on Tinder was odd. It felt forced, and oftentimes the guys wanted to meet up after talking for all of thirty minutes. I of course did not meet up with any of them, especially at 9 o’clock at night.

I kept Tinder for a couple of days, and ended up deleting it three days after I had created it. I didn’t feel any regrets about deleting it, because the whole experience made me too uncomfortable. I was stressing about it far too much than what it was worth, and I did not enjoy the experience in the slightest. I was also super worried about seeing these guys in real life, or meeting someone who saw me on Tinder. Not that this would be a huge deal, I just felt like it would’ve been really awkward and a situation that I didn’t really want to be in.
Tinder is right for some people, and not for others, which is true for most things in life. I personally was not taken with it, but I have friends who absolutely love it and are able to meet people on there. I really like the concept behind Tinder, but at the end of the day it just isn’t for me. I don’t even know if I’m at a place in my life where I have time for a relationship, so the best thing for me to do was to delete it. I felt like I had to try it, though, before I could really have a valid opinion of it. The saying “don’t knock it before you try it” is definitely true for a lot of things, so I knew I should at least try it out before I wrote it off.

Have you ever used Tinder?

Thank you so much for reading, and have a wonderful day! 🙂