Tinder

Late last summer, I was having drinks at a downtown rooftop bar with the friend I will call Em. She’s sassy, accomplished, funny as heck, and blessed with killer fashion sense — as well as with the sort of figure custom-made for said killer fashion sense. She’s also single, and was kindly coaching me on getting back into the game post-divorce.

After the second time she used the phrase, “he was a Tinder date…” I had to stop her and own up.

“I have no idea what that means,” I confessed, sure I was about to feel supremely uncool.

Her face lit up. She picked up her phone, opened an app, and handed it to me.

“Tinder,” she explained, then she grabbed her phone back from my wandering digits. “Woah, woah, woah! Don’t swipe!”

In less than two minutes, the app was installed on my own phone.

“Your life is about to change,” Em said. She winked mischievously.

Ladies and gentlemen, she was not kidding.

Tinder — for those still living under the rock I inhabited until that fateful evening — is either (A) a hookup app or (B) a dating app for those with ADHD, depending on who you ask. You create a profile that’s short and sweet. It’s the very antithesis of the process on most dating web sites, which generally make one feel a No. 2 pencil and scientific calculator might be required at any moment. As for pics, there’s no waiting for them to be approved as appropriate; in fact, the rule seems to be the less appropriate, the better.

Profile established, you set a search radius and other parameters (age, gender) and begin the very Malcolm Gladwell/Blink-esque process: a photo appears on your screen, and you swipe right if you may be interested, left if you’d rather have a root canal while listening to Justin Bieber and having your toenails removed by Dick Cheney. If you and a prospective paramour swipe right on each other, you can converse. Or…something like that.

In short order, I became one of those people I can’t stand at bars. My interaction with Em was suddenly limited to poring over my phone, laughing and commenting while she nodded indulgently. It was reminiscent of when my family got our first home computer, complete with a floppy disc containing the game Pac-Man. I was swiping at Tinder just as madly as I’d chased those little dots until the green and black screen made me cross-eyed.

I quickly learned many Tinder truths. For example, if a Tinder guy says he wants Face Time, it’s not his face you’re gonna see. Also, on Tinder, the glass is always half-full… Of what, I’ll let you guess.

Because I’m saving my own Tinder experiences for, ahem, fiction, I’ll leave you with this absolutely hilarious gem of a blog I stumbled upon recently: The Truth About Tinder.

Be prepared to pee your panties laughing. And to feel your faith in humanity die just a little bit. This is the epitome of NSFW and OMFG.

Truth really is stranger than fiction…and nowhere is it stranger than on Tinder.