Tinder Probably Wasn’t the Answer

If you don’t already know, Tinder is a dating app solely based on looks (and maybe sort of a person’s bio). You swipe left if you’re not into it, or swipe right if you are. If the other person happens to find you attractive, or for whatever reason wants to talk to you, they swipe right. If you both swipe right it’s match and a whole new dating world is born.

I was naive to think that Tinder, after ending my relatively serious relationship a week after moving to college, would find me happiness. Completely disregarding my roommate’s loving warnings against the app, I continued on in my search for love and romance. I was sure that some boy would sweep me off my feet and prove everyone wrong about meeting somebody online.

Wrong.

Instead I got pick up lines sent to me -usually degrading- or boys that had underlying intentions. Sometimes these boys seemed awesome to start off with, but over time would pressure me into more that I could not give to them. Thus the conversations dwindled or stopped completely.

For weeks I believed all of this was okay. In my brain they were just boys being boys. It is college after all and this is the time to go crazy. The problem with this is that’s not how I’m wired. It never has been and it never will be. I will never be able to have casual relationships with multiple boys.

So a few months into this “Tinder binge” I’ve been in, I am stuck listening to songs that remind me of my ex. It’s not even him necessarily, it’s the idea of him. The idea of a guy who got to know ME before trying to do more with me. That kind of guy. I am happy to say that tonight I deleted Tinder and am on my way to “recovery” in a way.

I am just (now) realizing how important it is to love self. I never gave myself the proper time to heal, and it sure as heck caught up to me. It’s never too late to change, though, and on this late November night that is what is going to happen.

Tinder was never the answer. Loving myself was.