Tinder — An Honest Review
This summer, I broke up with my long-term boyfriend of three-and-a-half years. The agonising heartbreak that I then experienced restrained my life for the following few months. So, what better way to get over the love of my life than downloading Tinder?
Tinder is an online dating application, where users “swipe right” to like or “swipe left” to dislike other users’ profiles, and both users must like each other before they can exchange messages. In 2019 it was rated the highest-grossing app (Nasdaq) and had 6.2 million subscribers and 75 million monthly active users (Business of Apps).
A few months after the breakup, I was lying in bed with my best friend, hungover, one Sunday morning, when we both decided it was the right time for me to start talking to new people again … I think I had slowly developed a fear of men! So, I downloaded Tinder and set up my profile.
Scrolling through all the eye candy on my phone became the new, best form of entertainment. It is safe to say that it was a real confidence boost getting matches left, right, and centre. I had people messaging me with the cringiest pick-up lines that I didn’t even realise existed. I was told I was “the most beautiful girl on tinder” and asked, “how are you still single?” daily. And it wasn’t until I compared these messages with my best friend’s tinder account that I realised these men were copying and pasting the same messages and sending them to every female in the city.
Although I gained a lot of confidence from the constant compliments and swipes, I soon started to see the many negatives of Tinder. It is bad enough receiving regular invites for a “quick sh*g” or a “Netflix and chill” from strangers, but it’s even worse when you realise you know a lot of the people coming up on your feed. Old schoolmates are bad — boys who were in your year 7 science lessons now asking you if it “hurt when you fell from heaven?”. But it is even worse when you see your ex’s profile … HE can never be avoided!
So, don’t get me wrong — I am still a regular tinder user, however, I hate it. It’s an addictive loathing, and that’ll never change. I don’t recommend it … but if you do need a little confidence boost after a breakup, then you’re probably an attention-seeker like me, and so I do encourage you to get Tinder. Oops!
