In today’s society where everyone is connected in various ways through the internet, communicating with people is instantaneous and easily accessible. Despite the easier communication methods and access to information at any given time, one thing still seems a challenge for all ages (including myself)… dating.
Why is dating so hard nowadays, even with numerous social platforms and dating apps which have over 20 million users? (In some dating apps this is 50 million wow!)
Well, that is where I come into play, as I took it upon myself to find out how easy or difficult, dating online actually is by using a dating app for one week in the attempt to find love… or a date… or even a good meal will do just fine to be fair. Right so before I dive into my experiences I’ll start by sharing a little bit about myself and what I was looking for.
About me
My name is Lana, I live in London UK (one of the best cities in the world in my opinion), I’m in my late twenties, I’m a male, I’m black, straight and I have never used a dating app before. In terms of dating preferences, I’m open to anybody regardless of race, religion all that stuff however most of my dating experiences in the past have been mainly with women of color mainly black women. My dating app of choice for this experiment was Tinder because it has the most users and it seemed like the most popular when I asked my friends. Okay enough about me time to get into the dating experience.
Day 1 — Getting on and finding someone
Getting myself on the app was pretty straightforward, as almost every application nowadays has that Facebook authentication thing where you just click a button and automatically you’re signed up with your pictures uploaded, info already filled out (scary I know).
The trickiest bit wasn’t actually putting myself out there but more so what to put out there. Things like what sort of picture should I use? Should I add my height in the bio? What about my taste in music, fashion, hobbies… the list went on. After some careful consideration, I decided to keep it nice and simple and upload one photo with my bio reading “I love to travel and photography”.
After my profile was complete it was time to find someone I liked and match with them hopefully. Now for those of you who aren’t familiar with the way Tinder works, essentially you swipe through profiles of people in your area and you can either “like” them by swiping right or “nope” them by swiping left (or it’s the other way round, I get confused at times) and if the person on the other end swipes “like” for you also, then you guys match yay!
Okay, now you know the rules back to the story.
After using tinder for about 10 minutes of swiping the first thing which hit me was the number of notifications I got which directed me to pay money to get more out of the app. It was ridiculous, every click, extra like and boost was monetized in some shape or form. After about a few more minutes of swiping, I just closed the app and called it a day.
It’s useful to note that I was in Sweden at this time on vacation, so finding a tinder date was quite low on my to-do list but trying Swedish meatballs, on the other hand, was high on my list. Here’s a random photo of my travel, pretty cool isn’t it?
Day 2 — “Hey”
After finishing my morning rituals (a couple of Twitter scrolls and Instagram swipes), I decided to log in and find new potential matches. I managed to get some notifications overnight stating people liked my profile which got me excited but again this information was withheld behind a credit card details page which zapped any excitement built up.
I found a few ladies who caught my eye but I made one of the most common Tinder mistakes… I mistakingly swiped no instead of yes on them and I couldn’t undo it (without paying of course). I logged back in again just before noon while taking a stroll and that was when I got the message I was waiting for.
“You have a match”. I did a mini shuffle dance while reading my match’s bio and shortly after I got another message about a match in quick succession which doubled my joy.
I managed to get two matches with only one profile picture (I mean, what can I say maybe I am good looking lol). I decided to make the first move with the classic “hey” and a compliment which was received warmly then returned by a question which I should have known I was going to get asked at some point (look at the screenshot below).
Yep! It seems my profile needed some work which could explain why I probably did not get that many matches. I decided to add two more pictures to my profile and call it a day. (I was travelling back to London at this point so my first match couldn’t be my date as I wasn’t going to be around, unfortunately). My goal was I needed a match back in London for this to work.
Day 3 — “Another one”
I was back in the UK at this point and figured if I emulate the strategy I did in Sweden I should find more people to match with as Londons a bigger city and much more diverse than Scandinavia. Now having used Tinder for a couple of days, I could already spot an area lacking in terms of the women I was swiping into.
The lack of women of any other colour other than white.
I mean in Sweden it’s probably difficult finding other ethnicities, which is understandable but I was using it in London for goodness sake (one of if not, the most multiculturally diverse cities in the world) I thought I would see all types of women but that wasn’t necessarily the case.
Not only the lack of women from other races, but I saw the fishier looking type of profiles. Those that had only one picture that wasn’t of an actual person but of a link to a website that was probably related to sexual activities I am not remotely interested in. Nonetheless, I continued swiping away, and low and behold later on in the evening I found another match from Lisa! (that’s not her real name but we’ll call her that). This time I got messaged first with a “hey x” and I replied in a similar tone. It was getting quite late in the evening so I messaged with a good night and decided to continue the next day.
Day 4 & 5 — Help
At this point, I was feeling like a pro using tinder. My ability to judge people in less than ten seconds if I liked them or not was second to none (the whole principle of tinder pretty much). Despite my skillful swiping abilities, I was still struggling to find any more matches after Lisa so I decided to seek help.
I climbed to the roof and flashed the bat-signal (just kidding), instead I opted for an easier approach. I messaged a friend who has used tinder before and is experienced in the online dating scene. She assured me my lack of matches is common and it’s usually the case that you tend to match easier when abroad. After which she advised me to add more info in my bio and pictures then surely a match will come my way (she’s amazing!).
I also checked online for tips and read that the best way to find someone is to follow up on their Instagram or phone number which most of the time users provided and take conversations offline.
Below is a screenshot of my updated Tinder profile.
(I’m not yet 30 but on Facebook I am, also my song choice in “My Anthem” was related to the Tinder theme)
Armed and loaded with new information I resumed my conversation with Lisa and decided to take it offline by requesting her number which she gladly sent along with a “hey babe” message. We continued chatting over the course of several hours but the conversation started to fade for a reason I’m not sure why. Mainly due to the slow response times and busy schedules I mean who knows. On the 5th day, I decided to make a play and just shoot my shot. I asked Lisa if she would like to meet for coffee during the weekend in the afternoon and her response was… (airtime, hanging, Kobe, I got left on read) followed by the classic “you can have my ____ instead (fill in any other social media application). I wasn’t surprised to be fair as things had already started to fizzle out by this point so I was just shooting hoping it might lead to something.
Day 6–7 — Super Like
In the last few days of my experiment, I had used tinder over a total of 12 hours and seen hundreds of profiles. Anything cool or funny in the person’s profile bio was an instant point in my books, instant nopes (or swipe lefts sticking to tinder terminology) were things I found rather shallow or fishy. I’ll mention a couple that made me chuckle and others roll into a tight ball of cringe.
• “I’m not interested in your height, I’m more interested if you have decent WiFi” — Chuckle
• “If you don’t have money don’t message me” — Cringe! but then again kinda true, unfortunately.
• The screenshot below was my absolute favorite shoutout, Amy.
People with only one picture that looked pixelated were an instant nope also. I’ve watched Catfish on MTV and I don’t want to be that guy thank you very much.
Also any bios with “If you’re a Leo or Capricorn we can’t date” were an instant no also (sorry, not really a fan of star signs as labels). I finally logged off late in the afternoon around 4 pm on the final day and reflected on my experience.
So what’s the verdict?
Well, to be fair I kind of liked using the app, I got to see that there are so many people online who are looking to date, be friends, find love or sex maybe a combination of all the above, and not necessarily in that order which was good to see.
After using tinder for a week I managed to get the following:
◦ 5 profile matches
◦ Unknown matches I couldn’t see (hidden by the payment gateway)
◦ 1 phone number
◦ 2 “hey babe” messages
◦ Enough hangtime that would make even Micheal Jordan come out of retirement to show who’s really the king of Basketball.
I believe if I was to use Tinder for longer and partner that up by using social media and WhatsApp to message people I liked, I probably would have had more luck.
I found the best part to be how easy it was to match with someone and get chatting right away. Also if you’re a person who has money to spend (like anything in this world) you’ll enjoy using Tinder. It seemed that to get the most out of it you needed to surrender and pay for a subscription package of some sort, to get a higher profile ranking or find who has liked you instantly without having to swipe into them while profile searching. The free version just did not warrant enough benefits as opposed to the premium one.
Finally, coming from a city that has up to 9 million people, finding somebody should be no excuse but I guess the ease of doing it from a smartphone is attractive to some. Finding someone you feel a connection with on the other hand is no easy task and whether you’re using a dating app or just randomly meeting someone at a train station it requires effort to really get things in motion after the initial hello. Yes, apps can help you break the ice but, you still have to meet in person and replicate whatever connection you created online offline to make it work.
