Liana Riley
[follow id=”Ri__Li”]
It’s 10 a.m. Monday morning. You are cradling your coffee, still clinging to the fleeting moments of your salacious weekend antics.
You wearily raise your head from your hallway meander and, lo and behold, you make direct eye contact with your Tinder match from Friday night. You then divert their inquisitive gaze, unequipped to handle this perilous interaction.
Not letting this crisis go undocumented, you proceed to send out an “SOS” to your “Best Friends” group text to signify the enormity of this event. You are then solaced as they advise you to run, hide and never make any semblance of physical contact with this person again.
If this has been you on two or more occasions, it is time for a Tinder detox.
Tinder has served two grand purposes in my life:
1: As a realm of curiosity filled with five-minute intervals of relentless tomfoolery.
2: As an observational medium, through which I explored human frailty.
Over this past summer, while feeling particularly brazen, I decided to venture into this vortex of unnecessary euphemisms and sexual innuendos. I Tindered via my friend’s accounts, messaging various men they had already matched with.
Probably expecting nudes, I was a thorough disappointment for these gentlemen.
I ranted about feminism, my dietary preferences and shared a compilation of Nicki Minaj lyrics I deemed appropriate for my suitors.
I asked one guy what his feelings were about Obamacare. He was puzzled, to say the least.
Naturally, I was an anomaly to these men. I then arrived at the conclusion that people love messing with other people on Tinder, but few can handle a taste of their own medicine.
Tinder, in all its glory, is a more socially acceptable version of eHarmony for the sexually adventurous college student. Its purposes range from fun to fornication, with occasional undertones of romance and aromatic tastes of friendship.
Tinder not only perpetuated our hook-up culture, it increased it tenfold. The appeal is its instant gratification, minimal risk and occasional reward.
It lowered our standards for companionship to “would you” or “wouldn’t you,” a yes or no dichotomy, barely considering relevant factors such as compatibility and chemistry.
So why are people in the 18-25 demographic, with countless opportunities to engage with equally hot and bothered students, relying on an app with an unprecedented amount of bathroom mirror selfies?
This is what baffles me most about Tinder on lively college campuses such as Cal Poly. Regardless of the surplus of clubs, organizations and hangouts across San Luis Obispo, you can still find lascivious single (and not so single) students tindering on any given day.
Better yet, most of the poor souls on Tinder would never actually admit to using it seriously.
“No one admits to using it, although you see all of your friends on it,” said industrial technology sophomore Steven Pardo.
It’s as if we see our Tinder profiles as a veil protecting our vulnerability, so rejection is not as palpable. It is much easier to save face when the interactions are so frequent and trivial.
Without a sense of accountability, we are left with purely playful interactions. Tinder becomes just another round of Angry Birds.
If we could only apply this type of whimsical and adventurous mentality to our candid, real-life communications, then maybe Tinder could be rendered obsolete and there would be no need for virtual courtship.
Maybe we’d even rediscover hobbies. Until then, swipe on.