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Saturday, November 9, 2013

Tinder

Someone just explained to me what Tinder is: an app through which you can hook up with women. What happens is you scroll through the Facebook pictures of everybody who signs up for the service, and you notate those women who strike your fancy. If any of those women like your picture, they do the same. Whenever two people both "like" each other, they are informed, and can get in touch, usually for some brief texting, then a hook up.

Evidently you specify beforehand how far of a radius you're willing to look within (twenty miles from your home, etc.)

It's a little like Match.com, except it's about sex, not relationships.

Evidently gay men have had a similar service for years, called Grindr.

One of the cool things about this is that you never really get rejected. You're only told about the women who fancy you. As far as you know, no other women even saw your picture.

Where was this service when I was young? When I was growing up it seems that all guys did was have crushes on girls they saw across a classroom, or in the lunch hall.

Well, that's all I did, anyway.

In my twenties, I had to go places to meet females. Sometimes this meant going to smoky bars. Or discos. It was obvious you were only there to look for a girl, which made it doubly awkward. And if they turned you down, you knew it. Which made the whole process excruciating for the faint of heart -- like me.

Now you just post your picture, with no chance of rejection. (Or if you are rejected, at least you don't know about it.)

Why did I have to grow up in the Dark Ages?

If you use any online service, of course, you're assuming the risk of misleading pictures. And it's always possible you might get together with someone whose personality can get in the way of even a one night stand.

Still, Tinder allows you keep all that icky human stuff to a minimum. No "dry" first and second dates so that the girl won't feel she's consigning herself to eternal whoredom or getting a bad reputation by sleeping with you too quickly. No having to pretend you have feelings for her that you don't (beside lust). No pretending you're "serious" about her (other than seriously wanting to get her into bed). And most importantly, no having to listen to her boring hive-mind opinions.

I was born forty years too early.

I don't think I'm being unreasonable when I say I'm actually quite angry with my parents about that.

6 comments:

lowly said...

Hopefully services like these will also cut down on forward broads telling you that they're in need of a good fuck.

John Craig said...

Lowly --
I never liked girls who were too forward; on the other hand, it would have been nice to hear that just once or twice in my life.

Count yourself lucky.

Anonymous said...

it would have been nice to hear that just once or twice in my life
But not from your girlfriend.
Anyhow, don't blame your parents; blame the women for not being outright whores back then. It seems that app has been in the news/blogs before, taking big criticism from feminists. I haven't paid much attention to their complaints, but I was unaware they were all forced to download it and participate.

John Craig said...

Anon (Lowly?) --
Ha! Good points. That would have been disconcerting from a girlfriend.

And I hadn't realized that the feminists had complained about Tinder, but it makes sense -- you must be right, they must have been forced to participate. They certainly aren't the types to want to control others' lives.

Rona said...

App is unlikely to be a success.
Women simply feel bad about meeting men just for sex. They rarely do it sober and purely for their own enjoyment. The ones who openly admit it are usually feminists who brag how they can act "just like men".

I can't imagine choosing to have sex with a guy after looking at his profile on some app. Even if he was a 10 it's enough to see a femmy hand movement or find out he's much shorter than he claimed for him to go from hot to repulsive.

Being approached in a bar at least gives a woman opportunity to check out a guy more closely before commiting to anything.

-Rona

John Craig said...

Rona --
You make good points. And it does go against female nature to be as promiscuous as men.

That said, I've heard young guys rave about it and say they've had success with it.