My colleague just popped up on Tinder! Should I swipe yes just to be polite?
Four years ago, over dinner, my friend showed me a new app on her phone. It served up an endless parade of faces: single men, in our area. I was scandalised.
That that anecdote has already taken on a timeworn quality, like people’s first memories of colour television, is testament to just how mainstream location-based dating apps have become since Tinder pioneered the form in 2012.
Now there’s Happn, which prioritises people you often cross paths with. Hinge, which has made itself over into the “relationship app”. Bumble, where the woman must make first contact and has only 24 hours to do so.
Unless you’ve been in a monogamous relationship for the last half decade (in which case, congrats #couplegoals), you’ve probably used at least one of them. And even then, you’ve probably had a friend or colleague, exhausted by the limitless options ostensibly available to them, outsource their swiping to you.
Among younger people in particular, dating apps have become normalised in a way that formal services such as OKCupid and Match.com haven’t – a low-maintenance, light-hearted way of signalling that you’re open to meeting new people, and whatever fun and flirty opportunity may come your way.
my grandma: dating in this day in age must be so convenient
— teens4weenz ひ (@teens4weenz) June 6, 2017
dating in this day in age: pic.twitter.com/lL5OOUVZam
In reality, that is scores of messages saying “hey”; conversations that fizzle out after a couple of days; or one or two in-person meetings concluded by unspoken mutual agreement. The banality of dating apps is often lost in the discussion, being less titillating to a mainstream audience than handwringing over the risk they might pose to our safety and psyches.
Of course, connections facilitated through apps sometimes end in tragedy. But mostly criticism combines technophobia and morality policing over casual sex, and distracts from the real issues, like: what do you do when a coworker comes up? Or someone you know to be in a long-term relationship?
*Installs Tinder*
— LoyalSage (@LoyalSage) April 16, 2017
*sees someone I know*
*accidentally super likes*
*tries to clarify in messenger*
*sends "I ♥️ my son" sticker by accident*
The ubiquity of dating apps has resulted in new etiquettes and anxieties that often get derailed by questions about whether they’re ruining the millennial generation’s capacity to love. As an irregular user of Tinder, this causes me less concern than the politics of swiping on people I know “in real life”. Should you give your workmate an affirmative right-swipe just to be friendly?
The answer seems obvious: only if you’re open to having sex with them – or having them think you are.
It’s arguably a snub to ignore someone you know on Tinder, just as it would be if you were to blank them at a bar, but I personally suggest weathering the consequences – the risk of your polite hello being misinterpreted is just too high.
i matched with my coworker on tinder. will this end badly? probably! am i going to play it out? absolutely!
— Nicole Peacock (@NicoleLPeacock) May 25, 2017
I just matched with my cousin on tinder and I don't know whether to be mad at her or myself. Lol
— Zagafat (@Mwass_) June 22, 2017
One of the problems with dating apps is that the meaning of a match can be ambiguous. Tinder, in particular, is at pains to stress its potential for forging “connections” of all kinds – some users really are looking to make friends. Food & Wine magazine just argued it was an “essential travel tool” for finding hot restaurants, which may be news to many users.
WIFE: where should we eat
— Athens Grease (@Athens_Grease) June 23, 2017
ME: [opens up Tinder] see honey, this is for finding restaurants while traveling https://t.co/wnJyomMppx
It’s no wonder wires get crossed when the nature of the platform may influence how your intention is interpreted, even if you explicitly spell it out.
Until recently my bio stated that I was “not looking for serious relationships”, which to me spoke of casual, irregular dinner dates with no expectations as to where they might go. Then my worldly friend explained I was in fact explicitly asking for one-night stands – not at all what I’d imagined of my appeal for someone to go to the cinema with whenever there was something good on.
Panicked, I overcompensated by detailing my circumstances and expectations with some specificity. My bio is now longer than any I’ve ever seen on Tinder. A teenage friend recently looked at it askance, then said matter-of-factly: “I guess it’s different on adult Tinder.”
Another aberration of “adult Tinder” is the quandary posed when someone you know to be happily coupled comes across your screen – more often than you’d think, with a wedding photo on their profile.
When someone you know super likes you on tinder but their social media says they're still in a relationship pic.twitter.com/orxVUtMYlG
— Kyrie J (@KAJArmyGirl) June 16, 2017
The guilelessness of this supports a common explanation that is just about plausible: that people in relationships give in to their curiosity and download Tinder to see what the fuss is about, then delete it from their phone – not realising that they have to delete their account to stop their profile from being served up to singles in their area.
Many Tinder users also don’t know it’s possible to see a list of their own Facebook friends who are also on the app, through the irregularly used “Tinder Social” function. My colleague just tried this and found three people he understood to be married, and 10 in long-term relationships.
Again, interpretation trumps intention. Many times, I’ve been messaged a tentative inquiry of a mutual friend: “Did so-and-so break up, or ... ?”
People on tinder be putting pictures of their wife and kids like hello im here looking for a guy & not a family to adopt me smh
— shifaa ✖️ (@Shifaa_sb) June 21, 2017
In general, I’m not in favour of addressing unexpected dating app appearances unless you are certain their presence there is unintentional and they’d be grateful to you for bringing it up. Misunderstandings are likely: what if they’ve decided to open up their relationship? Or they’ve just separated and not gone public about it yet?
Any offline acknowledgement of dating app interactions is usually awkward. I heard of a woman being told by a coworker she’d come up for him on Tinder, and he’d liked her – had she seen him yet, would she do the same? It was intensely uncomfortable, and even more so when he brought it up again days later.
It speaks to a truth universally acknowledged of dating apps: that they’re best used to meet people you don’t already know. Still, it will always be a somewhat contrived connection until you’ve spent some time together in person.
For this reason, I’m in favour of resisting the temptation to do a deep-dive on your date on Google or grill your mutual friends for intel before you meet for the first time. For all their popularity, dating apps are still a fundamentally unnatural means of meeting people: do what you can to leave yourself open to surprise, to serendipity.
Is there a not-awful way to ask someone to refrain from googling you before your first date?
— Louise O' Neill (@oneilllo) October 2, 2016
Asking for a friend.
More important is the risk of accidentally exposing yourself by mentioning their recent holiday to the Philippines, or their overly communicative ex. Save the online investigation for before the second date, when you can say, “You told me last time,” if they raise an eyebrow.
