I’ve got a buddy trying to convince me to join Tinder. As if
being a single 28-year old man in the bubble of Utah doesn’t make me feel like
a big enough loser in your eyes already.
For full effect, download “Loser” by Beck and play at
maximum volume throughout the duration of this post. Yeah, that’s right, Loser.
I’m stereotyping a very popular social app to a very degrading song from the 90's. Get over
it.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Tinder, apparently
it is an app where you set up a detailed dating profile that’s five pictures
long. From there you are broadcast to hundreds/thousands of people in your
surrounding area. If these people approve and they think you’re interesting,
they swipe right. If not, and they think you’re an ugly waste of braincells, they
swipe left. If two people swipe right on each other, then magically this app
puts them in contact and the fairytale can begin!
And you wonder why I feel social media is going to ruin my
posterity’s interpersonal skills.
Have we no balls people? And yes, I pose that question to
both genders, so don’t get all sexist on me. Why are we at the point where a
few flicks of a finger is the most effort I’m going to make on a daily basis to
find my match? I already stare at my phone long enough, don’t you think that
this is only going to push me further into my addiction of non-social
interaction activities? Heck, I’ve been playing Badlands for three weeks
straight, I think Tinder would only be the swipe that breaks my pointer finger.
Plus, and this is one of the biggest reasons why I’m
anti-Tinder, say I swipe right on a chick, and say she swipes right on me. And
say we go out for dinner, and have a romantic doorstep scene, and then a late
night second date. Say one thing leads to another and in a few months I’m
meeting her Dad with a lump in my throat and a ring in my pocket. And then
years down the line I’m sitting with a Bob Saget voiceover telling my kids the
story of my eternal romance, is this the line I want to feed them about how the
two of us fell in L-word?
Me/Bob Saget: “Well you see kids, I was bored one night
while I was sitting around my house in my underwear eating Cheetos, and I saw a picture of a
beautiful girl, and right then I knew that she would be my wife. And so, I
swiped right.”
My posterity: “You swiped right? That’s how you met our
mother? You swiped right?”
Me/Bob Saget: “Well, things were different back in the day
with Apps, and iPhones, and hey, I was on the road a lot so give me some
credit. I had to find her somehow.”
My posterity: “Just admit it Dad, you didn’t have any
balls."
Is that the story I want to have about how I crossed paths
with the woman of my dreams? I thought she was hot, so I swiped right? Is this
what I’m reduced to enduring as a single male in an overinflated bubble surrounded by people who can’t strike up a conversation, and so they use a lazy
man’s way of communication for fear that their self-esteem won’t be damaged by
rejection? Is this what I have become?
Jo: “Dude, check this chick out. Her profile says, ‘I like
orange popsicles and long make out sessions?’”
Me: “Is she hot?”
Jo: “Damn straight she is, I’m swiping right on her."
Alright, sign me up.
