It’s been a weird week. My kid turned 2 and it made me think about the strangeness of having most life fundamentals wrapped up at the age of 24; husband, house, relatively photogenic children prime for lording it over people on social media. Most people I went to school with are still braving the brutalities of the dating scene and I find myself overlooking their romantic ventures with a kind of morbid curiosity.
Back in the days when I was on the prowl, meeting your other half on the internet was just not something you admitted to. It was like the romance equivalent of peeing in the shower; we all know it goes on, you might have even tried it yourself, but there’s no way you’re fessing up to it.
How times have changed. Tinder, my friends.
For those of you who don’t know what Tinder is, it works like this:
And almost everyone single person I know has dabbled with it.
For those using it as a dating platform, it works a lot like browsing the Argos catalogue for Christmas presents as a kid. You flip through, circling the stuff (people) you want and - if you’re lucky - it’ll turn up under the tree on the day. Much like tearing off the first layer of paper on your Scuba Patrol Action Man figure, scoring an ‘It’s a Match!’ notification is just the beginning. Before you can play with your new friend, you have to unwrap them. There are the endless sandwich bag ties, the superfluous cardboard reinforcements swaddled in sticky tape, the plastic sheath with the impenetrability of a presidential-grade windshield. Establishing a connection takes effort, and nowhere more so than through the sterility of a messenger app. So what do you do in the absence of body language, pheromones and the dulcet tones of Tinie Tempah to set the scene? How do you make a lasting (positive) impression? Do you laboriously unpick every defence (*insert carefully constructed opening paragraph referencing every interest mentioned in their bio*) or hack at the situation with a kitchen knife (*hey, here’s a joke about my genitals*)?
Being the budding investigative journalist that I am, I decided to find out.
I created a profile using a pseudonym and a largely unrecognisable picture of my fine 19 year old self, intending to unearth what the men of the world had to offer in terms of opening lines. Really, that’s what this post was supposed to be about - a carefully curated selection of opening moves designed to give my loyal readership (all two of you) an insight into the dos and don’ts of Tinder introductions. And don’t worry - a gallery of carefully selected specimens will follow later this week. I’m not having you miss out the poetical stylings of John the ‘artisan bread restaurant owner’ or spending the rest of your days ignorant to what the difference between jam and jelly is (don’t Google the answer if your nan’s around). But for now, let’s talk about the (slightly creepy) hack I’ve found to efficiently find your soulmate and combat the inherent superficiality of the Tindering process.
After my unsuspecting participants had hit me with their opening line I explained that I was actually married with kids and just there to conduct research. For some people, that was conversation over, but most were happy to stick around awhile and discuss their experiences of online dating. There were some interesting findings.
Firstly, Tinder has a reputation for being exclusively the domain of people looking for hookups/casual sex. And that’s definitely something a lot of guys on there are open to. That being said, I spoke to around 600 men over 3 days and two - only two - said they were looking for casual sex and nothing else. Every single other guy, even the ones primarily looking for le sexy time, would have welcomed something more serious as a result of ‘matching’ with someone. Returning to discussion with real-life friends, it’s apparent Tinder does work as a platform for establishing serious relationships. I know people who’ve met the love of their life through Tinder. I know people who got MARRIED because one serendipitous afternoon they both swiped right.
So this left me considering, how can you streamline the process of finding a quality relationship on Tinder? There must be some way to economically assess who’s looking for something substantial and who’s going to waste 3 hours of your time convincing you they’re the ‘pre-date interview with your Pa and have you home by ten’ type, only to send you an unsolicited pic of their junk as soon as they’ve coaxed a number out of you.
Turns out there is. And it involves you replacing your profile pictures with something like this:
No pics of you looking ‘bubbly’ on your holiday to Magaluf. No blurb about how ‘down to earth’ and ‘fun loving’ you are. Just an invitation.
I stumbled upon this technique after a conversation I had with a Tinder interviewee who ended up being subjected to my life story and various philosophisings about art and life. There was the understanding that I was on there for research - the name, the age and (really) the pic were not me. I could have easily been a Danny Devito lookalike with chronic trimethylaminuria and a proclivity for spam and pickle sandwiches. There was nothing to lose and nothing to gain for either participant. And actually, that led to probably the best conversation I’ve ever had with a stranger.
At one point, he said this to me: ‘I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone this. But why not someone completely removed from my life.’ And so this got me thinking. If the premise of anonymity can bring about a conversation of this quality, could that be applied to every Tinder interaction? A profile picture and a list of life achievements can create serious expectations and high stakes. What happens if you ditch the baggage that comes with a profile pic and just engage blindly?
So I deleted my pics and replaced them with my little Paddington Bear number. I was unambitious. I indiscriminately swiped right to a hundred people and expected a return of up to five.
Sixty.
Sixty people who took a chance and swiped right to a luggage tag. As an actual face I got a return of about 80%. That’s right. A grotty piece of paper got nearly as many likes as my actual face.
To be fair, I expected those who took the bait to be the kind of guys for whom there is a precedent of being more romantically successful with inanimate objects than with actual people. But the conversations were incredible. The people who were primarily looking for sex lost interest immediately; they asked for a photo straight away and when I said ‘that kind of defeats the purpose’, they couldn’t wrap their little heads around it. “But how do I know if I want to speak to you or not??”. “How am I supposed to know if you’re interesting or not without seeing what you look like?”. They unmatched me, and left behind were people who were curious, kind, educated, well rounded, attractive and willing to engage.
We spoke about stuff that really mattered. And because they couldn’t see me, there was no posturing, no agenda-driven filter. Just an honest conversation. Ok, maybe ‘honest’ is just conjecture on my part. But I do know this - if I was looking for a partner I would be confident these people were interested in me for my brains above my bones.
I’m not really sure what drives a person to take a chance like that. I guess it's partly the same impulse that makes us click on the links promising to reveal the '10 historical photos you were never meant to see' or 'what happened to this mum of 8 when she made one fatal mistake with a mouldy kitchen sponge'. But for a lot of people I think they just genuinely believed that attraction transcends the purely physical. Speaking to one guy about why he’d swiped right, he said this:
And I guess he's right. The frame should complement the work of art, but it's not the main attraction.
I’m not saying physical attraction isn’t important. It’s essential. And Tinder is an amazing tool. It widens your pool of social interaction probably more than any other resource available. But physical attraction can develop over time and Tinder doesn’t make any allowance for that. My own husband was an instant ‘ew’, and now I’m all over the guy.
In short, if you are single, if you are a curious creature and if you love finding people to love, I challenge you to do 2 things this week:
1. Swipe right to at least 1 person you wouldn’t usually consider. I was amazed by the interactions that came from people I would have written off as “too laddish”, “too blah” or “too up themselves”.
and
2. Trade your profile pic for an invitation for a day. There's always a risk you'll establish an amazing connection with someone who decides you're not for them when you finally reveal yourself. But really, isn't that always the case?
Take a chance.
