{"id":19323,"date":"2019-02-18T16:23:12","date_gmt":"2019-02-18T21:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecollegevoice.org\/?p=19323"},"modified":"2019-02-17T21:29:24","modified_gmt":"2019-02-18T02:29:24","slug":"tedious-treacherous-tinder-tales-are-dating-apps-worth-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecollegevoice.org\/2019\/02\/18\/tedious-treacherous-tinder-tales-are-dating-apps-worth-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Tedious, Treacherous Tinder Tales: Are Dating Apps Worth It?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s say you don\u2019t have a date for Valentine\u2019s Day — perhaps you just broke up with someone just in time for the holiday, or maybe you\u2019ve been single for a long time now. Perhaps you\u2019ve fallen victim to the heteropatriarchal capitalist idea that one must participate in a monogamous romantic relationship in order to be truly happy. In any case, you may feel tempted to pick up your phone and try a new way to play with someone\u2019s heartstrings: online dating.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sharon Van Meter, a junior History major, jokingly calls herself \u201ca self-proclaimed Tinder expert.\u201d Indeed, in 2018 she met up with 8 different people that she had met on Tinder to give online dating a try. Unfortunately, her experience hasn\u2019t been all hearts and chocolates. In fact, Van Meter states that every experience she\u2019s had on Tinder has been \u201ckind of bananas.\u201d<\/p>\n

The longest relationship Van Meter had on Tinder lasted five days.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was like, \u2018Oh my god, you\u2019re unforgettable, you\u2019re one is a million,\u2019 and then he was like, \u2018I\u2019m breaking up with you,\u2019 and I was just like, \u2018Okay. Cool.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Van Meter\u2019s experience with Tinder is pretty common. There are hundreds of websites, social media accounts, and books dedicated to failed Tinder experiences — the Instagram page @byefelipe serving as an example of how particularly aggressive some people can be — but why is it that electronic relationships fail to provide a spark for so many hopeless romantics?<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s the element of anonymity,\u201d states Van Meter. \u201cYou only have a couple of pictures and a bio to go by, and people are much more confident to say whatever they want. You have no obligation to meet this person — you can just talk to them all you want.\u201d Indeed, name-calling, harassment, stalking, and ghosting are made much easier due to the fact that the pressure of face-to-face interaction is almost entirely eliminated.<\/p>\n

Van Meter is not one to dwell on the negative, though. Instead, she decided to create an event where others could share their romantic escapades and flirtation flops. Thus, Tinder Tales was born.<\/p>\n

One might believe that an event held on a Thursday night, with brutal winter winds blowing harshly outside, might not draw in a crowd — especially considering that this Valentine\u2019s Day activity was anything but romantic. Nonetheless, whether it was from the suspense of listening to stalker stories or simply because there was an open tab at Coffee Grounds, there was barely any standing room by 8:25 that evening.<\/p>\n

The actors, all decked out in pink, recited various monologues anonymously submitted by Conn students. Each and every tale contained a suitor or experience that one has surely run into before on Tinder.<\/p>\n

Perhaps you\u2019ve met someone like \u201cThe Psycho Stalker,\u201d who tells his date that he doesn\u2019t have his driver\u2019s license because he\u2019s had \u201ca tussle with the DMV.\u201d Maybe you\u2019ve met the guy who brings his rabid dog on a date — and when said dog bites and bruises the date, he simply monotonously states, \u201cBoba. Stop that. Sorry, he\u2019s still very young.\u201d You\u2019ve definitely met a guy like Zach, who takes chivalry way too far by racing his date to open the door, and visibly becomes upset when his date opens the door first. In this particular Tinder Tale, Zach asks his date to kiss him, and afterwards declares, \u201cWow. You\u2019re bad,\u201d and asks for a redo. I, for one, hope that Zach realizes that everything from his name to his outdated mannerisms screams adolescent insecurity. As comedian Chris Fleming once said, \u201cThat\u2019s not even an adult\u2019s name. That\u2019s a teenager\u2019s name. Unless you rode out of your mother\u2019s uterus on a BMX bike popping a wheelie, there\u2019s no excuse to be named Zach.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is there any hope for finding love on Tinder? One Tinder Tale told the story of a Jewish girl finding a fulfilling relationship that was \u201canything but kosher.\u201d What\u2019s more, one of Van Meter\u2019s best friends found love on Tinder, and she thinks, \u201cThey\u2019re probably going to get married.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additionally, Van Meter notes that dating apps are sometimes the only options for certain people, especially if one is queer or lives in a small town. \u201cI\u2019m bisexual, so it\u2019s harder to meet up with women in person,\u201d she says. \u201cTinder has helped me with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, she notes that she\u2019s had more failures than successes with the app. \u201cLove is just a deeply personal thing for me. I think it\u2019s going to have to be someone I\u2019m already friends with in the end.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, if you don\u2019t have a date for Valentine\u2019s Day (or for the rest of the year), there\u2019s no reason to be sad. In fact, I would recommend that you jump for joy, hug your loved ones, and spin around in a circle with happiness. After all, if you had to pick between being single (and having a ton of friends that will love and support you no matter what) versus dating some \u201cnice guy\u201d that will belittle you in order to make himself feel better, the choice is obvious — especially if that guy is named Zach. \u2022<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s say you don\u2019t have a date for Valentine\u2019s Day — perhaps you just broke up with someone just in time for the holiday, or maybe you\u2019ve been single for a long time now. Perhaps you\u2019ve fallen victim to the heteropatriarchal capitalist idea that one must participate in a monogamous romantic relationship in order to …<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":62366,"featured_media":18737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thecollegevoice.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/1240251_10151823677594605_167452450_n-3-e1570584554643.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecollegevoice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecollegevoice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecollegevoice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecollegevoice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62366"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecollegevoice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19323"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thecollegevoice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19328,"href":"https:\/\/thecollegevoice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19323\/revisions\/19328"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecollegevoice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecollegevoice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecollegevoice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecollegevoice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}