I Kept A Dating App Diary For A Week After Moving Back Home & It Surprised Me
bySydnee Lyons
Sydnee Lyons
Hey, you! Yeah, you swiping aimlessly through Tinder profiles on your phone. Obligaswiping just might be the worst millennial dating trend of them all, so cut it out. I admit, in a dating rut, I’ve fallen into the same mindless rhythm of swiping right on literally everyone, which is why I kept a dating app diary for a week to track my actual progress. Obligaswiping be damned. It was exhausting and, at times, excruciatingly boring. Not because of my matches or anything (they were all a hoot, you’ll see) but because I made a routine of my swiping — a real, nightly obligation— that sucked a lot of the fun and spontaneity out of the online dating experience. To quote Cardi B, “right hand to Jesus,” this is not at all what I set out to do.
You see, I recently turned my whole life upside down with a move back home to the Caribbean — Trinidad to be exact — after an almost decade-long stint in South Florida. Until now, I’d never adult-ed on the island I grew up on, which also means I never really dated here. There was no Tinder before I left home at the age of 17 and even if there was, it probably would have been off-limits at the all-girls Catholic high school I attended. Who am I kidding? We weren’t even allowed to have cellphones.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, now that I’m back home, I feel more lost than ever. Weird, right? But like, I am literally lost all the time because I’ve never really driven here before and, trust me, Google Maps is having a harder time than I am. Forget navigation though, I don’t even remember how to drive on the left side of the road. Remember when Cameron Diaz’s character in The Holiday screeches at the sight of oncoming traffic while she’s on vacation in England? That’s me. So yeah, things are different here.
Apps like Spotify and Hulu, for example, aren’t available locally and the apps that are available don’t necessarily have the same cult followings they do elsewhere in the world. I used Tinder for this experiment, but when I tried to use another app, it kindly let me know that I was out of people to swipe through after, mmm, roughly 11 minutes.
Luckily, Tinder is popular here. Since I’m on self-imposed house arrest on account of my poor navigational skills, I figured I could kill time simultaneously swiping through potential summer flings and dodging people from my past. Like one does.
And with that, here lies my seven-day dating app diary.
Day 6: Cristiano Ronaldo And Good Morning Texts
If you swipe up in your Tinder conversation, you can spam your match with a flurry of obnoxious, red hearts for a few seconds. This I know because I’ve accidentally done it on occasion and regretted it instantly. Much like the super like, it’s a grand gesture, which is probably why the guy I will now refer to as “last night’s mistake” chose this as his opener the next morning.
In my haste to get off the app and hide under the covers forever and ever, I had only glanced at his profile. Although he's Venezuelan, he’s actually been living in Trinidad for the past few months. His profile also says that he likes to “travel and know new places, cultures, and people.” Hello, it me.
Promising as last night’s mistake was, I couldn’t abandon my mission. That night, I swiped left on 23 people and right on two. One guy literally used a photo of Cristiano Ronaldo as his own photo .As much as I’d like to believe I could land someone as talented and as successful as he is, I’m pretty sure the Portuguese soccer star isn’t swiping on Tinder in Trinidad.
And then, there’s this. “If you don’t listen to Young Thug or Migos, swipe left.” I make it a habit to swipe left on anyone who lays out a condition like this and then tells potentials to swipe left if they don’t meet it and you should, too. There’s nothing wrong with knowing what you’re looking for but wording it like this just feels like some sort of qualifier in a game show that I sure as hell didn’t sign up for.
Day 7: The Lord’s Day
And on the seventh day, she rested. Sort of. Before this week, I swiped through Tinder at my leisure. I didn’t make a routine of it. I didn’t count my left and right swipes. And I didn’t take notes. It all felt very casual and OK, maybe a little frivolous. Now that I’d been forcing myself to swipe on a nightly basis, I felt more secure in my choices, sure. But I also had a lot less fun with it.
I mean, I was doing math, for god’s sake. And I became legitimately upset whenever I read a lackluster bio because I felt that my efforts weren’t being reciprocated. Maybe, until now, I was no different from those no-photo, no-bio users just swiping through for funzies. Was I doing it all wrong?
On Day 7, I allowed myself to stop swiping much sooner than I had on the other six days. Prolonged swiping (averaging 30 minutes or more), I found, left me more critical and less forgiving. Instead, I opened the app a handful of times throughout the day and swiped through five to seven people each time. I didn’t take detailed notes or bring out an abacus to crunch the numbers. And I didn’t match with anyone, either, because when it comes to online dating, you get what you put in.
You don’t have to journal your progress like I did to find meaningful connections, but you should at least put a little more effort in than just throwing up a selfie from freshman year and a list of emojis in your bio.
Here’s hoping Day 8 brings with it more refined strategies and positive outcomes. Swipe on!
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