Tinder Social

A friend of mine met a man on the train a month or so ago and we browbeat her into bucking up the courage to speak to him. Now they've been together for some months and it's strong - they're like a fairytale come true. Enviable.

Ironically however the two of them sat across from me on the train and browbeat me about my poor love life and choices, advising that I should return to Tinder or a similar dating app. I can't express enough how repugnant that option is to me right now because I actually have things to do today. But let's just say it's not really my, as a huge tea lover, cup of tea. 

So to prove to myself I was right in my decision I check up on the app this morning. 

Now with Tinder just deleting the app doesn't really do much, you have to actually delete your whole account for otherwise it still register that you're on it. So when I checked on it it was virtually how I left it with some of my matches a little mixed around as some had come and others had gone. I also had about 3 who'd tried to contact me. Nothing dramatic.

I did some swiping but after about 2 minutes I actually felt sick of it and bad about myself so I stopped. It's just not for me at all and this only reconfirmed the way that I feel. 

What is interesting though is Tinder's controversial new feature, 'Tinder Social', which had to have been constructed by someone arguably a total idiot or complete genius. The way it works is that you can start groups with other Timder users connected to you via Facebook. It's aimed at making social situations easier but what it actually does is show you exactly who of your Facebook friends are on Tinder currently. It doesn't account for those like myself who have deleted the app and not their account or give you any idea how active they are, but nonetheless it is a huge invasion of privacy to those who wish to keep their Tinder activities to themselves. 

I know I blog about it here and I can talk about it now, but t wasn't always like that. A year ago I would have been humiliated and stressed to know that my Facebook friends could see that I was on Tinder. It's not a good feeling and suddenly your private business is kind of out there for anyone to see.

After this morning I know exactly which of my Facebook friends are registered on Tinder whether they actively use it or not. And keep in mind this includes two of the guys I fancy currently, family members and other friends. Fortunately, none of them were surprising to me but even so it's not my business and I should not be able to see if they are on Tinder or not. It's this massive invasion of privacy that makes me think whoever programmed it should probably be fired for being such a massive idiot. 

However how many people are Facebook friends with their significant other? Husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, etc? Well now you can check to see if they are for certain or not. Of course you have to be on Tinder first but since your account is set up through your Facebook profile anyway it could take a suspicious person maybe 10 minutes to go in, look and delete their account. If you are a cheating partner on Tinder I would either stop being a Pratt in general or at least get the hell off of Tinder because you are going to get caught out now. Maybe the programmer had this in mind because that would have been genius, albeit absolutely more subtle than the Ashley Madison leak.

What did surprise me about the list of my friends on Tinder (and I am not going to name any names) was how few of them were actually there. Of almost 400 Facebook friends there were only about 20-25 on Tinder. This is less than 10%. Of course removing those in active relationships (and not stupid enough to cheat via Tinder), those who have deleted Tinder and those who were never  on it in the first place the percentage is so low that I genuinely don't understand why my advice is to meet someone there. Let's assume that half my Facebook friends are in active relationships and that leaves 200 unattached, with only 20-25 of these on Tinder that leaves 150-175 either utilising other dating mediums or leaving it to chance the way I would prefer. Given this kind of statistic why is Tinder recommended medium by those in relationships to meet someone? There is no way in hell you can expect me to believe the attached 200 met their partners on Tinder.

In conclusion I am not trying to tell anyone else not to go on Tinder, just that it's illogical and statistically inaccurate to say that Tinder is the way to go to meet people to your single friends. I could go and find statistics of those looking for relationships on Tinder versus those looking for a hookup to show you, given that casual hookups (occasionally) can turn into something more, if that was what it took to prove my point but I won't. What I will leave you with is this:

Tinder is a catalyst, in my personal option, for the wrong impression. I can search for relationships there until kingdom come but I only ever meet guys interested in casual and not realise until they stop calling or texting like every experience I have had before now. It won't increase my chances of an actual partnership, it will only increase the number of times that I get hurt. 

Sam xox