Dating in the South: The Reality of Tinder
One of my very favorite things that my friend Eleanor has said to me is ” that bitch got an engagement ring and I got in to graduate school”. It’s sadly oh so true. It’s rare that we smart girls get married before 30- and even then it’s usually a starter husband that we somehow manage to trick in to marriage right after college graduation. (Example A- right here ladies!) Instead, a lot of the most eligible men in the South are still choosing to marry these less-than-brilliant women, when they could have the brightest stars.
Eleanor is a classic example of a beautiful girl who could have gotten married as she was finishing up college, but did the smart thing and broke up with him- because she knew it wasn’t going to work. And then guys she dated right up to graduate school could have been “the Ones”- they were everything she could have wanted. Except… they didn’t like how smart she was. Especially once she got in to graduate school.
And like many of us- she decided to check out Tinder. Without further adieu, here’s Eleanor’s observations on Tinder:
In this most modern day, a girl can accomplish almost anything online. From shopping to paying bills to finishing a degree, the digital age has fed every desire with an answer of convenience. Most recently, at least to me, is the notion of online dating. Sure, there have been dating sites floating around for at least a decade, but with them is always the stigma of both excusing yourself for accepting this otherwise really low point modern marvel in your love life, while also feeling the need to appropriately lie explain yourself—and your decisions—to friends and family. Since the early 2000s many popular dating sites have changed said stigma from apprehension to praise, for example: E-Harmony babies are eligible for some pretty hefty scholarships. Wow!
With the new age, though, comes the need to facelift even the most modern ways of finding love, and with that comes the controversial dating app: Tinder. Launched in 2012, Tinder allows its users to discover men and women who are close by, while only exposing a first name, a few pictures, and some common likes—as expressed through Facebook. Since its not-so-modest beginnings, Tinder has been known around college campuses as “the hook up app” but its bitter scrutiny still doesn’t stop people almost everyone I know from using it.
So what is all the hype about? I’m a modern girl—we are modern people—and this really *is just the next step in making our lives more convenient . . . right? When I first logged in, Tinder had grabbed all of my Facebook information to create my profile. As a girl who is perhaps a touch more open than she ought to be, I was frightened at first (hell, my Facebook ‘about me’ says something about drinking bourbon and wearing shirts as dresses), but where was my shame? In the Tinder app, of course! I moved on to set the preferences of who I wanted to see, where I wanted to see them, and how old I wanted them to be. With a few accidental swipes to the right and many, many more swipes to the left, I saw a plethora of semi-eligible men; but mostly what I noticed was humor, and not in the ‘haha’ funny kind-of-way. Some of these guys posted pictures of their children, some posted pictures with captions that read “DTF” (WTF??!!), and the most heinous: the men who had multiple selfies as their default pictures (to me, the unpardonable sin).
Tinder, at most, was laughable. I saw some redneck guys, some professional guys, and hey, even an ex-boyfriend or two. As I continued to swipe and match with these men, I was still frightened of being recognized when I was around town, you know, when I’m not on my phone trying to find a boyfriend. This fear was not unwarranted as a Macon man *did recognize me when I was in a meeting on Monday afternoon. Of course, he didn’t say anything to me (needless to say I didn’t swipe right), but he did message my friend about it on Facebook. Modern times, all the time.
To say it again, I’m a new-age girl. I fancy convenience, reliability, and predictability, but let’s be honest: the coolest guy you meet on Tinder has some semblance of being the tallest midget. The best of the worst. Au Revoir, Jimmy, 29, who happens to be DTF; Auf Wiedersehen, Andrew 24, who has a hard time starting conversations; Swipe you never, Tyler, 31, who just had two too many selfies. So long, Tinder. This modern girl just isn’t quite ready for you.
Eleanor is an avid member of bourbon bars, barrister bars, and pure barres. She is a published poet and a reluctant graduate student who struggles with wanting to be more and less like Claire Underwood, Taylor Swift, and Don Draper’s second wife.
