So a couple weekends ago, three members of the cast from the pilot episode of this project – Bar Scene Guy, Couple Girl and Single Girl – and I got together for dinner and to catch up on the previous couple months of dating drama and it turns out, Single Girl is now on Tinder.
That’s right, the same woman that just three months earlier denounced the use of such apps now has a profile all her own, complete with boys sending her messages and a select few getting replies. Now she’s not better than Tinder either because it turns out, connecting with someone is pretty damn difficult.
So why is connecting so challenging?
While our first get together produced plenty of laughs, a couple “Super Likes” and a few standard conclusions about dating like it’s easier for women to approach men, this one was a little more serious and had us contemplating the struggles of finding someone to spend time with in today’s dating landscape.
One of the big challenges – which isn’t exclusive to today, but is exacerbated by apps like Tinder – is making a good first impression, which now means having your Tinder game on lock with quality pictures and a sharp bio. That first interaction used to be crucial to your success or failure with someone you were interested in, but now, your chances of connecting with that man or woman you swiped right for (right is like, correct?) often comes down to what that person sees in your online profile.
That’s all kinds of messed up because (a) I could bullshit my way through a Tinder profile no problem to make myself look like your dream guy and (b) how much can you genuinely discern about a person from four photos and a smattering of words keyed into a bio on a dating app?
That person you think is interesting could just be a pretty face, while the bad picture you quickly skimmed passed might have belonged to someone you may have fallen in love with. Remember that when you’re speeding through the queue of people looking to match with you.
The other big struggle we landed on is finding someone at the same stage of life as you and that moves at the same pace as you.
Bar Scene Guy noted that a couple of his serious relationships didn’t work out because he and the girl he was dating at the time just weren’t in sync about what comes next, while Single Girl copped to a relationship flaming out hard because she was happy keeping it fairly casual and the dude was ready to wife her and make her a stay-at-home mom ASAP. At a different time, those relationships could have worked because clearly the attraction and interest was there, but things didn’t work out because the timing was off.
Again, not something new, but something that has shifted in the days of dating apps and people pushing back their “settling down timeline” from where it sat for previous generations. I know this is going to suck to hear, but it means you need to have the “What are you looking for in this relationship?” convo fairly quickly in order to avoid hitting one of those two snags that Single Girl and Bar Scene Guy.
My big takeaway for this re-up with The Adventure Group, outside of continuing to thank the stars that I don’t have to go through this, is that it’s rough in the dating streets and if you don’t have a tight profile game, chances are you’re getting left’ed.
