Hope and love: Men dating in Tinder
Applications and sites Dating entered our lives imperceptibly, but obviously for a long time. It makes no sense to deny the fact of their existence: not to use them now is the same as ignoring smartphones or social networks. Last week, we asked girls living in different countries to tell us about their experience in using Tinder, the most popular application for online dating. Now we asked the same questions for men to understand what they are looking for in a dating application, what problems they face and what usually comes out of it.
I first installed Tinder in Dublin. Struck by the grace and efficiency of the interface, I enthusiastically began the search for new acquaintances - by this time I did not know anyone in Ireland except my colleagues. The reality turned out to be cruel: first, almost no one liked me, and second, those few who seemed pleasant and “my type” did not reciprocate. When a couple of days later I had my first coincidences, it turned out that this was no easier: I didn’t understand what they were writing at all, and the first two or three girls deleted me after literally a couple of innocent phrases.
As a result, we still managed to start several dialogues, but almost all of them quickly faded away - we had nothing to say to each other. The only live meeting I had with an American tourist from Fargo, a lover of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Wilco. However, from this, too, nothing but friendship in Facebook did not work out (hello, Kate!).
The results were so ridiculous that I even wrote in my profile that I work for the most popular company in the world and it became less trite to initiate dialogues, but that did not help either. Not without horror, I began to remember that in Russia I had never really met anyone, and it seems that I never went on dates with someone who did not know me before, which means I don’t represent anything , and went only on the support of friends, and so on. A business trip to Russia saved me from a complete collapse of self-esteem: it turned out that in Moscow and St. Petersburg not only incomparably more girls attract me, but the percentage of matches is much higher and the chat window doesn’t cause me to shudder, but on the contrary, it’s almost full of light weight, but meaningful conversation. I did not meet with anyone, but I became convinced that the problem was not only in me.
The root of my Irish misadventures, as I determined it, is in the mechanism that Tinder uses: it works on shortcuts. In a fraction of a second, we assess people not only by their appearance, because in our own culture we need only one glance at a person to refer him or her to some category. By the expression of the face, the pose, the clothes, the hairstyle and even more so by the common interests and friends, we determine with a tolerable degree of errors whether “our” is a person in the photo. In a foreign culture, this mechanism crumbles.
Let's say a typical set of photos of an Irish woman: an evening dress + a smile in 32 teeth; two photos with difficult girlfriends (often there are no frames without friends in the profile at all); photo with a man in a tuxedo; Selfies in extremely aggressive makeup. For me, all this is a reason to svapnut to the left, while it is quite possible that I just do not know how to discern behind this an interesting person. I think the same happens to me - my photos seem strange to the local, I basically do not look like the people by whom they compare their tastes. The same with general likes: the fact that we have a code of "similarity", like the general like conditional Arcade Fire, doesn’t mean anything at all there, and I don’t have any local markers of belonging to certain clubs. Nor is Facebook’s role in Ireland, so that it can determine tastes, political stance and level of education. Or, say, areas - maybe I limit the radius to the wrong part of Dublin, while in St. Petersburg I am looking around Mokhovaya?
On the other hand, it is possible that I’m no good reason to be clever and you just need to start to like 100% of the girls, and then everyone who has some nice answers will immediately be offered to meet in the evening. However, what I mean is only reflection and self-deprecation, only hardcore.
To get acquainted with a beautiful girl in the department of foreign literature, grabbing the last volume of conditional Hugo, would be just fine, but because of my not very decisive nature or not so frequent visits to bookstores, I decided that this happens only in the romantic comedies of the late 90s -h. On the whole, acquaintances as such in my life are a rather dubious show, in which an embarrassed boy takes part, who just threw out of his life “Hammer” magazine, hardly articulating a couple of simple introductory for easy communication, but not the person which is writing now. Faced with a review of dating apps on The Village, I set off for all the hard times, although my close friends, happily happy with their ladies found in the real world, said that I was just losing time.
As a result, I have been with “de-dating” services for almost a year and managed to face all the stereotypes and prejudices of these sites, which can be easily found in the comments to the articles with their reviews. Divorces for money under the pretext of returning from rest to Moscow, lack of attention of current partners, intimate offers from the oldest profession or brothers by sex. If in a nutshell, there was little pleasant, but I found some really interesting girls there. Thus, by natural selection, Pure, Tinder and OkCupid remained in favorites. Now I use the last two, as the users of Pure most often cut off their acquaintance, recognizing my age, although some of the conversations were quite long before this moment of truth. Leave this question to connoisseurs. Yes, and our girls are still very picky and modest and will not break from the usual places at the first call of the heart or other places, despite the known specifics of the application. Everything is as it should be: we met, talked, drank something tasty, and then it was a matter of chance whether you finally liked each other or not. In short, tired of the rule of anonymity in the form of avatars from cartoons and quotes "keep calm ...", I fled to the world of anonymous Facebook, that is, to Tinder.
The task is simplified as much as possible: in your taste - svayp to the right, not in yours - to the left. Actually, the creators of the application found something unattainable by all other services - a notification only about mutual sympathy (once my good friend posted a screenshot of her match with a plate of bacon, calling it a one-hundred-percent hit). Only positive emotions that are needed by these users. No need to figure out how to explain more gently to a girl who is asleep with messages that you are not on your way. You do not have to lose heart once again when you see the notice of the reading of your message, but there is no answer in the meantime. You have already taken the first step, you can say that you met with looks, and here it’s a match or not - it's a matter of a couple of minutes of communication. The circle of inquiries of interlocutors is the widest: communication, curiosity, relationships, sex, time killing on the way home in a traffic jam. So you should not imagine after the joyful notice how you are touchingly sweeping along the embankment on the great to your bright future. By this time, I had accumulated under 200 couples, of which there were meetings at once, and there were several excellent fighting friends, which in general I consider true success for myself.
Since in Tinder, there is still a very small percentage of kidalov (I just immediately wrote about the conversation on Skype right away, and there was already a money scheme for a photo), it’s just nice to be there, there is no feeling that you are “at the bottom”. Most users of the application are really relaxed and open. Yes, conversations often go to nowhere, meetings that are canceled a day before the appointed time, this is a little frustrating. Say, one of my interlocutors was in search of a much higher gentleman, which she honestly told me when she saw the number 174 from me, which is good. We wished each other good luck and parted in bright feelings. Situations when you set up a conditional meeting day and leave your number, and instead of continuing the most pleasant correspondence you get a lot of nothing and a remote conversation. But since I practically do not know these girls, it is somehow silly to be offended. Maybe she had time to face some tough tantrum, or thinks that I’ll pour all my rich vocabulary on her. So you just have to go ahead and think less about it, you are just random passers-by, no more.
I first encountered C "Tinder" (and generally with the idea of using applications for online dating) last summer - I suddenly ended up in a rather long relationship, a month passed (maybe a half), during which it became clear that I was no longer there will be - in general, the current situation delicately pushed to test the new-fangled service and, maybe, even get some kind of profit. In addition, it was just interesting how it works in practice. The idea of trying to stir up with a girl, knowing only how she looks in two or three photos, seemed to me not so utopian, but a little dubious. Nevertheless, I installed the epp and began to distribute likes with a generous hand.
The results of the matches were funny, sometimes even quite: from the very first attempt I got a girl who lived practically on a nearby street. We corresponded for a long time, walked a couple of times around the district, went to the cinema, then I came to her house to watch the World Cup finals and ... did not stay after - somehow I immediately felt that there would be no continuation. We met with another girl at the bar, the conversation somehow immediately moved to the topic of music and for the next three hours it was almost exclusively devoted to this - I must say that the topic is more than relevant for me and I am always ready to support this kind of dialogue, but this since it even seemed to me that perhaps it was already overkill.
Two times I was completely frankly merged after the first-second meeting, and as luck would have it, those girls with whom I wanted to continue the conversation. It was a little insulting, on the other hand - I understand them perfectly, because I did this in two or three cases as well. It is absolutely normal: met, talked, laughed, but did not hook each other - well, what other options could there be?
Generally speaking, the idea of such a purposeful acquaintance is probably not so bad: you can think about everything and decide exactly whether to like, start a conversation, whether to make an appointment - all of a sudden you are mistaken. On the other hand, excessive pragmatism somehow completely suppresses the romantic component, and this, in my opinion, is rather sad. I didn’t come to any specific opinion about Tinder and other services on this topic. The idea is cool, but it works differently with each new person. Nevertheless, in my case, everything ended well - but this is a slightly different story.
This sounds naturally pathetic, but despair has led me to Tinder. I had a painful end (in a particularly difficult, imperfect form) long-term relationships that occupied most of my previous life, and I had to somehow prove to myself that subsequent life was also possible. Well, to be honest, I also wanted to fuck. (After reading the women's issue of this material on Wonderzine, I realized that the latest intention was probably to be ashamed, but I don’t quite understand how seriously you can keep in mind love for many years, after reading six photos and 500 characters of the text. And last, as a rule, no one bothers). It is no secret that the male in “Tinder” much like and much less reciprocity. Nevertheless, after several days of research, I had a certain amount of coincidences. Perhaps they would have been more if I had thrown off (looked like? Svaypal?) Right and personally acquaintances to the right, but it was somehow embarrassing. In my opinion, this is about how to approach a colleague and in between times report that I would not mind to sleep with her (however, it is possible that my problem is precisely that I refrain from such actions). In addition, there are many journalists in my social circle, and, like any suspicious paranoiac, I suspected that some of them might be on the editorial assignment. In at least one case, it turned out. As the reader has probably understood, my story of interaction with Tinder is a story of shame. Of course, I didn’t find anything better than: a) send the same greeting messages to the three interlocutors (motivating this strategy inwardly by saying that it was still self-indulgence); b) to formulate these messages roughly in the spirit of "let me introduce myself, dearly respected." Results: one lock, two short dialogs, which did not end with anything. In the end, the only girl legitimizing my presence in this material wrote to me in Tinder, when she saw me at a public event. A quite ordinary, even somewhat old-fashioned romantic routine followed. A hike to the museum, long walks in Moscow, a hike to a concert, a kiss on a third date, a hike to the cinema, a hike to visit, and all that it usually entails. Perhaps it was precisely this social ordinariness of what was happening that was in all this most strange. We seem to have already communicated a fundamental attraction to each other with the help of new technologies, but it still took time, conversations and cultural events to justify it (however, I don’t complain, it was all exciting in its own way). On the other hand, what Tinder cannot refuse is the fact that it drastically reduces the demands on the level of affection. After several weeks of completely disorderly and rather vague relations, we simply stopped talking to each other, and it seems that this fact did not break our hearts. Anyway, I really hope so. In order to somehow further justify this boring story, I will share a number of socio-anthropological observations, since the last six months I have been living in the United States and, I have to admit, have spent a lot of time, flipping through Tinder hopelessly and unsuccessfully. American girls are always smiling in all teeth (you already knew that). They love to shoot with girlfriends, so much so that, even after scrolling through all the photos, it is impossible to establish where the heroine is and where the girlfriend is (it infuriates). The main ways of self-identification: favorite football team, favorite baseball team, university, hometown, food, quotes of great people, beer or, less often, other alcoholic beverages, positive thinking (here it is necessary to clarify that this is about Midwest, and not about California or New York).
I tried to rub into this world in many different ways - except for a white-toothed smile, of course. He wrote something like "Russian, but cool." He wrote that I love smart conversations, music and literature. In the end, having suffered two crushing defeats during a visit to Washington (one girl coincided deleted our correspondence after my very first reply; the other instantly sent a phone and, of course, turned out to be a rogue robot), I got angry and composed an annotation of the following content: I don't know a damn thing about football and baseball; I do not like beer; Positive thinking is a lie, because life is a pain - judging that if someone leads on such a call, this is apparently destiny.
Fate remained indifferent.
Okay, her name is Jessica, or Ashley, or Brittany, or Sarah, or Samantha. Medium height, long thin legs, blonde hair and sad dog eyes, shoulders wider than mine one and a half times - well, this is a large girl with long legs who hates her job, speaks very well of her, in the first ten minutes of conversation three times politely, but very persistently corrects my speech where it can potentially touch on some exotic aspects of inter-gender relations, and in general our chances of meeting with her relentlessly tend to zero, because she is a representative of (secretly) the ruling white race on the continent, I - an emigrant from unpleasant country, which is politely silent. The fact that we are both white and speak fluent English doesn’t mean anything at all — I might as well try to talk to a starfish. It seems to me that I am from Earth, and they rotate somewhere beyond the orbit of Jupiter, wear chitinous armor, and are able to survive in a vacuum. When I moved, new friends advised me to put Tinder: "Dude, you will expand your social horizons." I followed the advice and expanded. In America, there is no rush job, everyone works selflessly, very much, very measuredly; the most important thing after work is the family, and if you don't have a child, then the “family” is mom-dad, so Tinder solves exactly one problem: where to go for half an hour once a week, which are reserved for personal life? Time here is valued ten times more than in Russia, it is in principle the most expensive US currency, at least in Northern California. What a business meeting, what a date really to schedule in a month, if you are lucky - in a couple of weeks. If next week, then this is a big luck. In this? Can not be. Tomorrow? Fantasy. No, this never happens, unless it is the same Russian-speaking émigré. Бестолковые, но милые татуированные девчонки, которые хоть завтра могут сняться для SG. Чрезвычайно сосредоточенные на карьере длинноногие ухоженные китаянки, которые в ответ на каждую фразу задумываются и словно бы шевелят хитиновыми антеннами, потому что каждый момент времени оценивают карьеру и перспективы будущего мужа. Нелепые, добрые и милые сердцу латино, с которыми легко и просто подружиться - они такие же, как и мы, эмоциональные и непутевые. Чуть притихшие афроамериканки, которые в принципе готовы поговорить про молчаливую сегрегацию, потому что я - русский.
All American society, like a suspension, is divided into thousands of fractions and layers, and between them there is almost no diffusion. Any city, and San Francisco is not an exception - a set of ghettos from different colors, cultures, religions and religions. Looking at “Tinder” here is first of all looking at a glowing black mirror, in which you yourself are reflected, very lonely, with your half an hour a week to meet and talk about life with someone. You only need to decide in which particular box you want to put yourself - so that everyone around you can immediately understand who you are. I have not decided yet. A month ago I saw my idol there: an American journalist, celebrity, publications about everywhere, a lot of awards, a jetset; after a sudden match, I cautiously told that I have been following her on Twitter for several years and have always dreamed of meeting you - and suddenly like that. We met for coffee; she is immersed in herself and her career; she liked what I was doing and she would help me with useful contacts. That's how Tinder works here. Work, sleep, work, sleep, work, in short pauses - my Armenian-Russian-Jewish friends; I am gradually pouring into local life; "This is nothing, the first three years here are the most difficult," the new celebrity friend confides in me, who came here from New York, already having a career and a name. In the end, what do I want from Tinder? I left my heart on another continent, I broaden my social outlook, I found here the only friend with whom I see more or less often - a ridiculous ridiculous colored girl with a kind heart who helps a seriously ill relative and tries to understand what box she lives . Once a week we go to a cafe in the area, there is a lot of sunshine and good hot chocolate. From time to time, at the very end of the day, I remember about “Tinder” and look a few more people left or right. And I couldn't ask for more.
Photo: 1, 2, 3 via Shutterstock