Tindermania

By Laura-Ashley Ní Shuilléabháin

Tinder is one of those golden age things that you either love or you hate. Like anything else it has its upsides and its downfalls. Tinder can be a bit of banter but there’s a very thin line between being creepy or cute and seeming charming or desperate.

On the off chance that you don’t know what tinder is you need to do two things – Firstly get out from the rock that you’ve been living under and secondly go get yourself a social life. No I’m just kidding.

Tinder is a social media platform where you put in your preferences in a ‘companion’ and then swipe left to reject and swipe right ‘for a good time’ as they say. Then if you match with a person you can chat away with them.

I suppose it’s up to the individual what exactly they want to do with the app.

In some ways it depends on where you live as well. There’s a big difference between using it at home (especially if you’re in a more rural area like myself) and using it here in UL.

If you live in one of the big cities then you’re grand. You can set your location preference with however many miles radius that you want without worrying that you’ll see your geeky next door neighbour’s profile and then you can avoid feeling bad when you reject him.

However if you live in the country or in a small town (and the app actually decides to work for once) then seeing your neighbour’s profile is a daily struggle. It’s so hard to find people near enough to you that you don’t already know. You either have to change your km location range or your age range – although I’m not sure if being matched with 25-year-olds can really be counted as a negative thing.

It’s a total different story in UL though. You’re settings could literally be on any random thing and you’ll still find plenty of people to chat away with. You don’t have to worry about the awkward ‘weren’t you in my primary school?’ moments or the ‘I think you dated my older brother’ fiascos.

When you’re at home you also have to look out for the parents. Nothing more embarrassing than having to explain what tinder is and why exactly you’re on it to dear old mom and dad.

At college you can whip out your phone and be showing off all your matches to your friends without them judging you because they’ll be showing you their matches two seconds later.

As corny as it is to use the ‘there’s plenty of fish in the sea’ line when it comes to UL it’s actually true. There’s plenty of people to choose from and even if you only use it for a bit of the craic then nobody’s going to judge you. I know from experience that if you use the app in a more rural village/town that everyone will look at you as if you’re on the hunt for your future husband and they need to hide their eldest son from you.

When you’re in college on a night out there’s no fear of meeting one of your matches because there’s too many people in the club to try and distinguish your match from your friends. At home? If you go to Aldi it’s like you’re expected to have a full face of makeup on for fear that you run into one of the guys you’ve matched with.

Sometimes I think tinder is more trouble than it’s worth but at the end of the day it’s just for the craic. Is it likely that you’ll meet your significant other on it? Probably not. But it’s a chance to chat to people with the same interests without the hassle of having to get all done up to meet for coffee.

I have to ask though, what’s with those occasions where you keep location turned off? I’ve been paired with guys from Berlin for god’s sake! I’ve just taken it that Tinder wants me to be alone forever. Thanks Tinder. Thanks a lot.