My experience using Tinder.

Tinder is wildly addictive to me.

I've learned that everyone looks cuter with the dog snapchat filter, and that if their lead pic is dog-nosed they're being deceptive and you should swipe left out of principle.

I'm about to leave town so now isn't the time to meet someone, but still it's a very satisfying feeling when you swipe right and they tell you "it's a match!"

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The whole process is very satisfying to me. Left-Right-Left-Left-Left-Right-Left. It's awkward and bizarre but it feels so good to sort things out.

When there's a match, I don't actually know what to do about it after that. Do I... talk to them?

Inside info: I don't draw any lines in the sand or label myself any which way, I'm just a person of the earth, but I'm mostly searching for guys on there.

When you're a young little tyke and afraid of what people think, it's just natural to use the worldwide web for this purpose. I might slide into someone's Myspace, or we'd get each other's AIM names somehow. I remember it like all the local closeted kids kind of all knew of each other, so one way or another you might "meet" online. It felt pretty standard.

On Tinder tho I don't know what to do.

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Who are these people? Is this normal?

It's of course practical, to use the blessings of whatever technology we have. To rifle thru and pass multiple snap judgments per second, "sup bro?" a harmless keystroke away, rather than the snail's pace of who you come into contact with IRL and the awkwardness of trying to talk to them.

And that's when it dawned on me, that this is a fucking HUD!

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In online poker, a HUD is essentially a database that tells you what each player does in various situations (how often he raises, folds, etc).

So, long story very short, the evolution of the HUD changes poker to a slightly different thing. You may as well use it since other people are using it, but certain skills like being able to quickly sense a pattern on your own becomes moot now that everyone just has actual data about what the other people are doing.

The smooth pickup artist may as well use Tinder himself, but now his skills aren't as valuable and he faces new competition from people who take good selfies and use the right filter.

So like the horse and buggy gave way to the automobile, we all need to just accept that this isn't 2009 anymore.

But I do think there's an inherent drawback to meeting people online -- basically, that it's much harder to gauge someone's personality. Your imagination kind of fills in gaps until you actually meet someone, and there will be times you think there's more of a connection than there actually is.

The thing about meeting people IRL is that you don't actually try to do it. You do whatever you're doing with your day, and it happens as a side effect of that.

So I mean, if I had to guess, I'd actually say more time is wasted in the blind pursuit of hooking up or finding a date now that we have Tinder. Lol.

It's kind of like in a sense you can say driving a car saves you time relative to riding a bike. But when you consider that riding a bike also gives you exercise and sunshine while you do it (and that you may decide you need to take a walk later to get those things), did it really?

Conclusion

I think you should use Tinder like you would use other drugs. A cup of coffee in the morning when you want some extra firepower is different than needing 11 cups just to feel normal.

A puff of marijuana while you enjoy a movie is different than needing 3 bowls before your appetite knows it's lunchtime.

So where do we go from here?

In my brief experience using Tinder, I've felt dirty and weird when I swiped for too long. But I'll be damned if this isn't the way of the future.

Tinder needs facial recognition and a way to seamlessly ping people when you walk by them IRL.

That's the real dream IMO. The same concept, where they don't see it unless they did it to you too. But now you're right there in person and can quickly get to know each other.

It could even help usher in a revolution of people moving to warmer climates and spending more time outside. Fun as it is to swipe on my phone, I think I would really enjoy walking around and pinging people as I see them, and I don't think I would ever feel dirty even if I did it all day.

And when Steem is built into it, you can even earn rewards by getting upvoted and curating people accurately.