Did You Kill Tinder?
In 2018, no on has to convince you that running a business online is safe, effective, legitimate and lucrative. Thousands of businesses make billions of dollars without ever having any face to face contact, voice to voice, communication or any communication at all. This is expected and acceptable when dealing with many of the biggest online businesses. Think Amazon.com, a business that has no humanity whatsoever.
Yet when it comes to creating relationships that are based on sex and love, suddenly the online space is not to be trusted, strange and new or something so untested you thought you would "give it a try."
Enter a new paradigm of dating apps, most notably emblazoned by the likes of Tinder just six years ago. For a while, it enjoyed a rise as a place for people who knew what they wanted to connect with other people who knew what they wanted. In the first two - three years, people on that app seemed to be finding what they need more often than not. I myself did some swiping, joining between the 2nd and 3rd year of the app.
I was shocked to find that I did match with women who wanted to connect and express their kinks and desires to be fucked well. These were by no means one off dalliances. Rather, two people connecting, despite the limits of space, time, money, lifestyle. The app facilitated ease of meeting like minded people with less barriers but once we connected, we could still enjoy each other, again and again, sexually and energetically.
Sure, if you were desperate, thirsty or treated people as disposable, you could use the platform to do that with however many people you like. That's true of any connecting platform, including bars, clubs, supermarkets or yoga classes.
The fact is, technology is often used as a scapegoat when all it does is expose human behavior pervasively, it doesn't create it. The word about Tinder got out and between the third and six year of the app, the user based doubled to over 50 million people, which from my perspective, has lead to it's downfall.
Due to the success and hype of the app, it's been inundated with people who have no idea of what they want or need and are incapable of communicating those desires. That directly impacts their ability to have it or any potential match to meet it.
Even worse are the millions of people who don't even believe they deserve to have what they want or don't think it's available. The types who readily admit "giving it a shot" or "I don't believe in this but here I am" simply indicating their desperation to everyone but themselves. In other words, they don't believe the app can get them the connection they desire, so aren't really investing any true intention in their actions, yet somehow expecting to get "lucky."
I actually read the small (three tweet sized) profiles on Tinder and keep in mind, I tend to see femme presenting individuals and women. Unlike when I first joined, three years ago, I'm forced to read "No hookups," or "not just hookups" or something to that effect ten times as much. Dozens of women looking to get their needs met emotionally (because they still want sex) yet are not willing to state what they want and need. It's all too easy to say what you don't want, which is about someone else, rather than to be clear on what actually satisfies you in connection.
While women tend to omit the juicy bits of their heart and intellect that stimulate deeper sexual desires and open pathways to amazing pleasure, they make sure to share their sexiest photos. So on one hand they are professing to want something authentic and on the other using physical attraction as a lure.
It's a mind fuck initiated by fucked minds. Right now, hundreds of mismatches are happening because signals are getting crossed and men and women are doing the same things on Tinder that they do to each other offline to the ruin of amazing relationships filled with nurturing sex and intimacy. Setting each other up for failure.
Sure, people who know what they want and are able to treat a physical connection as honorable as a five star uber rating are still using Tinder but they're finding it harder to connect due to the overwhelming amount of people just looking to get lucky, putting no effort to know and share who they truly are.
Once again, the unhealthy habits and conventions of dating and relating, our constant chokehold on healthy expressions of our sexual selves, comes to destroy a haven of connection for those who err on the side of happy, sexy and whole.
This is why I do the work I do, continuing to create spaces for people to understand their own desires and needs, be proud of them and then connect those vulnerable parts of the self to people they can and do care for.
Stay Aware
Photo by freestocks.org on Unsplash