Confessions of a Tinder addict

I have a confession to make: I’ve been using Tinder a lot lately.

I’ve been using Tinder like Mumford and Sons use the banjo. Which we can all agree is a little too much.

For those of you not familiar with Tinder, it’s basically a dating app for your phone that takes all the challenge out of meeting someone new.

You sign up through your Facebook account, choose the gender and age range you want to look for, set a search radius — mine is about 50 kilometres so I can match with Kamloops girls — and you’re ready to go.

Seconds later, a potential match appears on your screen. You look at their photo and decide if you like them — swipe right — or dislike them — swipe left. If you swipe right on someone and they swipe right on you too, it’s a match, and Tinder opens a window to let you start chatting.

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If not, don’t worry, the next potential is right around the corner. In the space of 20 seconds I can swipe left or right on 20 girls between Sun Peaks and Kamloops. Or even further away if I get really bored.

And I get really bored a lot.

If I’ve got a few minutes to kill on the chairlift, I’ll open up Tinder and start swiping. Waiting for my coffee, I’ll swipe right on you and you and you.

The first girl I met was in Sun Peaks for a holiday. She was looking for something to do after the chairlift closed. I guess you could say she found it.

The next week I matched with an exceptionally cute, quirky and funny TRU girl. We had two super fun dates, where she beat me at several games of pool. I maintain that I was being a gentleman and I let her win, but anyone who has seen my pool game would know the truth. After a fairly chaste kiss in the front seat of my car at the end of the second date, she disappeared out of my life, probably off to her next Tinder connection, as I was on mine.

By week three, I was off to the movies with a stunning blonde who also moonlights as a Disney princess for one of those children’s party companies in Kamloops. I’d barely gotten home from that date and I was swiping right again, looking for the next girl.

And I think that’s my problem with Tinder. It took the challenge out of the dating game, so much that I was no longer invested in any of it. I didn’t have to make any effort, and if things didn’t work out, I could bounce straight on to another girl.

It’s no way to form a real connection with somebody.

While I was busy on all my Tinder dates, I’ve been missing out on a whole bunch of things, like enjoying the season with my friends. So I’ve deleted Tinder off my phone. From here on out, I’m swiping left on online dating, and swiping right on real connections with real people.