Swiping people left and right: the Tinder/hook-up culture discussion

Based God begs to differ

Xp

basically meeting someone on tindr is like finding a new song via some spotify discovery feature. maybe it's alright but it lacks the layers of meaning it would have if it were a consequence of another part of your social life.

― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Friday, July 29, 2016 3:53 PM (48 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This strikes me as a good insight.

The whole thing about the rules of public approach having changed seems tricky. I mean I'm speaking hypothetically here because I've been out of things about 15 years now, but I've definitely heard some women say stuff like "Look, if I'm sitting in a coffee shop reading a book, it means I want to read my book, not be hit on by strangers." Which seems, you know, pretty reasonable. The other day my office had an outing at a placer with a driving range, and one fairly attractive female co-worker came in after driving for a little while and was just like "Ugh, this is why I never go to driving ranges," because apparently two different guys during her time out there came over and tried to give her "pointers." At the same time, since there is a history of people hooking up or coupling up as a result of public encounters, it seems sort of weird to lose that entire avenue to people meeting.

well, presumably/hopefully there are forms of meeting people from scratch in public that do not fall under mansplaining or interrupting people when they are obviously trying to read. i don't think we have to sign off on The Death Of Meeting People just yet.

the other forms are equally awful

Well yeah, but I mean you could make an argument about almost any public space. A person doing any activity may not want to be interrupted. A person standing at bus stop or riding a subway could feel captive/uncomfortable. Same for a person in the middle of doing a job, e.g. a clerk or cashier or restaurant worker.

I mean maybe on balance it is better to have these clearly demarcated channels.

I dance pretty well for a white guy.

please tell me this is not in your profile

xp. i feel like if youre a man and not a psychopath you can divine when not to interrupt someone, and when an interaction you have initiated is unwanted. the problem is not difficult to navigate social cues, but dickhole men.

there is probably a new etiquette still emerging, maybe, in the long wake of a series of feminisms and the more recent, very helpful wave of reminders that e.g. catcalling and mansplaining and all these other behaviors are generally not welcome. the culture as a whole might potentially absorb (slowly, and perhaps through weird channels) the language and practices of consent, so that there would become some recognized forms of doing this. i don't think it necessarily has to be super complicated. like, asking if someone would like to talk, and being genuinely sincerely okay with "no" and not dragging your own response to "no" out to where it becomes itself a big inconvenience and About You.... i dunno.

and yeah frederik b i don't know how it rolls in denmark but the formula "black people = good dancers, white people = bad dancers" is problematic to put it mildly and i would politely suggest you consider removing it from your vocabulary/world-view. but this probably makes me sound like one of the new-millennium thought police idk.

Hey guys, sorry. Didn't think. Danish people don't really dance, so I often dance with people from the middle east, southern europe, latin america, etc. There's way fewer black people in Denmark than people from the middle east, and I didn't think of what I wrote as white/black, and phrased it 100% as that anyway. My mistake.

Technically you phrased it 50% as that.

luv 2 dance w southern euros

I think Tinder gets a bad rap. I had met a lot of nice women through it and had a lot of pleasant first dates. It's very low commitment, so sometimes people flake out, but that's nothing to get mad about. A lot of the appeal is that it's low expectations, which makes it a really easy, pressure-free way to re-enter the dating pool.

caek otm - in ny you sit at the bar and meet people who may well be there just to hang around and chat to others, at least so it seems to me. I spent a Sunday evening in a bar and met a playwright in his 60s and a woman in her 30s who worked in advertising around the corner, personally I love this kind of thing, but I guess some wouldn't.

― Bein' Sean Bean (LocalGarda), Friday, July 29, 2016 5:13 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i have met people literally of these descriptions off twitter alone, i'm not sure what this Romanticisation Of A Bar ever needs to prove (aside from one's superiority as ever)

most of my relationships have one way or another stemmed from having worked in bookstores when i was in my 20s, which is neither helpful for me now nor current 20yos.

never tried tinder but first dates aren't actually that bad! it's only later that my boringness becomes apparent

OKCupid first dates were worse than Tinder because there had usually been a lot of chatting beforehand plus longer profiles, leaving less to talk about.

i don't like coffee enough t oever go to a coffee shop and i do not use tinder. i do disgracefully dance in public tho, my saving grace

i have met people literally of these descriptions off twitter alone, i'm not sure what this Romanticisation Of A Bar ever needs to prove (aside from one's superiority as ever)

the discussion moved towards the idea that people might be more open in other cities besides london, and some people said that bars in new york are built for strangers to interact a bit more. i was agreeing with that.

twitter is also a way in which people communicate, very good.

basically meeting someone on tindr is like finding a new song via some spotify discovery feature. maybe it's alright but it lacks the layers of meaning it would have if it were a consequence of another part of your social life.

― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Friday, 29 July 2016 21:53 Bookmark

i met a nice girl in a bar once but it turned out forksclovetofu was watching and later kidnapped her to keep in his basement for other pervs. still, spread the love though eh

that bastard

Not convinced infinity's story doesn't have another timeline where he wakes up missing a kidney.

basically meeting someone on tindr is like finding a new song via some spotify discovery feature. maybe it's alright but it lacks the layers of meaning it would have if it were a consequence of another part of your social life.

I am not entirely sure about this but I don't want to distract from boggling at r|t|c

Yeah it's too neat and I've never used tinder. Plus people are more volatile, changeable and surprising than songs (at least the good ones are). But I don't know, there's a kind of hermetic bubble aspect to online dating? You don't have to make them fit in with the rest of your life AT ALL if you don't want to? Which is maybe what I was trying to get at.

Tinder: Users experience body dissatisfaction, body shame, low self-esteem

Users of hookup culture dating apps like Tinder - that encourage self-objectification through accepting or rejecting a possible match based on their physical appearance - have a more negative perception of body image than non-users, a new study finds.

Mostly undergraduate students - 1,044 women and 272 men - completed a survey about Tinder usage and answered questions about their body image, sociocultural factors, perceived objectification, and psychological well-being.

Of the total participants, around 10 percent stated that they were Tinder users. Compared with non-users, Tinder users of both sexes reported less satisfaction with their bodies and appearance. However, only male Tinder users reported lower levels of self-esteem.

shocker

I'm so mystified by the whole offline-dating thing. Like, I do technically understand how it works, but the things that seem to be pillars of it (approaching strangers, having friends introduce you) are just totally outside of my social experience.

Online just seems so much more, I don't know, civilised? You meet someone you already find interesting and attractive and know to be sexually compatible, and it's always pleasant and relaxed - the other thing sounds terrifying.

idk, people feel things differently but when on a date do you have a moment when you share a look or conversational moment when you're emotionally charged? shared eye contact that you both take a second to break because you're mutually enjoying it, pausing because you're a little shocked by how something your date said just clicks with your personality? the thing is, those things are what you hope for on a date, but they can be completely serendipitous and shared by people who are not currently sizing each other up. I think experiencing those is what turns some people off of online or arranged dates -- they seem natural and not part of a selection process, even if it's with someone who might not have made the cut if you'd sized each other up online

Oh hey, tinder has made something new called 'tinder social', which seems completely useless. So now every fifth image I see is an ad for some stupid feature I get if I give them money. And also, while upgrading the app to get it to run all these ads to me, it deleted all my matches. Yay.

got a first message from someone i was too nervous to message first. what is a 3 step, foolproof plan to not seeming like a dork on this app/on a first date that comes from this app.

it has to be exactly 3 steps

1) Don't worry about seeming like a dork. Focus on getting to know her instead. That way you show you care about her, rather than trying to get laid by being performatively impressive. 2) Do actually care about her. Be honest. And interested. 3) Listen!! And smile. And remember to have a good time.

Just start talking imho. People use it like txting, not like email. If nothing comes of it or they fade out on you, accept it and don't second-guess what you said, people treat this thing very loosely. Be yourself!

maybe limit messaging and meet in person asap?

I'm poor in love, though. I've probably terrified all of the women on the site right now... I do like dating, I like getting to know strangers.

Reading advice columns I see that now college students use Tinder? This I don't get. I thought the whole point of online dating was that after you leave college you're no longer constantly encountering potentially datable people every hour of every day. College is Tinder.

don't think it's surprising to see college students utilizing everything within their grasp that might increase their chances of getting laid. plus some people are in majors that skew heavily towards one gender or w/ever. i would use it.

tinder is about flicking the faces of a million strangers into the past, not getting laid.

because of your d/n on first glance i thought you said "tinder is about flicking the bean," like damn dude

I didn't use dating sites as such in college, or if so only at the very tail end - got onto OKCupid sometime in 2004 which is the year I graduated. Doesn't seem super weird to me, but I also was pretty seasoned in Internet flirtation by that point, and was used to the (basically pointless) scrolling through Makeoutclub and Lipstickparty profiles of the attractive and hip. In late 2003 I'd even had a couple of dating situations emerge out of Friendster correspondence. Tinder probably would have fucked me up mentally but I would have used it.

lipstickandcigarettes?

Don't know that one! Lipstickparty was definitely a thing, though it seems very obscure on the internet now. I have AIM chat logs that refer to it by name so I'm sure I'm not imagining it.

oh well i am a very young person with a lot going on, i wouldn't know

same

Fellow Europeans: Do you also see a steady stream of profile pictures snapped at the holocaust memorial in Berlin? People laughing, jumping, climbing in between the concrete slabs. And always smiling. It really weirds me out.

guess I shd post here or revive BRAGGIN 2007 to say I met an incredible girl on bumble, somehow :)

just noticed Tinder's new "recommend to a friend" feature

creepy as fuck

still don't know what the hell Tinder Social is either

tinder social seems to be used by younger people in my area, so I only notice it if the group has one person who is older than the others and falls into my age range

the idea seems to be that a group of single friends is going out this evening/weekend and are looking for more people to possibly hang out with? trying to recreate that situation where you're out with friends at a bar or w/e and end up talking to another group and mingling