TINDER Generation

HARDER - BETTER - FASTER - TINDER ?

Tinder, for those who do not live in our times, it's a dating app, on which you can subscribe through your Facebook profile, using our geolocation to unearth our potential dates.

That is the official definition.

Of course, there is also an unofficial definition (which is much more interesting, I have to admit it). Tinder embodies the zapping society we are living in.

When you subscribe, it's funny at first. Pictures pass before our eyes, we can see everything: a guy/girl with his/her big bottles of vodka and champagn in nightclubs, a young lady professional of selfies with either a big lack of self-confidence in real life or an oversized ego, a shirtless lame guy tightening his muscles so strong that he is going to fart in his trunks, a girl lying on the beach making everyone believes that she is "always tanned and naturally stunning"...

Some of those profiles tend to appear very often on our screen but we can still see the whole human diversity - and isn't it fabulous ?!

Not really, I can tell you.

Even if Tinder reflects all the components of our society in real time (and real place) and represents the fact that there is something for every taste on this planet, we can still notice some problems... 

The first issue concerns the image we are giving to others. Because lying by posting only flattering phoney pictures can be a problem if we really want to meet the Tinder person we matched with. Deceit isn't accepted.

We are obviously talking about physical aspect here... I know, it can be politically incorrect but:

1/ We have no time to waist

2/ We do not even care (only the Tinder usuer who has watched the common interests before his target's face can judge me) 

It is a "based on appearance" selection (and the goodlooking appearance) but that's the way it goes.

However, you are not sheltered from someone way to small or way too tall, way too fat or way too skinny and so on. Yes, because there is no scale on pictures like there is on geography maps !

Anyway, we can still deal with these kinds of problems (at least more or less).

The issue that sounded the most interesting to me but also the most disconcerting, it's the power of 2.0 on dating.

If we reconsider the exact meaning of "meeting", the Collins Dictionary says: "to come together (with), either by design or by accident; encounter". Which lead us to assume that the physical contact is essential, and therefore Tinder is breaking the rule.

Once we had fun, once we re-boosted our ego every 4 days, let's be honest, every human being normally constituted experiences a lack of something. This something is the powerful game of seduction, the whole "hitting on" stuff that two people feel when they randomly meet in a place that only destiny gathered. I am talking about the eye contact from one end of the bar to the other, about getting closer, about "Can I buy you a drink ?", about nice talks and intimate whispers... 

Tinder cuts corners to that kind of moments, and directly jumps to the square "BED" for the horniest, or to the square "meeting and talking into a public place" with someone who was only fictional so far. And it feels weird ! Even weirder if the person is physically disappointing. Pretending having a good time during one hour (maybe two ?) with someone we'll say "See you soon" but secretly wish "I hope I'll never see you again", makes us want to stop and delete Tinder, because it is full of FAKES. And for the most humane of us, it make us have a guilty conscience because we are not that hypocritical... (Are we ?)

And yet, when we get bored (let's be honest again), when we want to fill our ego, we go back on Tinder, to check if we can match (and match for good this time). We drop "likes" galore and, in the end, we'll talk to less than a third of them. Because that's also the way it goes.

WATCH OUT (1): Sunglasses can hide a bovine look and a hat can easily hide baldness.

WATCH OUT (2): I know people who became a real couple...