Dating : Dating Apps: A Social Experiment — You Keep Asking, but the Answer is Still No

You’ve been in a relationship for five+ years now, and you’re thinking to yourself any day now, he’s going to pop the question. Today is that any day and that question is let’s break-up?

And you’re shocked, but more importantly, you’re wondering why that was even a question. As if you had a choice in the matter, because you don’t. That person you’ve been in love with doesn’t love you anymore.

Now, you’re either thinking, “like my mother always says ‘to get over him, get under someone else,’” or you’re on a social craze downloading every dating app you see regardless of its ratings.

This is where it gets fun — a little scary — but fun. You have your fresh round of selfies at the ready and a witty catch line to bait them in. If you’re feeling frisky enough, you don’t set any preferences, but if you’re ready to find roots and settle down, your list of requirements become a mile long, and you’re ready to swipe left like there’s no tomorrow.

But the point is, you’re fresh out of a relationship, single and ready to mingle. So, instead of going out, you pour yourself a glass of wine, light a sugar cookie scented candle, turn on your favorite Netflix background binge and open up the most promising dating app out there — Tinder.

They say dating, but in you’re mind, you’re thinking which bad boy am I going to let take me tonight because we all know that saying Tinder is a dating app is just a front — it’s for hooking up. You know you want to hook up, and the person on the other end knows you want it too, but what you both don’t know is that before you invite a complete stranger over, you’re going to want to have a wine and dine session.

How do I know this? Well, it’s mostly personal preference and after the first two months of trying my luck at dating apps, I decided to treat them as a social experiment ~it’s been two years now. Am I an awful person? 100 % guaranteed and you’re welcome.

Social experiment 1: How many guys will ask me out, or meet me somewhere if I ask?

I had all the best intentions while doing this, and I spent about a week to see what sort of results I could gleam, but really it only lasted seven days because I became awfully bored of having to reject people. I don’t need a reason to cancel a date — no means no — period.

So, what happened was instead of swiping left at all, I continually swiped right so that any and all potential matches went through. And if you’re wondering — no, I refuse to pay for anything on a dating app. Anyways, I went back through the choices and did the whole look at the pictures and read the bios. No matter what you say, I’m convinced that people without a bio are serial killers.

Most of the chats started off with a hey, or how are you tonight, or how big are your boobs? To which I’d reply ‘thanks for the flattery, I’m honored that your into my body, but this isn’t going to work out’ and then I’d do what any good self-respecting person would and unmatched them.

Now if you’re really lucky, you encounter a conversationalist, and they capture you within their spell. Chances are, they’ll ask you out to dinner. Or like me, out to the Barnes & Noble to grab a drink and chat, which sounds great until you meet them and it turns out that instead of being 5′ 8″ they’re actually 5′ 2″ and you’re the taller one and instead of walking next to you they decide to walk behind. And you’re going to say height doesn’t matter in the face of love, and normally I’d agree, but I had set my preferences. So feck off, okay? Despite matching all my other preferences, we never talked again. The end.

Going out is actually more rare than I originally thought it was going to be, but more than that, a match asking to come over to my home became the norm. At first I thought it was rather bold, even zesty of them to just invite themselves over to a complete strangers house, but in more cases than not, they kept asking and asking and no started looking a lot like yes to them, and I don’t understand why, being as yes has three letters and not two and has a completely different meaning. I blame it on positive reinforcement. Now this happened a total of ten times (yes, personal experience), and when it finally got through that they were not invited over, they had the gull to act offended.

There is no moral to this story, or rather experiment. But, I have learned that I’d rather not jump into bed with someone willing to do the same, because they most likely have STD’s and this thought has brought me to the conclusion that I’m now in love with my womanizer — yes, that’s a sex toy, my innocent readers. So when I question whether I’d rather spend the rest of my life asexual, I honestly cannot answer myself, and see — this is what dating apps will do to you.

Next up: Dating Apps: A Social Experiment — SnapChat