Dating : Meeting people on Tinder is very hard

After months of considering it, I decided to give Tinder a chance. I never considered opening an account before because I’ve always been kind of shy in that matter and felt insecure about my pictures. But mainly I was afraid of rejection and being disappointed if I didn’t match with anyone.

I made some friends who have Tinder and encouraged me to do so too. I was still skeptic but as months went by I started thinking maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. It’s funny how you can be embarrassed of something but when you see other people doing it, then you feel socially validated.

So now that I got society’s approval, I was willing to proceed. Turns out I wasn’t ready. Downloading the app is one thing, but finishing my profile took weeks. As I am a virgo, I made some steps in order to successfully create my account.

Step 1: Choose the right pictures

I searched for my face on Google Photos and started browsing. To give you an idea of what I was dealing with, I have to say I rarely take selfies and when I do I’m either drunk or in a weird situation. So you can imagine my gallery had my face on countless group photos (useless material where you couldn’t guess what type of person I am) and a scarce amount of goofy pictures that gave off too much personality and could, to a certain extent, scare “suitors” off.

I was able to extract a pair of pictures but I didn’t have what you would call the main picture. I knew I needed better photos but I couldn’t photograph myself; I’m not very skilled when it comes to cameras. So I asked my friends, the ones who convinced me in the first place, to take some pictures and help me construct what was going to be my online persona.

They gave me a Tinder for dummies kind of crash course from which I learned:

• You must carefully handpick 4 to 5 pictures. With 3 you can’t idealize me and with 6 or more you’ll get bored.
• They have to be varied photos. Yet homogeneous. Don’t put the same kind of pictures, but don’t vary it too much so that you’ll contradict yourself.
• Make sure each photo adds a different side of you. Example: you’re intellectual and artistic; but hey, you’re also goofy.

Step 2: Add a description

Who am I? What am I looking for? I wanted one or two sentences that somehow made me come across as interesting yet approachable. A nice, grounded person with whom you can talk to but also have fun with.

Step 3: Preview

Now that I had my pictures and description, I checked if I were transmitting the right vibe. I asked some of my closest friends for feedback and tweaked my description a bit until I felt kind of confident but mostly just tired of the whole process.