Four years since its initial launch, the app that changed online and offline dating has become commonplace among the social media giants. You may have noticed a change in the way users approach this modern social experiment. From the indiscriminate right swiper and hook-up seekers to miner's bent on finding "something real", your approach to narrowing the field is dictated by quick judgments. At times I've questioned how many profiles are actually backed by real users and certainly had my doubts about the investment in messaging someone who will likely become a ghost upon discovering my modest height or inability to fund a weekly sushi night.
Originally I saw the superficial selector to favor men who could hide behind a photo facade, safe to heckle and cat call the few brave women willing to endure their filth. Over time however, I've grown to see the subtle sinister ways Tinder and dating apps like it have given women a coarse upper hand. While normally I'd consider a slant toward female users as a just handicap to offset the vile behavior of predatory men, that in itself supports a gender bias that comes from my confidence that men can overcome a disadvantage women cannot. Without explicitly pitting the sexes against each other I do believe dating finds good women at odds with bad men and good men at odds with bad women.
While anonymity has been claimed as a tool for evil by many men more accurately described as trolls, traditional dating holdouts such as an expectation that the man should pay, have their own place in the destruction of modern dating. These conventional expectations have combined with the Tinder method of dating strangers to yield a less than desirable experience for both parties. Whether it's a 60 year old elephant man hidden beneath Abercrombie jpegs or a twenty-something "brand ambassador" scheduling dinner dates in lieu of grocery shopping we have a serious problem if Tinder signals the future of dating.
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