Hey, y’all! It’s ya girl Haley :). As always, I want to give you some background on why and how we got to this point. Tinder is a well-known dating app that is commonly used by young adults. Individuals download Tinder for a variety of reasons, such as seeking new relationships, hookups, or even just new friendships. I fell under the category of “finding the love of my life”… let’s just say I haven’t had the best of luck. It wasn’t until recently that I debated deleting my Tinder account for good. It doesn’t seem like a huge deal, but my Tinder dates back to June 2019, fresh out of high school graduation.
Even though I’ve had the app for a year, I haven’t been on an abundance of Tinder dates. I have been on a select few, one of them being to go see Detective Pikachu in theaters. It was a great movie I must add! It was very rare that any of my Tinder messages actually led to intellectual or engaging conversations. I did enjoy checking my inbox and seeing cheesy pick-up lines such as “Are you a Juul? Because I know you’re going to hurt me, but I’m still trying to hit it.” Phrases as such are truly dear to my heart.
My Tinder adventure went as far as purchasing Tinder Gold! Lord, somebody should have stopped me then! As a broke college student, I was getting charged 19 dollars a month. As I think back to all of the money I’ve spent, I can’t help but cry a little. I was paying more for Tinder Gold than I was for Spotify! Technically, you don’t have to pay for Tinder but paying for “Gold” allows users to see who “Likes” them without swiping through a set of cards. This is convenient because it’s faster than waiting for somebody to swipe right on you as well. A user can also pay extra money for “boosts,” which make your profile more viewable to other users, resulting in more likes. One night, I paid seven dollars so I could get more likes. I’m still in shock that I even did that.
My friends and I had made a habit of going on Tinder together and seeing who liked us in the area. This was oftentimes super fun, but it resulted in a huge chunk of time being spent on our phones mindlessly scrolling. Recently, my friend had been doing this very thing and I snapped and deleted my Tinder account. Watching her spend our time together scrolling through an abundance of profiles showed me how much time I was wasting doing the same thing.
Ever since deleting Tinder, a few things have changed. I have found myself with way more time. I literally never realized how much time I spent on Tinder. Whenever I was bored, it was the very first thing I would do. Not only would it take up time, but it also didn’t take much energy to be constantly swiping, making it appealing. After deleting Tinder I had to fill the “in-between” time with something actually productive. I have had more time to write, exercise, and focus on myself. I’m not constantly reaching for my phone to go check who has messaged me or see how many new likes I have. I’m not going to lie, it boosted my confidence a little bit to get constant reminders that somebody liked me. At the end of the day, those “likes” are temporary and a majority didn’t lead to anything. The constant notifications caused me to have a focus on whether or not I was in a relationship, even if I said it wasn’t my main priority. The need for likes or affirmations from others wasn’t doing anything to boost my confidence in the end. Focusing on hobbies I enjoy and working on myself has done more for me than any Tinder message.
Deleting Tinder forced me to be more productive and meaningful with my time. It also allowed me to find time to love and compliment myself instead of relying on others. I’m not saying deleting Tinder is necessary to fulfilling aspirations such as productivity or self-love, but it is definitely a start.