Vivian, a 19-year-old originally from Colorado, found herself in need of friends upon moving to New York. Unsure how to go about meeting new people in the city, she turned to the Internet for friends and created a profile on the popular dating site, OKCupid.
“I thought that people are trying to meet people for dating, so they’re obviously having difficulty meeting people in general. So why wouldn’t they be interested in looking for friends too?” Vivian asked.
With hopes of finding a platonic relationship, Vivian didn’t have much luck. Girls were ignoring her messages and she mostly received weird responses from horny guys. Then Vivian met me last July. She and I are still friends to this day.
Online dating is very hit or miss—sort of a virtual crapshoot. In spite of the unpredictability, there have been some romantic success stories.
After speaking to many men on OKCupid she just didn’t have a spark with, Natalie, a 33-year-old from Boston, met a guy on the dating site that really caught her attention.
“He seemed interested in actually talking to me, as a person, instead of just going for a date or sex,” she says.
While online dating sites have been around for a while, a new trend has come into existence, which can only be described as “rating apps,” as opposed to “dating.” Most of these applications like Tinder and Hot or Not are available on Apple and Android devices. They allow single hopefuls to judge someone solely based on appearance with the swipe of a finger. Users are shown pictures of other app users in their area and if they find them attractive, they can swipe the photo to the right near the little heart at the bottom of the screen. If they find them unattractive, they swipe the photo to the left near the little “X.” If two people found each other attractive, they are then able to interact through the app’s messaging section.
Tinder, developed by Hatch Labs Inc. in 2012, is number 125 in the “Top Free Apps” list and number 20 in the top social networking apps in the United States, according to appdata.com. The app has a user rating of 3.5/5 stars based on 5,915 ratings.
These new apps are clearly a lot different from traditional dating sites, where people fill out a complete profile of themselves, which includes everything from what they’re currently doing with their lives to what kinds of food they like.
At times, these rating apps evoke less than desired results. Louisa, a sophomore at Eugene Lang College, created a Tinder account just for fun. She found herself being matched with quite a lot of people.
“I was distracted when I said yes to someone that looked familiar, only to realize when I was matched with him that it was my good friend’s ex-boyfriend. He began flirting with me knowing full well who I was, which made me feel uncomfortable and led to me blocking him,” Louisa recalled.
On these apps, you never know whom you’ll find, and it can be quite awkward when you come across someone you know.
Dating sites and rating apps can be great ways to meet people in today’s world, but they can also lead to a very shallow and warped perception of friendship and dating.
“Rating apps are good for people just looking for sex,” Vivian said. “But I would never use one to find a friendship or a relationship, as it doesn’t seem like the type of environment for a true friendship or relationship to blossom from.”
Born and raised in New York City, Rafaella (Raffi) is majoring in Journalism + Design at Lang. Rafaella also enjoys fashion, writing poetry, reading for pleasure, the art of drag, and listening to pop-punk!
It’s fair to say that mobile apps are a great way to meet people. You just have to think of them as tools to use.
Remember online dating at the start – everyone wanted to avoid it but then it became the norm – this is just another example of a new technology taking it’s place.