Recently, my friend and I were discussing the travails of online dating and he said, if Tinder were a place, it would be a seedy bar where the time of day is always 2 in the morning.
I remarked that most of the conversations in this bar would contain threats of buying someone a drink, but then never really following through with it. Everyone would wander around and nobody would make eye contact or talk — until it was 2:30 a.m., and then some man would ask every woman left, “Hey, wanna come over and then never speak again?”
I liked this game, so I put this question wide. If Tinder were a place, what place would it be?
One of my besties said, “It would be Tatooine.” At first I agreed because as every (nerd) knows, Tatooine is a desert, and when you’re looking for love, the field can look like a desert. But then he specified that Tinder was Mos Eisley. For those of you who might be “Star Wars”-challenged, Mos Eisley is the cantina where Obi-Wan Kenobi takes a young Luke Skywalker to hire a pilot, eventually connecting with Han Solo.
I can totally see it. You enter the place, and then when someone questions your presence, you use your Force skills and wave your hand and say, “This is not the date you’re looking for.”
And then you go into the cantina, and a random stranger comes up to you and says, “I don’t like you.”
Next, as all initial dating inquiries go, a light saber is drawn and someone loses an arm. A little while later, some flashy pilot is bragging about how he made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs, and that’s when you really know you’re dealing with a shady character whose financial dealings are questionable. Meaning he’s living in his mother’s basement, but, like, he has so many options and aspirations and … bills.
Another friend described Tinder as a police lineup, where you get to look at several potential mates, but instead of a one-way mirror, it is transparent. You are judging them, just as much as they are judging you.
Are these pictures recent?
Is he sucking in for the camera click?
Everything seems fine, except why does she have a tattoo of bunny ears on her arm?
But one of my favorite answers was, “Tinder is like a singles ward. There are so, SO, many singles milling about.”
For my Latter-day Saint-challenged readers, this is where the church corrals all those who desperately need a mate and makes them interact with each other at least once a week.
A pretty perfect comparison to Tinder.
They come up to you, and poke your shoulder, and profess that they can’t believe they’re here, because this is so not the place they would be, and then they run away, wondering if you will welcome their advances. They offer the golden statue: We can be partners in crime.
They love to “Netflix and chill,” and they promise no drama and they expect no drama. They are working hard/playing hard.
I have no idea how to navigate this world — be it a seedy bar, a “Star Wars” desert, a police lineup or a singles ward — but I will definitely say, I am a no-drama, #forreal, Netflix-lovin’, adventure-seekin’ woman, who loves the Oxford comma.
So, that should be enough for eligible men to swipe right … right?
Brodi Ashton is a New York Times best-selling author who lives in the Salt Lake City area. She’s also an occasional columnist for The Salt Lake Tribune.