Campus couples ‘swipe right’ for true love
A profile picture, a 500-character personal bio and a “swipe right” could result in not only a “match” but also a future spouse through Tinder.
The matchmaking mobile app, Tinder, is becoming increasingly popular among young adults, especially in Utah.
For freshman Abbey Saxton, who is studying elementary and deaf education, Tinder had a much larger impact on her life than she originally planned. What was at first just another fun app turned out to be the source through which she would meet her fiancé, Andrew Knight.
“I didn’t really have any expectations or doubts about Tinder really,” Saxton said. “I mean, I wasn’t on there with the assumption that I would find my future husband, but hey, whatever works.”
Online dating was a bit tricky for Saxton and Knight, especially when it came down to meeting an online stranger face-to-face for the first time.
“It actually took a lot of convincing – like three hours’ worth – but I finally got him to agree and we met up that night,” Saxton said.
For Knight, the feelings of the experience were similar.
“We met after a lot of convincing on her part, because I was not sure about meeting someone I had just started talking to that same night,” he said.
Although Saxton and Knight had a positive experience with Tinder, both have their reservations about the app’s use.
“Tinder can be pretty much whatever you want it to be,” Knight said. “Some people use it to find someone to hook up with and nothing more. Others use it to just meet cool people and talk. But I love it for the fact that I think it helped me meet some really cool people and the love of my life.”
Searching through the endless list of potential matches was a bit of a challenge for Saxton. In fact, it took several weeks and a lot of sorting before she finally found her fiancé.
“There were a few funny things I encountered on Tinder, actually,” Saxton said. “I had a guy who would write me extravagant novels, but they were really weird. That guy had too much time on his hands.”
After meeting each other, both Saxton and Knight deleted their Tinder accounts.
“I had a Tinder account for about four months,” Knight said. “After meeting Abbey, I got rid of it as I no longer needed it.”
The app connects users within a certain radius to other people with similar interests. Through Facebook, the app analyzes basic user information such as geographical location, common interests and mutual friends, and matches potential candidates most likely to be compatible.
“The person can’t very easily lie about what they look like,” Saxton said. “You know they’re real because it is connected to Facebook.”
Jenny Castle, a freshman in food science, made her account about a week ago and has already met a number of people through Tinder.
“I think Tinder is successful,” she said. “I have been able to talk to a lot of new people.”
Tinder receives some criticism for its appearance-based matchmaking process. Based on a single picture, users can anonymously like or reject another user by swiping either right or left. If two users like each other, a “match” results. A chat feature then opens up to the two users.
For Joshua Clyde, a senior in exercise science, Tinder is a quick way to meet people, although not the best route.
“I think anywhere outside of Utah, people use it just for booty calls or things like that,” he said. “Here, they might take it more seriously and look for relationships, but I think that meeting people in person is much better than Tinder.”
Clyde, who had the app for four months, heard of Tinder and the stereotypes associated with it.
“I really don’t like the concept of it at all,” he said. “I feel like it makes people more judgmental than they should be because they’re basing everything off of just a picture they see. It doesn’t have anything to do with personality or anything. I was doing it just out of pure curiosity. I wasn’t planning on using it to ever date anyone.”
Clyde succeeded in meeting others on Tinder, but the relationships formed through the app did not progress very far.
“I went on dates with probably six different people, but it would involve just a single date and I never saw them again after that,” Clyde said.
As for Saxton and Knight, they plan to finish their Tinder experience by tying the knot at the end of the year.
“We’re shooting for New Year’s Eve,” Saxton said. “That way everybody in the world will just be having a huge party and we can say it’s all for us.”
— alyssa.hawkins@aggiemail.usu.edu
Twitter: @_alyssahawkins