Swipe ‘Right’ To ‘Save For Later’

Left, Left, Left, Left, Left, Left, Right.

It was a humid Thursday evening in Chicago. I know it was a Thursday, because I never had to work late at the agency since our Friday’s were generally spent working for the first half of day; while post-lunch was spent within arms-length of the beer fridge. Good times.

But this Thursday night in June was extremely humid; more so than usual. The door to the bar was swung wipe open, as if it was asking for the slightest breeze to crawl down Clark Street.

Check watch. 9:07pm.

We were supposed to meet at 9:00pm. I know — 7 minutes really isn’t a big deal. I had only moved to the city a few weeks prior and was already beginning to understand that most meet-ups had a 10-15 minute window where either party could arrive late without the need for a big apology or excuse, normally to account for issues regarding public transit.

But this wasn’t a random meet up between old friends. This was a Tinder date.

To be honest, I’m not really sure what the word entails anymore. Date. Growing up in the South, I was brought up understanding that dates (at least when you first meet someone) were social rendezvous between two independent parties; where the man would pick the woman up from her residence, before going out to a restaurant/bar for dinner, and then going out on the town for more social activities. Maybe there’s a kiss at the end if everything goes smoothly and both parties hit it off — but that’s it. Both parties would separate and go their own ways at the end of the night. I’d always assumed that last part was considered a ‘best practice’ so both people could get enough sleep before Mass on Sunday morning.

In this scenario though, “dating” could mean anything from grabbing a bite at the cafe, to hitting a bar for drinks on the river front, or even just going out to explore the city late one night.

All of this started going through my head in the roughly 20 minutes it took, let’s call her Kim, to arrive at the bar. Once it started, the rest of the night went great. Kim and I ended up jumping from one bar to the next until we ran into a bar that housed some vintage pin-ball and assorted arcade machines. Once the bell dinged for closing time, we started stumbling up the stairs and out into the humid Chicago night — arm in arm.

One way or another, we ended up back at her apartment, only to stay up until the early morning hours listening to vinyl records as we finished a bottle of white wine before eventually catching a few hours of sleep. The morning after was fairly typical: wake up, shower, run to McD to grab a quick bite, and then cab to work where I quickly changed clothes before the daily status first meeting.

11:17am. “I had a really wonderful time last night 😉” – K

For the first hour, I ignored the message.

To be honest, I did have a good time the night prior. But that was it. It was just “good,” no major sparks on my end…even though I could tell the opposite was true for Kim.

Later on that Friday it hit me, dating now revolved around one key point…options. Constant options.

We have always had options when selecting someone to date and eventually marry. But this ability to choose and select from an almost endless candidate pool, while never forgetting the ones who got away, has been exacerbated by one device— the cell phone. In the time it took me to download Tinder, sign-in, connect with her, and start chatting…I had probably gone through a couple hundred women, all whilst judging them on looks alone.

When I was growing up, I remember George Strait telling me that all my ex’s would be in Texas. Fast forward twenty-something years later and now they’ve move out of Texas and onto the internet. They live in the vast array of social networks, texts, and photos/videos that we are using to constantly record out lives.

In case anyone was wondering, I never really saw Kim again. We ended up chatting over the weekend while she was on vacation with her family in some god-forsaken part of Michigan, but we never really got back together for any social outings. And why? Because in the 20 minutes that it took for Kim to arrive at the bar, I received a notification from a different girl who I seemed to have a lot more in common, as opposed to Kim. Even though I never actually met the second girl, the possibility of a better match influenced my decision to drop communication from Kim and to no longer follow-up with her.

At first I thought this phenomenon was unique to myself. Maybe I was just an asshole and needed to just ‘keep my wild eyes on the road’ as Taylor Swift so eloquently put it in her song Style.

The more I looked into it though, I began to realize that this behavior wasn’t a random occurrence amongst a small group of individuals; but instead part of a larger cultural change in how the millennial generation approaches dating. Consider this, based on numbers supplied by Tinder:

• An estimated 50 million people use Tinder every month.
• There are more than 1 billion profile swipes per day on Tinder.
• Tinder makes 12 million matches made per day.

Say that number again in your head — 12 million matches – the number of global connections made on Tinder each day. That roughly comes down to a little over 4 matches per day, not to mention how many people you had to swipe through just to get 4 matches. And that number doesn’t even take into account how many new people we meet through off-line methods. With all of that in mind, it’s no wonder our generation has a hard time committing and settling down when it comes to dating. Statistically Millennials are becoming the first generation to put off marriage, with a Pew research poll citing that only 26% of 18-to-33-year-olds are currently married.

But why? There are a lot of theories suggesting why this trend is occurring, including notion that Millennials are valuing their early-careers over settling down. While I believe ; but I believe this all comes down to one key point…the struggle over choice.

From an early age, we are taught that everyone is a “unique little snowflake” and special in their own right. Which means that we only deserved the very best in whatever we do; careers, clothes, friends, material possessions, and ultimately partners.

The issue with this logic is that I can’t help but feel it has affected the way we approach dating. If we are all special in our own special way, then don’t we only deserve other people who are – at least – just as special and unique as we are? And what if you find someone who you are attracted to, but they don’t appear to be as ‘unique of a snowflake’ as you are? Do you leave them for someone who is more special or more unique? Or do you stick around to see what happens?

With that in mind it makes sense why Tinder is so popular. Millennials enjoy options. We crave them, in everything we do. Think about it how many choices Millennials (and everyone else) are exposed to on a daily basis. We have evolved as Americans, to a certain degree, to become paralyzed from having make an over-abundance of choices.

Why should dating be any different? If the first person we connect with doesn’t work out, we have ten more on back-burner for new discovery. Or if we want to rekindle an old flame, at 2AM on a Saturday morning, all we have to do is send an emoji or direct message.

For better or worse, the digital revolution has changed the way that Millennials interact with the world around us. The rules are no longer set in stone; as they once were. But maybe that isn’t a bad thing.

Like what I wrote?
Check out my portfolio, my mom says it’s great