Say it’s a sunny day. You’re walking down the street, looking at everybody you pass, and everybody’s heads are up, and people are smiling. Everyone is interesting. Some of them look like people you’d like to be friends with. Someone is the best bucket drummer you’ve ever seen. And some of them are handsome motherf***ers who you’d like to date.

Maybe you even make eye contact with someone. But how in the world are you going to meet him? Basically no one is aggressive enough to ask someone out while passing them on the street, and that attention is almost never welcome in that context, and even if those two things line up, that move would be so aggressive that you would be suspicious and threatened by its existence. Totally cute guy that you would want to ask you out if you met through friends? –> Serial killer/creeper/street harasser if he stops and harasses you on the street.

This is fine. Totally ok, even. If it’s a choice between overcorrecting and undercorrecting, I choose overcorrecting until all women feel safe to walk all places all the time. Then we can work on being “friendly” or whatever you street harasser apologists call it.

But Tinder! Tinder is like walking down a very crowded street full of people about your age, in your city, of your preferred romantic-partner gender, and when you see someone you like, and they like you back, a text message conversation opens. Literally. That’s actually what happens. Except for the walking part, because Tinder is best done from the safety of your couch while watching Broad City.

At first, Tinder was a hook-up app. But so many people have joined that it’s been diluted. As far as I can tell, people are just using it like Craigslist now. Selling furniture, promoting bands, getting IG followers, asking people how to build that Ikea dresser…

This means that admitting you’re on Tinder doesn’t necessarily mean you’re trawling the ocean for fish to suck face with.

I’m on Tinder for the writing material. And because I got bored of Solitaire. And to find love. But mostly for the writing material. But also the love thing.