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To quote /r/ShowerThoughts: "The problem with Tinder is that you only meet people who are at a point in their lives where Tinder makes sense"

The same was true of singles bars before we had OKTinderList. Even if neither person really likes singles bars per se, having a culturally agreed upon way to meet people has some value, and once you've met your person of choice there, you don't need to ever go back.

Indeed, very true. There is always naive hope for the odd one, and I am sure for many it is. But then again, there are quite a few very compatible partners out there, for most of us. All the magic is about meeting them somehow, in right time.

There is a lot of information to be gleaned from just a few pictures that I think people gloss over. Maybe it's me, but I find it pretty easy to start narrowing down what I'm looking for based on pictures.

How a person chooses to represent themselves in pictures can tell you a lot about where they find themselves happy (traveling, inside, outdoors), when they think the look good/feel confident (in a gallery, out clubbing, on a farm, in a mirror), and what their hobbies/work consists of from just a few frames. I much prefer this to reading a massive block of text, then trying to regurgitate it in the form of a joke on a more traditional dating site.

My main gripe with Tinder is that sometimes people are more aware of this than others, so I may get a false-positive match that appears great. But they are really just curating a very specific slice of their life, instead of it being a more representative sampling across it. Although, even this becomes pretty easy to identify once you've become familiar with the common memes (e.g. picture petting a tiger)

I met my girlfriend on Tinder. We've been dating for 6 months now, and barring any future disaster in the next 5-10 years, will probably get married eventually. And I say this as someone who has dated many, many women, many of which were through Tinder.

Just because someone is on Tinder doesn't automatically make them a "silicone beauty" with a vapid personality. People are people, and perhaps the problem is that you're immediately judgmental, especially when Tinder's "about me" section is what, 2 lines long? If you'd tried meeting someone in person, you may have been surprised.

Tried the meeting part, don't like to judge people based on few photos. There are some seriously nice and interesting girls that I met, via other ways, that don't have a single WOW photo. But as other poster suggested, our location plays its role too.

For me, the problem with Tinder was the ease of saying "next!" as soon as you found the slightest flaw in your date. "Oh, she talked too much/little" "She didn't share my exact political opinions" etc. It was too easy to jump right back on Tinder and find another date for the next day. I keep going back to that show Next on MTV where as soon as the person found one thing they didn't like they'd yell "NEXT!" and they got a new date. This cheapens the dating process so much because you are so much less malleable. Great app for having fun though.

I met my fiancé in a bar at a meetup for a dating network in 2011 while I was living in London - ironically we weren't members, but had both been dragged along by friends. Before that I had extensively tried OkCupid, I went on a fair few dates, but to be honest most of the people I met were weirdos... I also tried some of the early location based apps, but even in central London people were few and far between.

The problem with sites like OkCupid is people are desperately looking for someone who they have that deep connection with. As your profile gives out so much information, you really dig into the personality of a potential match to see whether they check all the boxes - and in almost all cases they won't. Rather than risking going on a date, they just skip past and wonder how many cats they should buy. If I came across my fiancé on a dating site, I would of no doubt thought "meh", but here we are nearly 4 years later living together in another continent.

I think Tinder has a lot more potential. Rather than chatting for weeks before meeting someone, you can be a lot more spontaneous by just matching then meeting up for a date. It's a lot more akin to hitting it off with someone out of the blue, than with a dating site where you feel like you know half there is to know about the person before you even meet. I'd much rather meet someone on a Tinder-like service than a dating site.

As I understand Tinder is still very casual sex focussed, but as it gets more popular I hope it will turn into a more PG-friendly community. Most people are very materialistic and just want to be with someone who is attractive. This is what Tinder focuses on, so maybe it isn't necessarily the app for this.

"Rather than chatting for weeks before meeting someone, you can be a lot more spontaneous by just matching then meeting up for a date."

I think you hit the nail on the head here. This is exactly why Tinder is so popular, IMO. (Almost) No one wants to waste time chatting online. And everyone (no almost here) considers beauty first and foremost when looking for a mate. It's just truly a shame that this is the only reputation the app has and it seems to be this way because people associate it with "shallowness" while they stand on a high ground doing exactly what everyone else is doing: looking at pictures and judging them on beauty. Regardless of the site (or off-site IRL), that's what happens. Let's face it, no one is spending time on okcupid or match deeply analyzing other profiles' text. The only people it matters to are the people creating the profile who think it actually matters (it doesn't). I would bet money that if the text part of profiles on a traditional dating site were put a mere extra click away, while the photos stayed on the main page, the visit rate would be abysmal.

The genius of Tinder has been to recognize this and remove the unnecessary garbage content. Really, in dating, before you've met anyone, all text is garbage, including the paltry meager pleasantries exchanged on the way to actually setting up a real date in person. The actual in person date is the only thing that matters and Tinder has realized that and done away with the rest. If it wasn't for the perception that it's only about hooking up, I'd say this is really the perfect dating app.

>(or, more blatantly who wants to seriously date slutty used opposite sex).

This might be part of the problem. You were on an app with a reputation for hookups, yet you're slut-shaming those using it.

It's fine to only want relationships, but you could do so without claiming that people who aren't shy about enjoying sex are scum.

I enjoy sex too! Just preferring quality over quantity, that's all :) Plus hookup attitude does bring variable, usually low quantity and quality, among other potential issues.

But it's true Tinder app didn't work for me, and I am very happy for those that wrote success stories here. I would have different attitude towards it if I was say 17 again. Glad I am not :)

"But it cannot be done from couch, can it :)"

Or from work.

For some people, between work and other responsibilities there isn't much time to meet women in bars. Colleague of mine has pretty much no time left after work and school, he met his girlfriend through Tinder.

A friend of mine is a boatsman who's 3 months on, 3 months off. Finding a girl, dating and building a relationship is hard in 3 months. He used Tinder to find dates for when he came back home. He's now in a relationship with one of them.

those are some good examples and make sense, thanx!

Guy with a bunch of experience (~1yr) on OKCupid here.

It seems that dating apps / websites (much like real life from what I can tell) are more or less down to sheer luck. I've met a couple of amazing girls through there but, again, sheer luck and all, circumstance made further dates impossible.

A friend of mine was on OKC for about 4 years and it finally paid off - he met an absolutely brilliant girl there, and I'm really happy for him.

At the very least, online dating is good to take you out of your standard dating pool, and makes for some really good war stories to share with others who are doing it.

Were you trying to sound like an asshole, or is that just who you are?

why, because i don't desperately sleep with all the girls that I meet in my life, just because they show interest? if not obvious from what I wrote, that's EXACTLY kind of thing I am not looking for, and for me, and few friends it's exactly the kind of thing Tinder offers. All the guys and girls I know that behave like this, there are some deep(er) issues in their past, usually broken families, mostly missing/abusive father figure. I tried to fix one girl like that that I deeply loved, and she did almost break me. Almost :)

> why, because i don't desperately sleep with all the girls that I meet in my life, just because they show interest?

No, because you describe people you don't know jack about just like that.

I met my current girlfriend on Tinder. We've been together a year as of the end of this month.

I had tried OkCupid as well and had no luck, though I'm not sure that was the fault of the site.

I'm pretty sure Tinder and OkCupid and the like have just slightly different results statistically as any other form of dating.

Because of the efficiency and availability there is a chance of more misses and people not taking it as seriously, but overall I think it would be foolish to say real relationships cannot be developed by these sites.

Best of luck to you both.

all the good luck to you & your relationship ;)

Geneva, from the little I know about it, lies inside its own very exceptional bubble of wealth and privilege. I would guess that such an atmosphere tends to attract a specific kind of women, your experience does not surprise me a lot. I wonder what you mean by the 'French mentality towards relationships' though...

Probably right on spot, this place attracts specific type of people, at least for many job positions.

As for French attitude, this is very subjective and local, so YMMV. Attitude of girls I met (not only dating, just friends) is that more you sleep around, the better. One girl for example was proudly saying that she did sleep with less than 20 guys, and how cool is that and I am so lucky! Or my current GF got uniform advices from her french colleagues when she broke off her last relationship, that she should sleep around for a while "to heal". Stories like these all over the place, consistent.

These are not some trashy girls I met randomly on some beerfest or in stinking old bar, but women holding significant positions in multinational corps. This is of course not a general talk about all french girls, just a little sample I had an honor to meet in Geneva & around. And it doesn't apply to swiss french, they're different species altogether :)

The swiss are no different really, they're just more likely to base their decision on your net worth.

I think your experience is not specific to tinder, but online dating in general. I had to go through a whole bunch of uninteresting before I found a few interesting people.

Your comment reminded me of this: http://youtu.be/9dlypec4dP4?t=40s