We all have those coupled off friends with their ‘date nights’, jointly-owned pets, and jointly-rented/[owned] homes. I have homies, and no jointly-rented home. Don’t get me wrong. Chilling with your homies is all good until your homie goes home and you’re left thinking ‘How the fuck did I end up like this?’, whilst watching Kardashian repeats from Kim’s first marriage and eating leftover doner kebab from last weekend. Seriously, leftover doner meat? Sort it out (I have definitely done this).

The quest for companionship is real. Online dating. Plenty of Fish? More like plenty of whales, weirdos, and sex pests. Facebook inboxes from those international gentlemen who put babies as their profile pictures, proposing to you, talking about how your ‘eyess sparkle like star’. Drop. Me. Out. And now there’s Instagram inboxing for all the self-proclaimed selfie queens and the juice heads to join forces. However, friends, the topic here is Tinder. 

The mastermind behind Grinder, and in turn Tinder, is a fucking genius. You walk into a bar, a coffee shop, a shopping centre, and you’re scanning your surroundings. Like a  radar. Looking for that hot spice that’ll keep you warm at night, and you’re not thinking vindaloo. So they created an ‘App’ for that, because yeah, we’re even getting too lazy to actually seek out people on our own, and use actual words rather than emojis.

So for anyone who doesn’t know about Tinder (and you’re probably in a relationship), in a nutshell, it’s an App that lets you set out your age requirements for a girl/guy of your choice, within X number of miles of your current location. You sign in using Facebook (so if you haven’t got an account, you’re out), and then all your potential suitors are presented to you. Like some new-age Jane Austen shit. Here’s the fun bit. Based purely on that guy/girl’s face, how many interests you have in common, and how many mutual friends you have on Facebook, you get to either say ‘Yeah, I’d hit that’, or ‘Jog on, preferably in the direction of the nearest landfill site’. If you wouldn’t mind a piece of that, and that sentiment is echoed by the other person, you’re a match. And then BAM. You can send a message and start planning the wedding of your dreams, or more than likely, an encounter in the nearest public bathroom. 

Technology brings troubles though. And Tinder troubles are real:

When your ex tells you they want to break up to be on their own, they don’t want to date, they want to discover themselves. And then there they are on Tinder. Discovering themselves with people who aren’t you. Or even worse, your boyfriend/girlfriend is on there, but oh wait a second, SO ARE YOU. PEAK.

When their crazy eyes didn’t show up in the photos, but the minute they send you a message, you realise they are THIRSTY. Like, next level thirst. Like 10 consecutive messages thirst. PEAK x 2.

When they obviously created a fake Facebook account to lure in mildly attractive people, but they make Wayne Rooney look like David Beckham. And now you’re sat across the table from them. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. Tinder torture.

When your friend who you know is into you made the point of telling you they found you on Tinder and pressed the heart. And you know that if you press the big red cross, they’re going to be all wounded and shit. There’s no way out. Or there is, but you risk having THAT awkward conversation. 

There are so many trolls on Tinder, that you get a bit swipe happy. And then you accidentally cross off that guy/girl who was going to be the peaches to your cream. And now they’re gone. Into Tinder oblivion. And your one shot at happiness has gone with it. 

The problem with Tinder is that you forget that the people whose faces you ‘X’ off your list are actually people with real faces. I actually referred to it as a ‘fun game’ when one of my medic friends introduced it to me. In honesty, it is a game. Another league in the dating game. When you press that cross, all you’re really doing is simulating what happens in every day life in a less brutal fashion.