Falling for someone through a screen: the unhealthy side of dating on Tinder
Suddenly, I was aware of birds chirping outside my window, which I would usually hear when having to get up far too early for work. The blue light from my phone was reflecting onto my face, as I was smiling like an idiot under my duvet. I realised I’d been texting a guy I’d matched with from Tinder until five in the morning. A guy who I’d never actually met before.
I downloaded Tinder back when I was 17, purely out of boredom, and in all honesty, at that point in my life, validation from random strangers seemed appealing. It all started off as a bit of a joke, and a way to fuel my teenage yearning for male attention; until it wasn’t.
17 year old me (Image via Kiera Neal)
As much as I’d love to be romantic and meet someone genuinely, the reality is that Tinder has been around for over ten years now (starting in September 2012) and according to a study done by ‘The Knot’, in 2019 over 22% of couples met online
I matched with this one guy after a few weeks, and it quickly went from nothing to texting every day. He ended up being the first person I’d speak to in the morning and the last person I’d speak to at night.
Image via Kiera Neal
Before long, three months went past, of this happy, easy, limbo stage where we’d talk back and forth over messages, but that was it.
The longer that it went by that we were just messaging, the more the idea of meeting him made me feel sick from fear. It’s like the more we talked, the more I liked him, but then this pressure built up for me to match this ‘perfect’ version of myself I’d created online.
Eventually, it got to a point where we knew we had to bite the bullet and meet each other; but instead of this romantic dream like date I envisioned in my head, it was more of an awkward, ‘oh God this isn’t what I’d imagined’ kick back to reality.
Quite swiftly after our first date, the daily texts and boost of serotonin I’d get from seeing his name on my phone, disappeared. We learnt that in real life we were completely incompatible, and it felt like I’d wasted three months of my life. But in all honesty, when you’ve created a perfect image in your head of someone for so long, this is only ever going to lead to disappointment.
Image via Kiera Neal
I’d be a hypocrite if I told anyone to never download Tinder, because in the modern world, for better or for worse, it is a great way to meet new people. But the biggest thing I learnt from dating apps, is that as much as you think you know someone from their online presence, you really don’t know them at all.
My advice: if you think you really like someone you meet online, as hard as it is, please remember that they are only words on a screen until you actually meet them. Also- definitely don’t stay up until 5 in the morning thinking you’ve met your future husband.