10 Reasons I Hate Tinder
Online dating can and will bruise your ego but Tinder is especially good at it. There are several reasons I hate Tinder and chief among them is women typically put little effort into their profile, there’s no way to filter what you're looking for and “swipes” are a conversation starter instead of messages.
Tinder is frustrating yet I can’t stop using it. There is plenty of good and bad with Tinder but today let's focus on the bad; here are 10 reasons I hate Tinder.
1. Swiping is your conversation starter.
Sites like OkCupid or Match allow you to email women to start conversations. You can show confidence and humor in a message to pique her interest. You can ask open-ended questions about her hobbies and show you have things in common. Basically, you can begin a dialog to establish a connection. I covered how to start a conversation with women in my blog post 3 Good Conversation Starters for Online Dating Messages To Women.
However, with Tinder, it’s all about your photo. You can’t craft an opening message and have to rely on your photos. It can be crushing to your ego to get rejected constantly just because of photos.
Photos are critical for success on every dating site but you can do so much better if you have a well-written bio that speaks to women and good opening messages which all tie together. You don’t get this on Tinder.
2. Women put little effort into their bio.
Another reason I hate Tinder is women put little to no information about themselves on their Tinder profiles. I live in San Diego and the majority of women have profiles like this which shows nothing about them:
Profiles like this make it hard to start a conversation. I know nothing about the woman; her passions and interests. I use things women share about themselves to start conversations but it's much harder when women share nothing on their profile.
Maybe women think men don't read their profiles and choose to put little effort into it. Whatever the case, Tinder is based on photos which makes it tougher to find what you’re looking for beyond looks (more on that in a bit).
3. The hidden costs of Tinder.
Let me get this straight. Tinder is free but I paid $29.99 for Tinder Plus in order to meet more women and I still don’t get full use of your site? What am talking about? Boosts.
According to Tinder's website, Tinder Boosts make your profile top in your area for 30 minutes giving you 10X more profile views. Why do I have to pay more money to get more women to look at me? What kind of nonsense is this?
Here’s the thing. I did the “free monthly boost” and got more "likes" but I did just fine without the boosts. You don’t need boosts. If you aren’t seeing results when not using them, all you'll be doing by using “boosts” is spending more money to get exposed to more women who will still ignore you. Don't be fooled by this feature.
I hate Tinder because I already paid to use their site but they charge more for a service that should be included in the base price. Don’t charge me more with your lame “extras” that supposedly help me meet more women; that’s what I joined your dating site for.
4. There's no filtering mechanism on Tinder.
The only filter you have to see women on Tinder is this:
Now, if you want to look at every woman aged 30-40 in 45 miles then have fun swiping but what if you have specific criteria you look for in women? What if you don’t want to date women with children? What if you want to date a woman who meets these criteria?
- Athletic body type.
- College educated.
- Hispanic.
- Lives within 20 miles of you.
The only thing you can filter on Tinder is the distance. Other than that, it’s up to you to find what you’re looking for by swiping and asking questions.
5. You waste time searching for what you want.
Without access to a filtering mechanism, you have to spend time weeding out what you don’t want. For example, want kids? Well, there’s no setting on a woman’s Tinder profile which shows you she wants children and the majority of women aren’t going to write “I want kids” on their profile.
Maybe you’re open to dating a woman with kids who might want kids in the future. Guess what? You’re still out of luck. These women aren’t going to write “I may want more kids in the future.”
What this means is you have to put time and energy into conversations with women to see if they want kids in the future. I’m all for cutting to the chase but you’ll get nowhere if your first message is “Hi, I’m Chris. Do you want to have kids?” She’ll immediately hit “Unmatch” if you ask her that.
There are countless things you could have to spend time and energy searching for when all they need is a filtering tool:
- religion
- smoker vs. non-smoker
- has kids
- wants kids
- ethnicity
- education level
I hate Tinder because you're choosing women based on their physical appearance while other details you have to figure out for yourself. These are things other sites will show on a dating profile that Tinder simply doesn’t.
6. Women are jaded because of douchey men.
When I scan women’s profiles the majority have a statement saying they aren’t here for “hookups” like this:
Tinder is evolving from a hookup site to a more mainstream dating site. Or at least they’re trying to. However, when women have this on their profile it shows they think most of us guys are only looking to hookup….which we are. Kidding!
Women write things like this because they get messages from men who bombard them for hookups and casual sex. This hurts your ability to meet women. If the women you're interested in have a mindset that all men on Tinder are looking for hookups you're already at a disadvantage because now it's up to you to prove you're different.
You're looking for something serious but she may think you're only trying to hookup. This isn't the case for all women but many are so jaded by guys who are looking for something casual, it impacts your ability to meet someone for a real relationship.
7. Tinder is addicting. Boy, it’s addicting.
As much as I’m ranting about Tinder I can say one thing…it’s fun! It’s almost too much fun. It feels like a game where I can be in line at the grocery store waiting to purchase my stuff while swiping left or right. I can swipe women while getting my car washed, waiting for a movie to start or basically doing anything anywhere anytime.
You can even be on a date and when she excuses herself to the bathroom you can jump on Tinder and start swiping. Don’t do that by the way. Have the decency to do it when you go the bathroom for crying out loud.
I hate Tinder because it's addicting since you can start a conversation with a beautiful woman and then all of a sudden you have the ability to see what else is out there quickly. It takes seconds to swipe right to signal interest and see if she swipes right in response to see if you match up.
8. Super Likes are meaningless.
WTF is a Super Like? Seriously. This is the dumbest idea. Swiping right, or “liking her, on Tinder shows a woman I’m interested but what genius came up with an idea to show her I’m dead serious where I can “Super Like” her.
Tinder defines their Super Like feature as a way to show women they stand out from everyone else. Do they think women will be glad I took the time to swipe “up and right” instead of just swiping “right?”
Even worse, they charge you to use their Super Like:
One word…ludicrous.
9. Rejection hurts more on Tinder.
As a veteran of online dating, I’m used to getting rejected. It happens. I just brush it off and focus on women who are interested in meeting. Most men don’t see it that way and I get it. It hurts when you match up with hundreds of women and get little to no matches.
The problem with Tinder is you can swipe right on 100 women in minutes. That’s right, minutes. And every single one can choose to ignore you. Talk about an ego killer.
Let’s analyze why it hurts more to be rejected on Tinder over other dating sites like OkCupid, Zoosk or Match.
Contacting 100 women on Match.com, for example, will take much longer because you have to look at each woman’s profile, scan through her photos, and hopefully, read her bio to find good conversation starters. Finally, you take the time to write a message and hit send and await her response. The process to start a conversation with one woman takes time.
In the time it took you to craft a message on a traditional dating site you could literally swipe 30, 40, even 50 women on Tinder. Putting in the time to craft an unanswered message to a woman on other dating sites don’t sting as much as 100 women rejecting you in one quick swipe-right-a-thon.
10. The app isn't synced well with the website.
I use both the app and the website. There have been countless times when I swipe right and left on women on the Tinder app then log into the website and see them again as potential “likes”. There’s clearly a delay in their ability to sync up my choices.
Also, I may get a message to my email that pops up on my phone telling me new women like me so I log onto the app and don't see these new matches. Later in the day, I will. It’s not synced up. Talk about false hopes!
Lastly, I may have a conversation with a woman on my computer then check the app later and the message from her shows as unread which isn't the case because I read the message on my computer earlier in the day.
Now, these issues may seem like I’m nitpicking but they are annoying and besides, I only had 9 things on my list and needed another to round out an even 10 for why I hate Tinder.