When I first met Julian on Tinder, I was freshly out of a four-year relationship and wasn't looking for something long-term. We went on three dates within one week before I left for a month of traveling abroad. I didn't think I'd see him again. I understood that it is hard to keep someone interested while away for so long.
But during my trip, we FaceTimed and texted nearly every day. We made plans to go ice-skating the day I got back to San Francisco. So I deleted Tinder and said sayonara to the rest of the matches in my inbox. I figured I could give this guy a shot.
Tinder has gained a reputation since its launch in 2012 as the dating app designed for quick hook-ups and a simple way to meet people with one swipe. But according to researchers in 2018, casual sex ranked No. 11 out of 13 when it came to people's motivations for using Tinder. Love ranked significantly higher in the No. 4 spot. Women on Tinder are more likely to look for a match than men.
When people began online dating in the 1990s, the pop culture consensus was that it was for the "desperate" and the "socially inept" — I mean who would possibly turn to the internet for refuge from the typical saw-you-from-across-the-room dating scene? And the opinion of online dating largely stayed that way until movies like "You've Got Mail" gained popularity.
Today, you can't escape movies, TV shows, podcasts, and books about online dating. It's ever prevalent. And the more dating apps become crucial components of the romantic lives of the characters we love on-screen, the less we as a culture think of them as a prescription for the romantically challenged. For instance, one in 10 Americans are signed up with an online dating service. We all can't be "desperate," right?
To drive the point home further, a Stanford study published this year found that nearly 40% of heterosexual couples in the US first met online. And for those who identify as LGBTQ, the percentage is higher.