Tinder - your thoughts/experiences?

miss_independent

I'm 30, single and looking for the kind of Love that will eventually lead to marriage and kids. I struggle to meet straight, single men who are looking for a real commitment. Actually, I struggle to meet men full stop. I've just wasted 8 months of my time on a man who I fell in love with but who is terrified of settling down. Apart from that I've been focused on career for most of my 20's and not really looking for anyone. My friends and colleagues are all now encouraging me to join Tinder.

I have doubts but I also feel I don't have many options regards meeting new men. I am not interested in casual sex and I was under the impression that Tinder was more of a hookup thing. I am, by my own admission, a "nice" girl. Church going, fairly reserved, works with children type. Don't get me wrong, I also have a passionate, adventurous side, I'm just not all that streetwise lol.

Is Tinder safe? Have you any success stories? I'm running out of valid excuses not to try it.

ifstar

Pretty sure it's just used as a hookup site. You'd be better off with OKCupid or POF. There will be folk on them just interested on hooking up and you'll get some weird messages from strange people but you can just delete them and you'll get some genuine messages.

Orlando_Virgin

I'm 30 now and not single, but was in a very similar situation to yourself last year. I gave Tinder a try and to be honest I didn't like it. I think it's more an ego trip for most people to see how many matches they can get to boost their own confidence. I think it's rare that people meet.

I tried POF as well for a short while, and met someone off there, the less said about that the better!! haha!! My friends who have found some success, one is actually married with a child now, is match.com. As people pay and are much more serious about meeting each other, better compatibility checks etc.

In the end though, it was when I packed all that in and just said "what will be, will be" when I actually met my OH, weird how stuff like that happens.

bluebeary

tinder does get a bad name but as long as you upload photos of yourself that aren't too risqu! you shouldn't have any trouble, I had a date with a guy from tinder and he was utterly charming, lovely fellow, no dirty conversations and we met and went for a coffee and ice skating


its a bit hit and miss though, out of all the dating sites I would recommend plenty of fish which gives you the best matches in your area, ive already got three, possibly four, dates lined up for the coming weeks

SanguineSteve

I'm put off Tinder due to it's rep. I live in a pretty small town, so chances are i'd know some of the lasses it matches me with. I don't want people thinking i'm a dirty stop-out and I don't particularly want to know if they are too....

Also not that comfortable with how it wants to link with facebook etc.

fivetide

The issue I have with Tinder is it is shallow. No bio etc, it is purely based on looks. Not sure I agree with the premise.


POF in trouble for fake profiles yesterday so as always with these things, caution and commonsense needed. Amazed you aren't meeting people though. Sounds like you have an active social life etc.


Good luck!

fairy_lights

I don't think Tinder is for you to be honest, and I would avoid Plenty of Fish as well.
You're more likely to meet someone genuine who's not just looking for casual sex on one of the paid sites like match.com.
You say you're a church goer - I've got a feeling there is a specialist dating website for Christians, can't remember what it's called but I'm sure I've heard of one.

purpleshoes_2

Ive heard that theres very litttle difference between the people you wouldn't want to meet on POF and on match.

Id suggest joining a site like meet up and getting out and about meeting people with no pressure, there are some social meet up groups for single people, I run one in my area and we've had a few people meet who are now partners.

LTL

OP I'd say go for it, but go on other sites also. I guess it may depend on where you live though? (when I lived in my old town all I did was see people I knew!)

ifstar wrote: »

Pretty sure it's just used as a hookup site. You'd be better off with OKCupid or POF. There will be folk on them just interested on hooking up and you'll get some weird messages from strange people but you can just delete them and you'll get some genuine messages.

I can see where you are coming from...

Originally I went on there as I was new to London and wanted to meet with no expectations or commitment levels (I had no idea how long I'd be here for and other sites I have tried people wanted to talk about a long term relationship or not bother at all!) however the third person I met we ended up dating for a few months. I'm 26 and am back on there now as well as POF... I wouldn't use it on its own.

miss_independent

Thanks all!

I would much rather meet someone the conventional way and whilst I do have a very active social life, it all tends to revolve around the arts where the only straight guys who aren't into bed hopping/FWB's are snapped up extremely quickly and tend to stay in LTR's for years or church, where there are next to no men. I am kicking myself because the week things started to develop romantically between me and the guy who broke my heart, a man from church asked me out and needless to say I picked the other guy and the man from church never came back and that was a good 10 months ago.

The town where I live at the moment (in Lancashire) is not so small that I'd know all the men on Tinder but not that big either. There is only one MeetUp group that I can find. I do tend to travel across the North, to Manchester and Liverpool as part of my career though so I might try branching out a bit.

I might swallow my pride and try online dating. I'm just writing my MA Dissertation at the moment but after I hand that in (in a fortnight!) I definitely want to focus on my love life a bit more. It's getting me down more than it has in the past. I know everyone says it will happen when you least expect it but I can't say I've been looking for years so I'm not sure that statement is true, and I'm sick of hearing it lol. I just don't want to be left on the shelf for the rest of my life. I want some romance for a change!

supermassive

I've been in a relationship for a few years that started on Grindr, the gay equivalent and predecessor to Tinder.

You can't pigeon hole the people because of the app they use. Some even just want to talk about nonsense.