A sexy tool for cougars bedding boys half their age or somethings looking for Mr Right, this one-swipe dating app is changing forever the way we date, mate and control our fate.
At least, I certainly hope she's not. Hate to break it to her, but the odds aren't looking good. About 1. Worldwide the figure is closer to 1. And Perth is every bit as smitten. The reason for my friend's trepidation is this: the app seems to function as a glorified 'hot or not' game. It goes like this: you choose a few photos, filter age, gender and location, then swipe left no or right yes on a succession of suitors.
If someone you like swipes right on you too, you get a — ping! It gives no space for lengthy descriptors, detailed filters or complicated algorithms, but it is enjoying almost ludicrous popularity, advancing online dating from the periphery, where it's lingered for some time, to the very centre of the action.
But is it just an app for hooking up? If so, why are women taking to it in droves? What does it say about us that we're so fond of its shallow medium? I hit the streets of Perth to find out. They don't know where they're going, or if one is going to ask the other back to their house, or what the fuck is going to happen when they leave the venue.
Squirm, bitches! Despite her newly single status, she's not on Tinder. Plus, I don't want to see my ex on it," she explains. Like she says, it's more puzzling for singles of a certain age not to be on the app. And it's not just the allegorical drunken frat guys, on there, I find out. Women — the less shallow sex who should baulk at Tinder's unabashedly pixel-deep screening process; who are supposed to be looking for lasting love, not sexy hook-ups — make up 45 per cent of Tinder's users.
