This made Kim incredibly anxious.
“Unfortunately I don’t drink coffee,” she wrote. But then she wrote her real concern: “I actually don’t know that you’re not a serial killer.”
The guy responded quickly. “I’m not sure you’re not one either, but doesn’t that make it more exciting. I’m willing to take a risk if you are. What about hot chocolate?”
Seems like this wouldn’t be a huge deal. She’s on the dating site to meet people and date them. They’d be in a public place drinking hot chocolate. He wasn’t like, “How about we meet at that dumpster behind the Best Buy on Two Notch Road?”
But Kim was not having it. She ended it. “I don’t know. The more messages you get, the more of a good feeling you have for that person. You don’t want to go on a bad date. So if you have these messages going back and forth and you connect with each message, you like them more and the chances of it going well are higher.”
No doubt there are many women who share Kim’s perspective, and with all the creepy dudes out there who actually do harass women, I can’t really fault them. As Helen Fisher sees it, though, all these messages aren’t going to do much to assuage a person’s deep concerns. Ultimately, meeting in person is the only way to know whether something is going to work.
SWIPING:
TINDER AND BEYOND
One of the tough parts of writing a book like this is you have no clue how the landscape will change once you’re done, but as of this writing, nothing seems to be rising faster than mobile dating apps like Tinder.
Contrary to the labor-intensive user experience of traditional online dating, mobile dating apps generally operate on a much simpler and quicker scale. Right now, Tinder is by far the industry leader and has spawned imitators. For our purposes, we’ll use it as an example to describe the phenomenon in general.
Signing up for Tinder is almost instantaneous. You download the app and simply link in through your Facebook account. No questionnaires or algorithms. As soon as you sign in, Tinder uses your GPS location to find nearby users and starts showing you a seemingly endless supply of pictures of potential partners. After you glance at each photo, you swipe the picture to the right if you’re interested in the person or to the left if you’re not. You can explore the profiles more and see some very basic information, but generally the user experience involves seeing someone’s photo and swiping left or right pretty quickly depending on whether you are attracted to them. If you and another user are interested in each other, meaning you both swiped right on each other’s faces, then the app informs you that you’ve found a match and you can begin messaging each other in private within the app to arrange a date or hookup or whatever. As of October 2014, the app has more than fifty million users and the company is valued anywhere from $750 million to $1 billion.
? ? ?
Tinder was conceived in 2011 by Sean Rad and Justin Mateen, two University of Southern California undergrads who set out to create an online dating experience that didn’t feel like online dating. Modeling their interface on a deck of cards, Rad and Mateen wanted Tinder to seem like a game, one a user could play alone or with friends. It was low stakes and easy to use, and, if you played it well, you might hook up with someone in a matter of hours—the polar opposite of a tense, emotionally draining quest for a soul mate. “Nobody joins Tinder because they’re looking for something,” Rad told Time.13 “They join because they want to have fun.” And because his name is Sean Rad, he probably said that quote to Time and then tossed on a pair of cool shades, hopped on a skateboard, and blazed on outta there.
Like Facebook, Tinder’s birthplace was college. But while Facebook began its rollout in the Ivy League, Tinder aimed for famous party schools like USC and UCLA.
Quick side note: In numerous interviews Mateen is identified as someone with a background in party planning, which is a ridiculous résumé item.
“Are you fit for the position?”
“Yes, I have a strong background in party planning. I promise you, I can get this party started.”