A Tinder Breakdown for the Uninitiated

If you aren’t on Tinder, you’re friends with someone who is. And if you don’t know anything about the most brutally efficient dating app in the game, we’re here to help you out. So below you’ll find a simple breakdown of why the words ‘swipe left’ have suddenly entered the everyday lexicon.

Sign Up
Login through Facebook, ‘cause it seems everything these days is connected through Mark Zuckerberg. Select your pictures directly from your profile (up to six) and choose whether or not to say something about yourself. Your only other options are age and distance ranges. That’s right, this is all about GPS. Don’t worry though, despite being done through Facebook, all anyone will ever see is your first name, age,  and the photos you’ve selected for the app. No wall posts here.

Start Playing
We don’t use the term ‘play’ lightly – when you match with someone on Tinder the app will ask you whether you’d like to chat with that person or ‘keep playing’. A face will suddenly appear in front of you with both an X and a <3 below it. If you don’t like that face, body, hat, shirt, nose, eye, expression, weird stuffed animal, then simply hit the X and you’ll never see that person again. If you’re intrigued hit the heart and you’ll be given access to that person’s full profile. Don’t get your hopes up, however; a full profile simply means a few more pictures and the possibility of some lame quote that person seems to believe defines them or something (we’re still trying to figure that part out). There is some info that’s definitely worth acquiring though – the app will tell you if you have any shared Facebook friends and/or interests in common. Unsure of Jessica? No problem, she’s friends with Jane too, so just call Jane and get the d-low from her instead of actually having to bother getting to know Jessica.

Matching
Perhaps the best part about Tinder is that you can’t just talk to anyone. Unlike many dating websites, you won’t be inundated with ‘hey, baby’ every 10 seconds. You see, in order for you to have the ability to chat with someone, both parties must select the heart button. If you hit it and they don’t, you’ll never know (well, except by the fact that you’ll never match with them; but trust us, you’ll be way, way past him or her by then). Essentially, it means that if you have the chance to connect with someone they’ve at least seen your profile and thought ‘hey, that’s someone I’d like to talk to’. Right, talk to…

Location
Like we said, this is all about location, location, location. New city? No worries. Whatever distance you entered into your settings (1-100km) is what Tinder will find for you. Quite literally, this is a travelling app.

Swiping
So that X and heart we were talking about earlier, you don’t even need them. All you have to do is literally swipe left if you don’t like what you’re looking at, or swipe right if you do. It makes things, as we’ve said before, brutally efficient. You can simply send every picture away as quickly as you would look away in real life. 

Well, there’s your Tinder breakdown. That’s how you use it, that’s all you really need to know. Don’t worry though, there are lots of reasons you shouldn’t. But we’ll leave that till next time. Until then, keep Tindering away…

#LYNL | (Live Your Notable Life)

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