Tinder Is Causing Women To Overestimate Themselves
I conducted a Tinder experiment to prove a point
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A few years ago, I decided to conduct a little experiment with Tinder. And the results I received changed my view of online dating forever.
I created an account on Tinder using a spare email address.
I chose my gender: female.
I chose her name: Sarah.
And I uploaded one photo: A view from my old workplace in Melbourne, Australia.
And that was it. I didn’t write a description. I didn’t write about her hobbies. Or her favourite bands. I put no effort whatsoever into her dating profile.
And these were the results:
I set up the profile, left it for one hour, only to find I had already received over 100 likes. I started swiping right, and got a match every single time.
Surprisingly, many of these men seemed to be normal, or even attractive. Some were doctors. Some were wearing business suits. Some of them looked like models. And I was matching with all of them.
The messages started rolling in: “Hello”, “Hi beautiful”, “Hey Mrs Mysterious”, “That’s a beautiful view”, “Hello Sarah, I was hoping we could get to know each other”, “Hey Sarah, enjoying your weekend?”, “Hey sexy”, “Pleasure to meet you Sarah, a bit shy are we?“
Honestly, I couldn’t believe that what I was seeing. I mean, for god sake. I hadn’t even uploaded a photo. And I hadn’t shared any information about myself whatsoever. All that seemed to matter was that I was a woman.
I thought that perhaps this phenomenon was unique to the UK, where I was conducting my experiment. So I decided to change my location. I re-tested the experiment in Mexico, Malaysia, Japan, Saudi Arabia and Greece. The results were exactly the same every single time.
It wasn’t a phenomenon unique to any particular culture. Instead, I concluded that it was just how male psychology interacts with online dating technology. No matter where in the world you go, male…
