I started reading them:
Do you have anything to do with “Sex and the City”?
Are you the Candace Bushnell?
What could I say? Yes.
Bing, I got back a reply:
You’re too good for this app.
This was heartening. These men didn’t know me, but they already had an idea about me. I was too good for this app. Yes. Yes, I was.
But this also made me nervous. If this app was so bad, why was everyone on it? And why were even the men who were on it saying it was bad? Shouldn’t the men be saying it was good in order to get more action on it?
Perhaps these men on Tinder weren’t terribly intelligent?
I got a very long message from a guy named Jude. It was all about how we had some Facebook friend Bobby in common and what a jerk the guy was and how he had a terrible hangover and it ended with something like: Trying to date on an app when people know who you are must sux.
Why yes, Jude, I thought. It potentially does sux. How considerate of you to consider my situation.
I wrote back to him: Which Bobby?
I looked at Jude’s picture again. The one that had attracted me featured a shaggy, dark-haired guy with a beard and round glasses and a humorous, intelligent smile, as if he were somehow in on the joke that he looked like a very cute version of Snoopy. I scrolled quickly through the rest of his photos, including one of him playing drums. I saw he lived in Brooklyn and was in a band and was therefore, I assumed, out of my league.
But what did I know?
Champagne Dreams
And so, on a Wednesday night in my apartment, Emma and I organized a girls’ roundup of Tinderellas—young women who were regularly on Tinder. The group, including Emma, ranged in age from twenty-two (the youngs) to thirty-three (the millennials).
Like most of the young women I meet, they were impressive. They were independent thinkers with a unique sense of style. Their careers were important to them and appeared to be a source of pleasure.
I poured champagne then passed around my phone. They immediately began analyzing the men who had matched with me.
“Oooh. Look at this guy. Emerson College. He’s cute,” cooed Hannah.
“I don’t think I should go out with a college student,” I said. “What about this guy who said I was too good for the app?”
A ruse, Elisa explained. “Guys always say you’re too pretty or too good for Tinder. It’s a line they use.”
And as for Jude?
Everyone rolled their eyes. Apparently, his messages were too long. “On Tinder, guys either don’t respond or they write you a novel.”
“But if they’re communicating, that’s good, right?” I asked.
Apparently not, because when they do communicate: “All they talk about is themselves.”
“Do you really think there’s a guy out there who doesn’t talk about himself or isn’t obsessed with himself?” I asked.
A resounding no.
Marion had a question: “How do we as women navigate men’s self-absorption? Or do we just have to accept it as fact and be happy if a guy pretends to pay attention to you for two seconds?”
Emma spoke up. She was the only one who not only had a relationship but was actually married. Emma explained it this way: “I feel like my husband is not at all self-absorbed, while I am. I only talk about myself and then sometimes I’ll ask him how his day was. So it balances out. You have to be just as self-absorbed because it’s every man for himself in a relationship. That way you can both care mostly about yourselves and then a little bit about the other person.”