Award-Winning Online Dating Essay Sample

Online Dating Essay Examples: Tinder - the Romance Killer

by Caroline Nguyen

I was in the middle of an intense study session, with classic Mozart gracefully weaving through my earphones and me furiously typing away at a 5-page research essay. I was in my groove, that was until my Christmas ringtone started blaring at full volume in the intense silence. Feeling the angry stares from the stress-stricken students near me, I quickly emptied my entire backpack looking for that devil device. By the time I found it, Mariah Carey was already belting out the chorus. My asthma was threatening to attack my lungs when I huffed out a quick hello into my phone. I was expecting a warm hello from my concerned mother or the robotic voice of scam callers since no one ever calls me. Instead, I was on the receiving end of a demonic combination of wails and screams. “Caroline, please come over right now!”

At this moment, I did not care that it was finals season or that I had disturbed the mood of the entire floor, all I could think was that my friend needed help – probably medical attention by the agonistic wailing. I ran back to her dorm at the speed of lightning, imagining all the worst-case scenarios. She was a lovely Southern girl from a small town in Alabama, never seen a city in her life. And here she was smack dab in the liveliest of them all – Houston, Texas. I thought that the heavy pollution might have overtaken her weak countryside lungs. Or that a wave of cockroaches consumed her frail body. Or that her pale body crisped underneath the intense Texas sun.

I busted into her dorm, huffing and puffing like a madman with my binder lifted viciously above my head, ready to beat the living daylights out of the cockroaches that dared to cross into my friend’s territory. What I saw was a sight that was truly more frightening than a family of cockroaches. What was originally my beautiful friend with her queenly poise was replaced with what I can only describe as a zombie. Her gorgeous brown hair was thrown into a bird’s nest to put it simply. Her streaky mascara was everywhere on her face but her eyes. There was a metal spoon permanently hanging from her mouth, I presume for easy access to the Cookies and Cream pint she was clinging onto. Her blanket was draped around her shoulders and had so many stains that I did not even want to try to guess. Strewn haphazardly across her bed with her head hanging off the edge and her sweatpants-clad legs lying against the wall, my friend took one look at me before returning to that lovely high-pitched wailing. Admittedly with some hesitation, I climbed into the tissue-covered bed with her and comforted her as she snorted out all the phlegm from her nose into my shoulder.

“He only wanted to make love to me!” Trying not to chuckle at her innocent choice of language, I motioned for her to continue her story but was only able to understand a good 25 percent of what she was trying to tell me. Apparently, she and this boy she had met on Tinder arranged to meet up after only a week of “heavy flirting.” At the local café, he bluntly stated that he thought she was “hot” and only wanted to have sex.

To summarize the two moods in the room, she was heartbroken, and I was disgusted by the raging hormones of an idiotic boy who missed out on an amazing woman. However, we were both truly appalled at how Tinder is really a convenient medium for hookups. Even though the app is advertised for dating, it is really no place for romance. She showed me the conversations they had, and it was just basic small talk -- no cheesy pickup lines or compliments or the “head over heels” love that we all secretly wish for.

I am sure there is a fair share of successful relationships that bloomed from the seeds of social media or similar dating apps, but I have seen this disastrous side of dating apps in too many of friends. Not to mention, it further solidifies this superficial perspective that society has on potential partners. The entire basis of Tinder relies on the few selfies you get to post with the short blurb of information regarding your school, hobbies, and age. That sounds more like a basic job interview to me than a place for soulmates to meet.

This whole notion of swiping right on people you want a connection with and swiping left on people you basically are not attracted to is all superficial. It can be likened to shopping online – you keep scrolling past the many consumer goods until you find the specific one that you like. This feeds into the materialistic idea that we should value physical impressions over emotional connections since the decision of whether we should swipe right comes from their appearances. In the long run, any relationship that is built off solely attraction will not work because physical appearances fade.

Not to mention, that the profile that we see may not even reflect the person behind the screen. Users can pick the best pictures of themselves – maybe even edit them to look even better. Unless your idea of romance is going on a date with a 65-year-old lonely man who posed as the 24-year-old female you were texting, this mysterious side of online dating is not at all romantic. They can easily lie about what hobbies they enjoy in hopes of increasing the probability of someone swiping right on them. This is all shallow because then users do not know if they are talking to a genuine person who is interested in breeding a relationship or just want a one-night stand. Where is the romance in that?

Another disadvantage of dating apps is how you cannot build that same strong connection that comes from face-to-face interactions. We all know the struggle of communicating emotions via text since emojis can only take you so far. You may have intended the message to have a different tone than what the other person interpreted. This creates confusion and misunderstanding that can quickly ruin any chance of a relationship.

The effect Tinder has had on hormonal teenage boys is appalling to me. One of my friends (now former) developed yellow fever from the app – which is a term used to describe an obsession with Asians because of how “exotic” they are. He was swiping left and right next to me, even asking me for my opinion on some of the girls if they looked “cute” enough. I am Asian. He was showing me only Asian girls. I threw his phone back at him, told him that was disgusting and then walked away. This can be tied back to my earlier point about how dating apps are like a shopping site, it was more convenient for him to “browse” for Asian girls. This racist mindset is pathetic and disgusting - there is no romance in the slightest. It is easier to online “shop” for attractiveness than personality traits since we can only judge appearances off pictures.

Online dating apps are far too problematic for them to create the everlasting bonds with your soulmate that they advertise. There is no guarantee that the person you are talking to is who they say they are or that they even see eye to eye on what you want in a relationship. Love is not superficial – it comes from forming that emotional bond with someone that is hard to obtain via phone screens. Kudos to the couples who were able to fight against all the obstacles. However, in the college student scene, dating apps are only a means for sex arrangements and not for serious relationships. Romance is dead in the online realm, specifically among us millennials.