7 Couples Share Their Story Of Finding True Love On A Hook-Up App
By Daniel Hayes
1. “My girlfriend laughs at me cause of this story. When I first got on Tinder I was coming off a very dry, Sahara-like spell of no dates and no sex. So, I signed up for Tinder expecting to break that cold streak…repeatedly. Instead, she was the first person I met and we fell in love and I never used the app again.”
—Marcus, 24
2. “I’d been on about a half dozen Tinder dates since I downloaded the app and hadn’t really felt a connection with any of them. The last one I went on we agreed to meet in a cafe and then I got stood up. While I was finishing my coffee a delicious looking guy asked if he could sit with me since all the other seats were taken. We ended up talking for over an hour and he gave me his number because he said he didn’t want to seem like a creeper. I called him that weekend and we went out. We’ve been dating eight months and are talking about moving in together.
Thanks, Tinder, without you I never would have been at the right place at the right time.”
—Jamie, 22
3. “When I first got on Tinder I kind of went with the flow of what I was told I should expect. Ended up hooking up with three guys within the first four months being on the site which was kind of exhilarating but the sex was way worse than it had been with any of my previous boyfriends and, of course, I got no callbacks because Tinder.
Anyway, talking with my girlfriends I started to realize this was a pretty common experience so I decided to quit hooking up on Tinder since the sex sucked. I wasn’t even necessarily looking for an LTR but as soon as I quit hooking up I met Kevin who was cool with going out for drinks and not getting laid after. We went on four or five dates before it dawned on me just how much I liked this guy. We’ve been dating two years now and it’s been the best of my life.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is that you get out of Tinder whatever you ask of it.”
—Kelly, 26
4. “Tinder gets a bad rap, I think, because it’s the first dating site that allows people to ‘shop’ for potential dates. I don’t think it’s bad but it is new and different but the notion that everyone’s just getting laid all the time on it is silly. Some are, sure, I did a few times but that stuff gets old for everybody once the novelty of it wears off.
I met my current boyfriend on the site and he feels pretty much the same way. During our third date he asked me if I wanted to try being exclusive and inside I was literally thinking ‘Oh, thank God I can finally stop going on dates!’ and I know he felt the same.”
—Sabrina, 23
5. “Pretty much every Tinder date I went on until I met my fiance was at a coffee shop or a bar, some low effort deal. My first date with Brad was for a real dinner at real restaurant he’d read about and wanted to go to with someone. He held doors, smelled nice, and had ironed his shirt. That effort made me want to get to know him immediately.
Tinder can be a wasteland but it also lets you separate the people who just want effortless sex from the guys who want to get to know a woman too. As for my fiance, he’s the most romantic guy I know.”
—Ricki, 22
6. “I think of Tinder as a kind of empathy test in a way. It definitely tests your tolerance for two things, easy sex and continual loneliness. I started on Tinder in 2013 and as a young dude at 23 was pretty eager to get laid as often and as well as possible. That was just the reality of it for me but as time went on I started to realize that a lot of the women I was sleeping with were definitely unhappy and then the sex started to seem unhappy and then I realized I was being an asshole by sleeping with unhappy women and that I was lonely too.
I’m not saying casual sex makes people unhappy but I also couldn’t ignore what I was coming across and couldn’t really deny that I actually was really lonely. So, I switched up my game on Tinder and went out on a series of really pretty good dates. Finally met my current girlfriend on about the fifth good match and we’re very happy together and I feel I learned a lot about myself and other people that I might not have learned otherwise.”
—Nick, 25
7. “Over the course of a year, we matched three different times, texting a bit the first time, totally saying nothing the second time, and the third, I finally said, ‘How the hell do we keep matching again?’ He’d delete his profile off and on, so every time it was fully reactivated, it erased previous matches and we’d end up seeing each other’s profiles all over again. He still claims I stopped texting him the first time; I claim the reverse. But we jokingly agreed Tinder was just going to keep sending us reminders of each other so best to finally meet up. And we’ve been inseparable since.”
—Anna, 24