Love at the touch of a button? No, just tawdry desperation
It’s the controversial phone app increasingly used by the middle-aged to find dates. Our singleton signed up – and was appalled and saddened
Within seconds, I was inundated with messages ‘I have a high sex drive,’ he wrote. ‘Are you hot?’
AS A middle-aged mother-of-four, I frequently tell my children not to talk to strangers. But last week, sitting alone in a Central London wine bar in a carefully chosen dress, I found myself preparing to do exactly that.
I had arranged to meet a man called Tony on the mobile dating app, Tinder — and all I really knew about him was that he was 45, with blue eyes and dark hair.
Sipping a glass of wine, I wondered if I’d lost my mind. Since when do respectable women in their 40s use their mobile phones as a tool for meeting strange men?
But Tinder is a phenomenon that has attracted an astonishing 50 million users across the globe since its launch two years ago. Predominantly a hit with the young and single, it is now enjoying a surge in a new market: middle-aged women like me.
Recent research revealed the number of users in the 35 to 44 age group has doubled since April, and those between 45 and 54 (my bracket — I’m 47) now form three per cent of users.
Founded by two 27-year-olds from America, the way the app works is brilliantly — and terrifyingly — simple. It finds your location using GPS on your phone, then uses your Facebook information to create a profile of just your first name, age, photos of your choice and any pages you’ve ‘liked’.
It then matches you with other users in the vicinity, which you can further narrow by age and distance.
When another person’s profile takes your fancy, you simply swipe the phone screen to the right to ‘like’ them — or left to ‘pass’. If they also ‘like’ you and swipe right on your picture, you have a match and can exchange messages.
This, I have to say, is not the way I ever expected to meet potential li f e partners. For someone like me, who cut her dating teeth before the the internet existed and who has had to adapt to the digital age, it all seems rather sordid.
Tinder is notorious for facilitating casual sexual encounters, and I’m a woman of a certain vintage who would never consider a one-night stand. I like dates and courting; a gin and tonic in a local pub with someone I’ve met through friends, perhaps.
I’ve also got my children to think about, and the idea of complete strangers knowing my rough location, even if they don’t know my full name, seems dangerous.
I met my previous husband at work, where we got to know each other slowly, discovering a mutual interest in cooking and countryside life.
We enjoyed 13 years of cosy domesticity, and I was heartbroken when our relationship ended three years ago. It took me 18 months before I felt like dipping my toe in the water again, but now I’d very much like to meet someone.
I work as a freelance writer and live in a tiny village in Oxfordshire with my children. Most of my friends are married. So my romantic opportunities are limited.
My life is busy, but sometimes it can be crushingly lonely. So when a friend suggested Tinder, I swallowed my reservations and decided it was worth a go. Maybe this was the only way to meet men nowadays?
My male friend Chris, who’s a similar age to me, is on the site even though he is married. He doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with flirting online with strange women.
He says he’s never taken things further, but I bet his wife doesn’t know about his ‘hobby’. His advice? ‘Don’t take it too seriously.’
Within seconds of sitting down at my kitchen table, I’d created a profile just by linking up the app to my Facebook account. It showed that I was Lucy, age 47, with realistic photos and some of my interests, such as the charities I support, all taken from my Facebook page.
I set the range of men I’d like to meet as aged between 35 and 60, and within a 20-mile radius.
Then the Tinder flame icon twinkled, and within seconds a stream of men appeared. There were hundreds of photographs, and I was inundated with names, photos, ages and basic information.
It was utterly overwhelming. Like an all-you- can- eat buffet when you’re not even sure you’re hungry.
But it wasn’t long before I spotted a man I liked the look of. Darren was 47, bald, liked Bikram yoga and lived ten miles away.
In the right light, he looked hunky. I swiped Yes, but got no swipe back. Then there was Stan, who was 43 and was holding a huge fish. I swiped No.
On it went. Yes. No. Yes. No. Part of me disapproved; part of me found it exciting. The men I looked at would only find out I’d swiped ‘Yes’ if they also swiped ‘Yes’, so I was liberated by the fact no one would know whether I’d rated them, and how I’d rated them, unless they liked me too.
I didn’t like Don with his bulging muscles. I did like Sam with the glasses. I was unsure about Miguel, with his designer stubble. I liked Liam because he was outdoorsy and looked hearty.
Around 30 of the men I liked also liked me back, so I started exchanging messages with them through the app, rather like sending texts. The first match was Ed, who looked sweet, photographed in a garden and with a nice wide smile.
I messaged him and two seconds later he replied: ‘ Hi. How are you?’ Then we were off. He asked where I lived and what I did for a living. I asked him the same questions in return. It wasn’t riveting but it was a start.
But it was not just Ed who replied — I also had Bernie, John, Mike, Tobias. Match after match. As the week went on, I started typing ‘Hi’ to every match, and they started typing back. Within the space of just a few days, I had gone from having no single men on the horizon to having dozens at my fingertips.
I chatted to Alan, who loved yoga, and Stu, who liked walking by the sea. then there was John, who played the saxophone, and Sam from Surrey, and Bernie, who had three kids he didn’t live with. There were so many people that it felt like a deluge.
But it was addictive, too. I became used to pulling out my mobile to see what men were on Tinder. Waiting in the car to pick up my children, it felt odd, illicit even, to be engaging in such online encounters.
But my biggest concern was that these men were so nearby. One seemed to live almost next door, from his description of his neighbourhood. I didn’t recognise his picture or think I’d seen him around my village, but the possibility of getting involved with a near neighbour seemed extraordinarily risky.
Then one match, Mitch, who lived five miles away, asked what I was looking for on Tinder. I didn’t know what to say: my desire to meet a life partner seemed utterly at odds with this disposable format.
I told him that I wanted to meet people, have a few dates, to see what happened. I asked him the same, expecting a similar response.
Instead he replied: ‘I have a high sex drive. Are you hot?’
It was then the reality of Tinder hit me. I’d known that this was what
people used it for, but having got caught up sending friendly text messages, I’d forgotten. And, naively, perhaps, I thought some Tinder users my age might be looking for old-fashioned romance.
When I replied that I wasn’t after that sort of thing, Mitch asked to ‘unmatch’ — unlink our profiles so we could no longer message each other; which I did.
The Tinder transaction is astonishingly clinical. Forget meeting someone after choir practice for a drink. Forget getting to know people. In today’s frenetic world, who has time for that?
I realised that many of the other middle-aged women on Tinder must also be using the site for casual sex. And while I don’t judge them for that, the fact that men might have thought that was all I was after was horribly unappealing.
I surveyed my other matches. What did they really want? I sent a note asking them what they were looking for from Tinder.
The floodgates opened. Nice Bernie wanted to ‘cuddle and kiss!’ Tobias wanted to ‘ do more than talk’, and added a terrifying picture of a small yellow face with its tongue panting out. Ed suggested: ‘Let’s just the two of us get hot and heavy.’ Dai told me, in graphic detail, what he wanted — unrepeatable in a family newspaper.
I reeled in shock. I wasn’t prepared for this brash approach.
And after the initial messaging, most men melted away as soon as they heard I wasn’t into casual sex.
The many photographs in which men hid their faces under baseball caps took on a new complexion. It dawned on me that many users must be married or in long-term relationships. No wonder Tinder went quiet at the weekend.
I called my friend Chris, suddenly seeing his enthusiasm in a new light. ‘Is this why you’re on Tinder?’ I asked him accusingly. ‘For sex?’ ‘No,’ he said. ‘But for many people, that’s what Tinder is about.’
I started to despair, but Chris advised: ‘Hold on for a bit. You can still meet people who aren’t only about that.’
Looking at the men’s profiles, it did seem true that alongside the sordid side of Tinder was a surprisingly comic, pathetic side, too. Many had posted t he most s urprising pictures of themselves. Lots were beside motorbikes. An astonishing number used photos with ex-girlfriends; some even used wedding pictures.
But perhaps even more peculiarly, the men who didn’t seem to want sex, didn’t seem to want to meet at all. George wanted ‘a good kisser’ but then disappeared. Jules wanted to take me for champagne — then also disappeared. When I asked Mark if he’d met up with anyone, he replied that he didn’t believe anyone really met up at all.
I was left with the impression that while a large proportion were sexual predators, a minority were men who sat in their dressing gowns and never left the house.
Neither camp were a great draw for a busy woman looking for a committed relationship of equals.
Still, Tony — the man I made the effort to meet in the wine bar — didn’t appear to fall into either category. We had ‘chatted’ online for a couple of weeks and I thought we might actually hit it off.
We’d arranged to meet at 7pm, and I sat waiting, nervous and expectant, unable to believe that I was meeting someone from Tinder. My children had a babysitter and I’d made plans to meet friends nearby at 7.45pm, but it still felt transgressive, out of my normal frame of reference, even though I had no intention of doing anything other than have a quick drink.
By 7.15pm, no one who looked like Tony had appeared. I picked up my handbag, feeling deflated. I hadn’t hoped for much, but for him not even to turn up …
Then I heard a voice: ‘I am so sorry I’m late.’ It was Tony — or at least I thought it must be. He bore some resemblance to his photo, as he had dark hair and blue eyes, but he looked a lot older — more like mid-50s than mid-40s. I felt a surge of disappointment.
He sat down opposite me and ordered a glass of wine. We chatted politely. He told me a bit about himself; I told him a bit about myself. But inside I was screaming to get out of there. I felt no spark at all.
I finished my drink and stuttered ‘ Bye then’, before dashing off, feeling a huge sense of relief.
Five minutes later, a Tinder message pinged through — from Tony.
‘Hey hot stuff. Let’s do more than talk next time, know what I mean.’
Next time? More than talk? I couldn’t believe this man, with whom I’d f el t no connection whatsoever, thought I might take things further. It left me feeling soiled and foolish.
Increasing numbers of middleaged women might be turning to Tinder — but after two weeks on the app, I can’t help feeling it denotes a level of desperation that is far from attractive.
This might be the future of dating: but it’s not one that I want a part of.