How love can get out of line online

IN the sea of online dating it’s hard to know if I’m sinking or swimming.

So many apps, so many different profiles to craft and so much creativity demanded — it can border on exhausting.

There’s Tinder, Bumble, Plenty of Fish and Badoo, just to name a few. There’s happn too, an app using your phone’s location to match you with people in your vicinity.

But nothing ever happens on happn for me.

Tinder has paved the online dating way for me.

At the very least it has given me the opportunity to survey the cafe scene in Melbourne and Geelong while enjoying a laugh with the fairer sex.

Tinder works by presenting profiles which you either swipe left on to reject or swipe right to like, and you match with those who also swipe right on your profile. Then the chat begins.

But a worrying trend, for me at least, is sweeping Tinder. It’s the proliferation of what I call “sex bots”.

These profiles seem real. They look real. And for the first message they seem real. Then bam! The profile hits you with a link asking: “Come watch me on webcam?” I’ve had to develop the knack of weeding out these profiles, reporting them to Tinder as a service to other users. So when I’ve finally dodged the sex bots and get a match then comes the next challenge, diving into conversation. A basic “Hi” or “How’s your day going?” doesn’t cut it. So I’ve had to craft some witty opening lines, usually a play on the woman’s interests. But I’ve been partial to a corny opening too: If you were a fruit you’d be a fine-apple or Is your name Ariel? Because I

think we’re mermaid for each other.

It’s been a mixed bag on Tinder for me; there’s been dates and flings. But sometimes the conversation falls flat before any of that is possible. Other times I’m left waiting mid conversation.

I know a girl who kept her Tinder match waiting mid conversation for three months. The said pair is now dating.

In some ways social media has made us anti-social. I know I’m not the only one who has turned to my phone at times of social awkwardness.

So that begs the question, has online dating changed dating habits for the better?

Meeting women out and about serendipitously remains my favoured option.