I let my dad run my Tinder, and set up one for him

I don’t really like the idea of Tinder. Judging someone based on a couple of photos and their age seems a bad start to any relationship, and I definitely don’t fancy awkward dates with people you hardly know.

But recently, while enjoying a nice quiet dinner with my dad, he dropped the bombshell that one of his friends (who presumably, like him, is old) had met his girlfriend on Tinder. He then announced that he too would like a Tinder, and wanted me to set him one up – leaving me almost choking on my carrots with shock. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised he might be on to something. I think my dad is great, but his recent choices in women have been quite shite and unworthy of his wit and excellent dad jokes. Maybe if I picked for him I could find him a decent (and rich and generous) girlfriend?

And then a further idea struck – if I ran a Tinder for my dad, maybe he could run one for me, and use his male intuition to separate the weirdos from nice, normal boys. And if not, it could be a fun bonding activity for us both (or also not).

And so our experiment began: I sat with my dad while he told me who to swipe left and right for, and told me what to say to anyone that messaged me. Getting it off the ground proved difficult, as he said no to almost every boy that came up.Some reasons for rejection included:

• “No because his name is Colin, and I hate the name Colin.”
• “No for being topless in his picture.”
• “No, but I cant think of a reason.”
• “No for being annoying, because he is too good looking.”

But I didn’t complain. I just let him pick, even though the few boys he did swipe right for he approved of for reasons like having gone to a “good Catholic school” and “having a Scotland strip on” in their picture. Not quite my criteria for potential love interests.

A match messaged me saying “Hey”, and my dad suggested I respond with “Trump? Discuss.” After a tense wait for the reply, my dad approved of the detailed response, and instructed me to tell him it is “Nice to see a political thought”. I was worried it sounded weird and patronising, but the boy replied that it was “Nice to receive a somewhat interesting question.”

Maybe my dad is better at Tinder than me.

A response from another match didn’t go quite so well, after my dad had a closer look at his photos and concluded he “looks too old”, and made me communicate this feeling with the less-than-polite response of: “No”.

Although I enjoyed my dad’s unusual conversation style, I was beginning to feel a bit catfish-y and decided to honestly tell the next person who messaged me why I swiped for him, before I got a visit from Nev and found myself on MTV.

It seemed to go well, and it seems that maybe my dad’s honest approach to tinder is something I could learn from. Yet, after having a few brief conversations on my own with some matches, I realised it really isn’t something I am interested in and deleted my account. Although, in future, I won’t have my dad suggesting what to say to boys, he has taught me that maybe it is refreshing to go in with a different style of chat.

When I used his Tinder, I quickly realised how different it is for older people. They like to include long biographies, which proved more of a turn-off than an improvement to their profile. One woman said she was “looking for a fantastic soul mate”. On Tinder.

Another woman made a point of saying in her bio that she is “not into players or cheaters” – a helpful detail to point out given the hundreds of women who do specifically seek both cheaters and/or players.

There were a few decent looking women, including one who was with some cute children in her photo. Naturally, I wanted to swipe right for her, but my dad did not and instead wanted to match with women who, according to their bios, like “having a good time” and dress like they are heading to Kushion. I sensed there may be a difference in what we consider good qualities.

He was a bit picky

Sadly, any matches we did both agree on lived really far away – Tinder hasn’t quite taken off for the over 40s and there weren’t a lot of people in his age range. After deciding Tinder wasn’t really going anywhere for either of us, we have both deleted the app and are staying firmly out of each other’s love lives.