Lessons you learn after a year of online dating

Dating apps: People either love them or hate them. They have either met their eternal soulmate on one of them, or they think every person that uses them are sad, lonely, and pathetic. For an entire year, I was one of the those sad, lonely, and pathetic people.

Aside from one short relationship in high school, I have been single for my entire life. I’ve watched my friends go from boyfriend to boyfriend, from boyfriend to hook up buddy, and from hookup buddy to hook up buddy. All while sitting back and sipping my vodka cranberry in the corner.

Tinder came on the scene around the time that I was a freshman in college, but I never really took it seriously. It was not until the spring of my junior year that I really started to here concrete evidence that Tinder was actually a place that people found their soulmates. Every magazine and news source had the same headline, “I met my (Husband/Wife/Boyfriend/Girlfriend) on Tinder!” I started to think, could this actually work?

So for an entire year, I went on and off four major dating apps: Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, and JSwipe. [I only went on JSwipe because my mother desperately wants me to marry a Jewish boy. Sorry, Mom]. I went on looking for a long-term relationship, and only swiped right on guys I was physically attracted to. I was never one more than one app at the same time, and I would only go on the app if I was bored one day, or was already half way through my first glass of wine.

In one year I had made:

• 387 matches on Tinder
• 85 matches on Bumble

JSwipe and Hinge both delete your matches after you delete the app, so I lost all my matches.

Out of all of those matches, about half started conversations with me. I gave my number to 20 guys, and I went on about 11 dates with 10 guys.

Here are a few things that I learned:

Don’t go into it expecting to find your prince charming on the first day

Just like trying to find love in the real world, it isn’t going to happen on the first day. You need to be patient. Just like you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you kiss your prince, you need to go through a lot of, “Tits?” “Down to fuck?” and many dirty pick up lines before finding someone to have an actual conversation with.

Don’t try to learn his life story over the app

I know that you want to try and find out as much as you can about the person so you can make sure they are some psychopath who is going to kill you. But you can’t learn all about a person before you ever meet in real life. If you do end up going out, what will you talk about if you already knew everything about them?

Not every guy on the app is some perv trying to get you to come fuck him in his basement

Out of the 10 guys I went out with, I only had one bad date. Of half the guys I had conversations with, I would easily say yes to any of them if they asked me out today. Sure, I came across a fair amount of creeps and weirdos, but I’ve certainly come across my fair share of weirdos in real life, so I’ve sort of become used to having them around.

Online dating is something everyone should try at least once

For someone who hardly has time to sleep during the year, online dating gave me the opportunity to meet guys on my own schedule. I can’t always go out to bars every weekend, and none of the my friends have hot older brothers, (It’s okay guys, I still love you). Online dating can also give you a wide range of guys, so it can help you see what you like and don’t like. Especially if you’re someone like me, who has been single for so long, anything looks good, (Completely kidding, btw.)

So if you feel as if you’ve tired out all ways to try and find a man, or are just very bored on a Wednesday night, maybe download a dating app, (If you’re single that is, I would not suggest downloading if you’re already in a committed relationship). Even if you don’t go on to look for someone, you can always just laugh at all of the pick up lines you get.