Tinder For Older Generation
Single women over the age of 50 are finding themselves discouraged with dating apps that tend to cater to younger generations and embrace hook-up culture. Tinder can be too aggressive for someone. Unfortunately, the reality for many older Americans is much different. With children scattered and few friends remaining, loneliness can be a major mental - and physical - health concern. Both experts I spoke to named Bumble their top pick for guys over 40. ”Right now, the most popular one for older generations above 40 is Bumble,” says Pompey. “That’s one I highly recommend.” For those unfamiliar, Bumble is an early Tinder successor that differentiates itself from the competition with its signature ladies-first model.
“You are a walking contradiction,” Demi says to me as he peered into my eyes trying to unlock its secrets. He had interrogated me for the last 70 minutes. We were on a first date and somehow it felt more like an inquisition than a date. I met him on Tinder the previous week and we chatted for a couple of days before I summoned the courage to ask him out. It wasn’t a big deal, but call me old-fashioned I still wonder if people I meet online are serial killers.
For reasons I will not explain to you now I spent two weeks on Tinder, it was an experiment, of which I am not sure what my conclusions are. I found myself sitting across the table from my Russian interrogator, his probing gaze daring me to deny him the answers he desperately wanted.
“Where do young successful people (women especially) meet people?” I was asked two days before my Tinder explorations began. I get this question a lot, I don’t know the answer. I don’t think these so-called young successful people know either.
“Somewhere on the path of life?” I offered.
Somewhere between theorizing where these young people found to mingle: for love, friendship and dare I say it for sex, I found myself signing up for Tinder. There is some irony to that but I digress.
“You have to tell me more about your travels. Have you been to Saratov, I am from there.” Demi’s thick accent was giddy with excitement as he whispered the word ’Saratov’ like a love song, a longing for his home town no doubt.
I have never been to Saratov, much to his disappointment but his questions were not done. He had one critical one left.
“Why did you swipe right?” he asked.
Do people actually ask this question? Shouldn’t you just assume that people swiped right because something about you piqued their interest. Are we a generation of such insecurities that we are surprised that are carefully chosen images and perfectly crafted bios get us attention?
The truth: my friend that convinced me on this ludicrous exercise actually did. But I don’t tell him that, I know where all this is going. Instead, I get cheeky and ask, why did you?
Tinder For Seniors
“Because you look like you would be good in bed.” All sense of civility was gone, and the false curiosity about me peeled away. A part of me admired the moxy a statement like that must take but another part of me rang in the ‘told you so’ with a disappointing sigh.
The evening ended and Demi went home alone. I had a series of dates some playing out like the one above and others bored me to the point of narcolepsy. It really could just be me, I could just be a disinterested snob. Though from the people I have spoken to about their Tinder experiences, it seems there is a sense of understanding. One person called it a ‘sex app’.
In the last three weeks I have read a lot about Tinder experiences and what is happening to the generation of Tinderers. Young people all over the United States see Tinder and apps like it for what it is, is a means to gratification. One that mostly leaves women hollow and some men counting.
Tinder is a platform sorely dedicated to satisfying the sexual appetite of a generation too busy to figure out how to make connections away from screens. It gives this generation carte blanche on openness and sometimes bad behavior. It is the play ground of instant gratification, there is little to no real human connection there.
Tinder For Older Generation Girls
It has been touted as the hookup culture, 20 years ago this culture still allowed for some human niceties and maybe polite conversation. Now it doesn’t seem you have to play at being nice anymore but available. The creators of Tinder built a place for people to meet, what they met for was up to the people.
Human beings have a propensity for creating technology that will make their lives easier. Food on demand, cars on demand, homes on demand, why not sex on demand as well. This is not necessarily a bad thing if everyone is clear on the rules of engagement.
There are of course exceptions to the rule. People who have met and made genuine human connections and since left the world of Tinder to go enjoy those connections. However, the majority of the Tinder experience are the rule, just read many of the think pieces that explore the average experience. Friends convince you to keep at it because they know guy who knows a guy who met his wife on Tinder.
What people do with Tinder is actually quite irrelevant, it is here to stay and with busy lives it is likely the easier way to try to connect. What I am interested is how Africans are playing on Tinder. Is the app’s use, results and experiences universal? Have young Africans too resigned themselves to the hookup culture as well and is it a case of wham bam thank you ma’am? Is there even a thank you? Or do people just go back to swiping? Are we also playing the game of who gets to care less? Or Perhaps when it comes to sex and love, more is more?
There isn’t a fine line between love and sex. I am not sure people are looking for love on Tinder. How would that look if they were? However, there is a fine line between sex and intimacy, hookups and courtship. On Tinder, we don’t bother to fake intimacy anymore, the nature of the platform requires images to be doctored to attract a suitable coitus partner. There are no courtship just hookups.
If young successful people are looking for a place to meet like-minded people for the purpose of courtship, then we are all in trouble. We keep asking the question, where do you meet people in current times? It seems the real question should be why and what. Why are we looking for places to meet people? What is the outcome we hope for?
If Tinder is our last hope for connection, then we may have some thinking to do. Perhaps we need to begin with a redefinition of connection before we can find the place we connect. To exist in the world of this appify dating, you have to be open to the reality that no one will give you their heart, just their body. Frightening more, no one will want your heart, just your body. A generation that solely thrives on that is bound to leave some damage.
As we make our way through the evolution and revolution of our sexes we forget that most revolutions end in blood shed and the broken pieces of a world long gone. The hookup culture only works if everyone checks their hearts and feelings at the door. The societal and emotional damage that will follow is bound to shake up the fabric of how we date and maybe even love.
The scar tissue of what the Tinder generation is doing to courtship and intimacy will be indelible and not in a good way. No one has given this much thought, the consequences of who we are becoming, of who we have no choice but to become.
Photo Credit: tamakisono via Compfightcc
In March, dominant mobile dating app Tinder announced it was moving to monetize its widely-used service with Tinder Plus, a premium monthly subscription service that allows users to undo swipes, browse for matches in other cities, and avoid advertisements the app will reportedly introduce later this month. (It also charges more for older users—more on that later.)
For a company said to be valued at around $1 billion, the move was inevitable, but also risky. Unlike some of the online dating sites that preceded it, Tinder has built its reputation—and user base—around a casual, fun and totally free-of-charge experience. The app’s simple interface and almost game-like user experience have no doubt aided its meteoric ascension. Now that the app’s cost-free environment has been compromised, however, many are questioning the viability of its business plan, and wondering if Tinder’s millions of millennial daters are as ready as their app to take the next step.
Competitors will likely be keeping a close eye on whether Tinder is able to cash in on its estimated 50 million-plus active devotees. But the launch will also be closely watched by investors hesitant to pour money into an industry that, despite rapid growth, has yet to prove it can turn a profit commensurate with its massive user base.
“Tinder is certainly setting the pace and is kind of the bellwether for whether these apps can be monetized,” Justin McLeod, CEO of dating app Hinge, tells Quartz. “The investment dollars are going to depend going forward on whether Tinder is able to monetize.”
Outside of Tinder, Hinge, which matches users with friends of friends on Facebook, is one of the most prominent mobile-only apps available, and McLeod is planning to monetize it sometime in 2016. Until then he is focused on expanding its reach—Hinge is currently available in 34 cities—and continuing to add users by word of mouth. In December, the company secured $12 million in funding; and if Tinder Plus is successful, more dollars could be on the way, both to Hinge as well as to other upstart mobile dating-apps like Bumble and Coffee Meets Bagel.
But if the early response—or maybe “backlash” is a better word—to Tinder Plus is any indication, shaky investor confidence may be the least of the company’s problems. Since it was introduced, the premium version has been almost universally panned. Criticism has centered around its age-based pricing tiers—which have been called everything from ageist to sleazy—as well as the surprisingly high monthly subscription fee ($19.99 for users 30 and over and $9.99 for users 29 and under in the US). Morgan Stanley wrote in a note to clients that Tinder “will not have much success monetizing with a high-cost recurring monthly subscription offering,” estimating that only 5 to 6 percent of users will pay for the service.
Still, Tinder remains confident it can get users to pay—and they may ultimately be right.
Similar to dating apps now, there was a time not so long ago when paying for in-app mobile game purchases would seem laughably frivolous. That has since changed, however, and paying for extra Candy Crush lives is neither uncommon nor stigmatized.
With their slick interfaces and “yes or no” swiping, many mobile dating apps are beginning to mimic the addictive look and feel of the actual games that preceded them. And though it may feel crazy to pay $10 or $20 extra for a few Tinder features right now, this hesitation may too fade. Indeed, the next generation of apps, like Hinge, could very well structure their monetization plans around far cheaper in-app purchases in an effort to appeal to touch-happy teens and twenty-somethings.
Tinder’s biggest trump card may turn out to be a sociological one. While mobile commerce is growing at an astonishing rate, the effectiveness of elaborate personal profiles, the bedrock of the appeal of desktop-based sites, has been largely disproven. For older millennials, cultivating a digital persona was a social necessity. For teens and younger twenty-somethings, however, one-touch swiping, liking, and commenting is beginning to feel more natural than the more old-fashioned face-to-face courtship rituals.
There’s simply less at stake when gauging romantic interest through a screen. Mobile dating apps are learning how to economize these interactions in the way Facebook and Twitter streamlined clunkier predecessors like MySpace. It seems logical that younger millennials would embrace these apps to manage their romantic relationships the way older millennials did so for friendships and business acquaintances.
“There’s some sense that online dating isn’t cool because of the old days of Match.com,” McLeod said. “But these days—and I think Tinder did a lot to break open that stigma—if all you have to do is click a button, then why wouldn’t you?”
If able to overcome these last emotional hurdles, mobile dating apps will indeed end up influencing modern dating culture far more than Match or eHarmony ever could. Tinder wants users to feel like their app is the socially acceptable, fun version of online dating—and that includes singles who are looking for a serious relationship. So as long as Tinder and other mobile dating apps keep the features that made their initial free services appealing, it’s likely they will be able to keep to continue dictating modern dating culture.
Tinder For Seniors Reviews
At this point the Millennial march toward mobile love seems inexorable. It’s only a matter of time before the money falls in line, as well.