Journal (The Tinder Story)

Do you know that a Tinder subscription for one year costs lesser than Toastmasters Club subscription for six months?
Not sure about today but that was the situation back in April 2019. In April 2019 Tinder Gold subscription had been priced at some 4K bucks while Toastmasters membership was for about 4500 INR or so in equivalent USD terms.

Tinder didn’t help me find a girl but it did help me find myself. Apart from the fact that the app connects you with women, it was a great experience for me for multiple reasons.
Reason #1: if I hadn’t used Tinder, I wouldn’t have been here talking about it, haha 😂
The story goes like this. Joining Tinder was my reaction to a rejection of marriage proposal.

If I would start about the reason for rejection it would take up the space for an altogether new post but in short: it was because of last name (or cast).

People do desperate things to comfort themselves or seek pleasure. Getting a Tinder subscription was my desperate act to overcome the loneliness in my life, to fill some colors into my otherwise colorless life.

I knew what this app was about because I had used it’s free subscription a year or two before. When I first explored the dating apps, I had also tried OkCupid and some other apps such as Kik [Ref]. Let's not get into that also because (in short) the profiles were not genuine there. 

The number one plus point of Tinder is that it allows you to socialize. I needed that (socializing) the most as I had heard it again from my boss this time that I needed to work on social skills and then the boss added "and to develop social skills, you need to socialize, mix with people, interact more". 

I have been trying very hard to not think about the faults and flaws in that app but it seems that every time I found a flaw in the situation, life took a turn at that point. And I cannot stop thinking about it.

For example, I had got my first match with this girl and I was talking to her and I realised that Tinder didn't have an in-app implementation of emoticons. But this girl was using them so I asked her and she taught me that Android keyboards have built-in emoticons. Wow, that was new information. 

Then the second thing was that there was no notification to show if the other person had viewed the message. 

Third was that if I would turn off vibrations in my phone, Tinder would silently push the notification on the display without making any sound. I feel bad and frustrated even while writing this and regret that Tinder didn't think of these things from a user experience point of view.

Well, the way I am complaining here, I had complained to that girl also and ruined the things for me. She immediately got it that I was new to the app and that I didn't like it. Take away from this story is that poor usability might not mean anything to the developers but to the end users it could mean end of many relationships. 

DEFENSIVENESS: It was not that I had Tinder on my mind already. It was not even on my phone. I knew what this app was about because I had used it’s free subscription a year or two before.