Tinder: Finding Love on Campus is but a Swipe Away

BY AHD KOTB
@AHDKOTB

Rejoice, all you single romantics!

Tinder, the online-dating application that has been dominating the world, has reached AUC.

A proximity-based application, Tinder is directly linked to the user’s Facebook profile, making it easier for a person to judge based on what they see.

If a user is interested in connecting, they swipe to the right anonymously; or swipe to the left if they are not. Swiping right gives users a chance to communicate with one another based on mutual attraction.

“There has been a general trend towards the use of applications of all sorts,” Assistant Professor of Sociology Michael Ryan told The Caravan.

“This is likely tied to that larger growing trend of doing things in person to doing things online to doing things via an app,” he continued.

Nonetheless, Ryan says that the idea of approaching someone using a ‘swipe’ goes back to the consumer theory that suggests that dating would come to be seen as rather similar to consumer shopping as opposed to previous techniques.

“There is an idea within consumer theory that suggests that people are increasingly likely to view each other as commodities,” Ryan told The Caravan.

However, political science junior and Tinder user Abdelrahman El Sawy, says that he does not swipe right for anyone on campus, because it could become awkward.

Nevertheless, Ryan explained there is a lower chance of rejection when attempting to meet someone online, especially as an individual is probably approaching several other people at the same time.

In a survey conducted by The Caravan, 87 percent of AUC students said that they would prefer to approach someone in person rather than through an application. Although El Sawy is a Tinder user, he still agrees with this group.

English and comparative literature graduate Alia El Saady is among the 14 percent of AUC students who use Tinder. She uses it to have fun, meet new people and go on dates.

“Asking someone out on the app doesn’t seem so much of a stretch, it’s supposedly a dating app,” Saady told The Caravan.

Management of information and communication technology junior and Tinder user Muhannad Barakat agrees with El Saady.

“Tinder has made approaching a person easier, since single people are using it, so you don’t get through the whole awkward she-has-a-boyfriend fiasco,” he said.

However, 40 percent of students said that if they lived abroad, they would have gotten an account. Barakat says that this is because the use of Tinder in our society is being misinterpreted and the idea is being “abused”.

Over 40 percent of AUC students think that online dating applications are not a norm in our society.

“I think the dating culture is a little skewed here in Egypt,” El Saady agreed.

Amy Fayez, freshman intending to major in architecture, told The Caravan that she thinks that Egyptians are not open-minded enough to accept this phenomenon.

“Egyptians are judgmental so anyone who might have met someone on the application might be perceived in a wrong way,” computer science junior Baher Ahmed agreed.

The concept of taking interest in someone based on an online picture made many of the surveyed students refer to it as ‘shallow’. However, El Saady thinks that even the most meaningful relationships can start on shallow terms.

El Saady observed that men often use shirtless pictures to show off and that people are eager to show their best sides on the application.

She has stumbled upon a few who use images of guitars and dogs, which she believes says much about the person’s interests.

However, Tinder also allows users to write a small description to ‘advertise themselves’ and appeal to the opposite gender.

“The bio is really hit-or-miss. You could try to be funny, but people might not laugh at what you wrote, or you could just rant about who you are and what you like, but people might find it boring, it’s tricky,” El Sawy said.

“Show some but leave something for the mind to wonder,” Barakat said, referring to Tinder profiles.

For El Saady and El Sawy, starting conversations on the application is the toughest thing, it usually ends up on an awkward note. However, once you click with the person, they usually move from Tinder to
talking on the phone and going out on dates.

“You never know what might make you click with someone,” Barakat told The Caravan.