Tinder Detox

So, as you may or may not have read (and if you haven’t you can read it here) I deleted tinder about a week ago. And really, I don’t miss it.

For the most part…

What I didn’t really expect was the feeling of needing to detox from it. I guess I could have weened myself off of it, but where’s the fun in that? Let’s stop things that are bad for us COLD TURKEY–I’m looking at you smokers (especially the ones who insist on doing it in public places, the wind thinks we want to share that cigarette and believe me I do not!). I have always had what I call an addictive personality. What I mean by this is it is incredibly easy for me to form habits, and incredibly hard for me to stop them. Now, because I am aware of this as my weakness I tend to be wary of easily addicting things… I.e. alcohol and other substances. But the weird thing is people forget things and even people can be just as addicting. We can see this in people who obsessively text or play video games and people who over eat or [the other extreme] over exercise. Obsessive behaviors are addictive and when they’re formed they have taken EXTREME measures to change them… at least for me. I remember when Candy Crush came out I, and everyone else, played this game intensely and opening your facebook to 100 requests for lives wasn’t unusual. Now you could say this is just normal behavior as it was a large portion of the population and it wasn’t interfering with anything. But I found myself playing it sooo much that I was the person who was always staring at their phone, and I HATED that. I decided to just straight up delete it. Now I won’t say I haven’t backslid, the app is definitely installed on my phone again, but I am now no longer obsessed and can play my “lives” and put the phone down until the next time I try–candy crush should never get your money for extra lives! But this backslide gives me hope, that I can conquer my addictions and obsessive behaviors.

But as for Tinder… I would often find myself on that app because it was easy and thoughtless. It gave me something to do, unfortunately that thing was judging people based on their looks… I have found myself awkwardly opening and closing apps that I just had open just to have something to do on my phone. And unfortunately I think that comes with the territory of being a millennial. We have become so accustomed to always having something to do so when we don’t, there is no break that we just enjoy, we just get bored. And sadly I have considered creating a new profile just out of the boredom.

Outside of it being something to do, I also find myself missing the validation. It was nice to know that I was pretty (and/or funny, my bio was decent, but like I said the longer I had my profile the less I read them so I can’t imagine that the guys are different there). But most of all I miss having pretty guys to scroll through. The guys I come across in my regular life just pale in comparison to the guys I found on Tinder, and I just DON’T GET IT. Is it just the putting your best foot forward thing? Are these hot guys stuck in the canyons they took naked pics in and should we send a search party? Are the hot guys just hiding inside their houses hiding their nerdy side that they hinted at with their love of The Office? You can say its all about what’s in the inside, but Tinder has 1 thing right… it starts with physical attraction, and I don’t care who you are, you’re not going to walk up to someone you find unattractive and ask for their number because you think they’re going to have a great personality.

But who-zee…for now I detox, I try not to talk to the trashy guys that I met there–some take more effort than others to ignore. I watch a lot more youtube videos and a lot more how I met your mother. (But who really watches HIMYM anymore? Let’s be honest with ourselves, we know the whole damn thing by heart already). But being on vacation has been a great distraction. Hightly recommend a beach trip with some loved ones to avoid the apps. Happy hunting singles.