Andy Richardson: Take a swipe at love through an app

The mobile dating app that my friend was proudly showing me made Channel 4’s Naked Attraction look like an afternoon tea party for Big Ted and Jemima (they’re cuddly toys, young ‘uns. Google the words ‘Play School’, you’ll find all you need to know).

My friend was looking at Tinder, the hit-it-and-quit-it dating app that has done for casual sexual encounters what the internet did for online shopping. It revolutionised boy-girl encounters like the car revolutionised road travel. Or like sliced bread revolutionised toast. On Tinder, there are no horses and carts – only Maseratis and Ferraris.

She spied a new fella who’d just hit on her. It took about six seconds to process the fair-haired conquistador and that was that. Decision made. I looked at the heavens and thought: ‘But I thought when boy meets girl, or girl meets boy, it’s eyes across the dancefloor, an invite for a drink/dinner, and see how things develop’.

I. Am. So. Old. Fashioned.

I. Am. So. 2016.

Tinder avoided the first three months and 112 steps of a conventional romance and went straight for a home run. Forget the first base, second base, third base, getting-to-know-you system – Tinder eschewed rookie errors, foul balls, strike outs and other baseball metaphors by smashing the ball out of the park, taking a quick shower, joshing with the lads and heading out of town before the sun came up. And that was just all before my friend and Man 1-12 had even met. Fast doesn’t cover it.

Tinder makes speed dating look like signing up for the Sloth Grand National, or the Snail Olympics. It is the Bloodhound, supersonic, 1,000mph, Mach 1.4 of love. Actually, love has nothing to do with it. Tinder – and there are, apparently, other dating apps available – though, happily, I’m not familiar with any of them – is all about sex. Forget about chat, forget about holding hands and walking in the park, forget about compatibility and other boring stuff like ‘will he get on with my parents/children/friends/colleagues’, or ‘will she listen to my Stone Roses records on a Friday night?’. It is, if you’ll excuse me for being a trifle coarse, all about grunt.

My friend didn’t mind coarse, in fairness. And she didn’t mind Mach 1.4 either because without embarrassment or shame, without dissembling or camouflage, she was looking for grunt and grunt alone.

And while I’ve cunningly disguised her identity – even she will probably read this and think ‘crickey, I wonder who he’s writing about’ – my friend opened a window on an ecosystem that chews ‘em up and spits ‘em out. And that’s just the men.

Tinder was a world of weird. It was a dating apocalypse. It was a dystopian, dysfunctional future in which we have been stripped of our common humanity – and clothes, obviously – in pursuit of a quick bunk-up. It was like Sex and The City – but without The City. It was like Sex On Fire – but without The Fire. It was like George Michael’s I Want Your Sex – but without the I Want bit. Blimey. I’ve seen some things. But I’ve never seen some of the things before that I saw on Tinder. Yowzers. . .

My friend told me she’d narrowed down her search – to about a dozen or so men. A dozen or so. That many. But there were another couple of dozen to choose from if she changed her mind. That’s, like, dozens and dozens. I didn’t know there were that many available men in her town. The traditional notion of ‘Well, Colin’s nice, but I quite like Dave, which way should I turn?’ had been replaced by ‘one is okay, but three has better hair, seven is too short, nine has nice teeth but 11 is ripped’. Come in number 23. It was as though she was picking sprinkles, Smarties, hundreds and thousands and other toppings to decorate a cheap ice cream at some nationwide pizza joint.

She showed me some of the men. Welcome to the jungle. Every man on Tinder seemed to be either a) doing some sort of exercise, or, b) playing a guitar. Men were walking, running, cycling, working out and strumming like the world had morphed into a giant Fitness First with a music room out the back. We’d crossed into a parallel universe where houses had been replaced by gyms and cars/rooms/dogs/gardens/normal stuff had been replaced by Rickenbackers. My friend swiped this way and that. At the impersonal flick of a finger she rejected, selected, considered and appointed with the impersonality of a cold call from a particularly bad call centre.

Perceived imperfections caused instant rejection.

“Be careful.” I told her, as she left to leave.

“Oh, I’ll be fine, I can handle myself,” she replied.

“I sure you can. But I don’t mean that.”

“Be careful of what then?” She asked.

“Your heart.”