The Inside Scoop About Dating: College Edition

Tabitha Bak­er: Wel­come to the Inside Scoop to Col­lege Dat­ing. My name is Tabitha Baker,

Anna Zim­mer­mann: Anna Zimmermann,

Maina Durafour: Maina Durafour,

Dip­ty Bhuiyan: and Dip­ty Bhuiyan

Tabitha Bak­er: And today we’re going to be talk­ing about dat­ing apps. I think dat­ing apps are one of the main forms of meet­ing peo­ple. Like, peo­ple go to Tin­der is prob­a­bly the top one, I’d say, right?

All: Yeah.

Tabitha Bak­er: So, we have some suc­cess sto­ries with dat­ing through Tin­der here in the room with us.

Dip­ty Bhuiyan: Yeah. I met my boyfriend through Tin­der, and hon­est­ly, I was shocked because usu­al­ly Tin­der is known for hookups and just meet­ing peo­ple for the night. But as I start­ed talk­ing to him, I real­ized I real­ly did like him.

Tabitha Bak­er: I per­son­al­ly have just nev­er had any dat­ing app. I don’t know, I just was nev­er real­ly my style. I just was­n’t into it. I don’t know why all my friends use them. And I’m on there, of course, swip­ing left and right. But 3 in 10 U.S. adults say they have nev­er used a dat­ing site or app, accord­ing to Pew Research. And I can relate to these peo­ple because, I don’t know, I just feel like I’d pre­fer to meet peo­ple organ­i­cal­ly through ran­dom inter­ac­tions, like at the bar, like a par­ty. And I feel like in col­lege, there’s def­i­nite­ly so many oppor­tu­ni­ties to do that too.

Anna Zim­mer­mann: For sure. It’s the per­fect place to just like ran­dom­ly meet someone.

Dip­ty Bhuiyan: Even, I was real­ly hes­i­tant to down­load dat­ing apps because it just was­n’t my cup of tea. I like meet­ing peo­ple organ­i­cal­ly, like you said, and I like just hav­ing a nat­ur­al con­nec­tion ver­sus just like, mes­sag­ing back and forth on, a dat­ing app, you know, even though we had pret­ty good con­ver­sa­tions on the app.

Anna Zim­mer­mann: and I think it can feel real­ly forced, too. And, I actu­al­ly got banned per­ma­nent­ly from the app because I did­n’t like it so much that I would just send my Snapchat or my phone num­ber over the app instead of hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion. I nev­er mes­saged any­one, so I don’t know what else it could have been.

Dip­ty Bhuiyan: Yeah, and I don’t blame you because hon­est­ly, when I first down­loaded Tin­der, it was a game to me. I was just swip­ing left and right.

Anna Zim­mer­mann: It was like a fun lit­tle game. Like, oh my gosh.

Dip­ty Bhuiyan: Just did­n’t real­ly think I would meet any­body. And I was just always real­ly para­noid. And it’s crazy how 1 in 10 adults met their cur­rent sig­nif­i­cant oth­er through a dat­ing app because, I mean, cur­rent­ly I’m in a rela­tion­ship too. I just nev­er thought it would be through Tinder.

Anna Zim­mer­mann: Yeah, that’s wild. And that seems like kind of a big num­ber, right? But then you think about how many peo­ple are on Tin­der and that is so insignificant.

Maina Durafour: My boyfriend was­n’t the first one I met, through Tin­der. And I feel lucky because I met some nice guy, but then I had some weird peo­ple. One guy, he asked me to put my feet on his head, like, stuff like that.

Anna Zim­mer­mann: You can def­i­nite­ly find a lot of unwant­ed behav­iors on the plat­form. I think espe­cial­ly younger women under 50 say that they’ve used dat­ing apps, and 56% of them say that they’ve been sent, like, sex­u­al­ly explic­it mes­sages on a dat­ing app. This is like, first impres­sions we’re talk­ing about.

Dip­ty Bhuiyan: And I feel like a lot of peo­ple, since it’s behind a screen, they don’t under­stand the con­se­quences and they don’t care.

Anna Zim­mer­mann: Yeah, you’re nev­er going to meet them. What’s the worst that could hap­pen? But I think that was, like, my biggest hes­i­ta­tion with dat­ing apps and actu­al­ly using it. I had it for a while, but I would­n’t use it. Did not want any­one who I knew to see it. I’m like, this is the peak of my embarrassment.

Tabitha Bak­er: And it’s like, if you’re hes­i­tant to say that you met on Tin­der, it’s like, oh, is that a red flag that he’s on Tin­der? But it’s like, you’re on Tin­der too. Are you a red flag?

Dip­ty Bhuiyan: Yeah, so I can’t have dou­ble standards.

Tabitha Bak­er: Yeah. So, I don’t think every­body who’s on Tin­der has bad inten­tions, obvi­ous­ly. Like, your rela­tion­ships cur­rent­ly are obvi­ous­ly going well. Yeah. I do think hookup cul­ture is a big not issue, but just pop­u­lar now. And I think that it’s fun and peo­ple are into it and do what­ev­er you want. No judg­ment. This is col­lege, this is your prime time, you know.

Dip­ty Bhuiyan: Anoth­er thing I was going to actu­al­ly bring up is that with today’s gen­er­a­tion, we have a real­ly hard time com­mit­ting to a rela­tion­ship, which I feel like is why hookup cul­ture is so pop­u­lar, because it’s just like a one and done deal. Now we have sit­u­a­tion­ships and peo­ple who just, like, they become com­fort­able with anoth­er per­son, but they don’t ful­ly com­mit. So that caus­es a lot of issues with com­mu­ni­ca­tion. And it’s just like, okay, wait, what happened?

Tabitha Bak­er: Yeah, it’s just like, also just social media in gen­er­al, because it’s like, back in the old days, peo­ple would see the beau­ti­ful girls on tele­vi­sion and it’s like, oh, there they go. They’re so beau­ti­ful. Some­day I hope I look like them. But it’s like, now you could be real­ly falling for some­body, or you’re real­ly into this guy, and then he just has Tin­der. He’s swip­ing right on all these oth­er girls. You know what I mean?

Dip­ty Bhuiyan: And one thing I noticed about Tin­der is that there’s a lot of cat­fish­es. So, there’s a lot of peo­ple that you think that are so attrac­tive and great, and then you actu­al­ly see them in per­son. They’re not who they, say they are.

Maina Durafour: I think when you’re on Tin­der, the first cliche that we have about it is that every­body’s talk­ing and swip­ing and going out and hav­ing sex or try­ing to find some­one who you want to be with. But there’s also, how hard men­tal­ly it can be to be on Tin­der, like the social pres­sure that you can feel about it. For exam­ple, accord­ing to Pew Research, women, who use the Tin­der and online dat­ing, app plat­forms are say­ing that they feel, very over­whelmed by all the mes­sages they get. But on the oth­er side, like, 64% of men feel also over­whelmed by the fact that they don’t receive any mes­sages. And I think it’s fun­ny because it kind of shows that some men, I guess, are not here to show off, and they can be as uncom­fort­able as we are, I guess. So, I think it’s inter­est­ing to, think about it that way, too.

Anna Zim­mer­mann: That is super inter­est­ing. Espe­cial­ly because I’m the one who’s ner­vous to go talk to the boy at the bar. And on the oth­er hand, it’s like the same thing could be going through their mind, and you just have no idea because you’re both too ner­vous to say any­thing. So, no one ever does.

Tabitha Bak­er: Obvi­ous­ly, Tin­der is fun. You can meet some­body to hook up with. You can even meet a poten­tial boyfriend. But also, just, like, meet­ing peo­ple organ­i­cal­ly is just so fun. Despite the pos­si­ble rejec­tion, it’s just so much more like I don’t know, it’s just, like, real. They had the guts to talk to you, so it’s like, some­how it feels more gen­uine, I think.

Dip­ty Bhuiyan: Right. And think­ing back before our gen­er­a­tion, that’s how peo­ple met, just, like, nat­u­ral­ly. And so, there was no such thing as match­ing on Tinder.

Maina Durafour: And although we are in a soci­ety that is so con­nect­ed, it’s kind of sad that, we are con­nect­ed even to the point where when we look for some­one, to com­plete us, I guess we’re also look­ing that online. So, I think because we are so used to using dat­ing apps and social media, it’s hard to push our­selves out­side the com­fort zone, for sure. It just rein­forced everything.

Dip­ty Bhuiyan: Also, UConn is a real­ly big school. It’s kind of hard to meet peo­ple, in a sense.

Anna Zim­mer­mann: I so agree.

Dip­ty Bhuiyan: Yeah. So, dat­ing apps is, like, the eas­i­est way to go because every­one’s on it, or major­i­ty of peo­ple are on it. And so that’s why I feel like a lot of peo­ple are also encour­aged to down­load dat­ing apps because we go to such a big school.

Anna Zim­mer­mann: Yeah. I also saw some­thing that said 22% of peo­ple down­load Tin­der to make new friends.

Dip­ty Bhuiyan: Right.

Anna Zim­mer­mann: Which is crazy. I think that was Pew Research again that said that.

Dip­ty Bhuiyan: Yeah. And also with the pan­dem­ic, I feel like we for­got how to inter­act. And I feel like we became reliant on these dat­ing apps for a form of con­nec­tion, because we did­n’t know how to inter­act with any­body for a good two years.

Tabitha Bak­er: Yeah, it’s def­i­nite­ly like, the social media behind the screen that gives you that con­fi­dence boost, you know, but it’s crip­pling in person

Dip­ty Bhuiyan: And we’re not used to it any­more. I feel like peo­ple used to just. Go up to their crush and be like, hey, I real­ly like, you want to go on a date? But we just became so used to going on our phones, and we would be one tap away. We rely on dat­ing apps and oth­er forms of social media to find partners.

Maina Durafour: And although I think Tin­der is very reward­ing if you lack con­fi­dence. When I saw all those guys lik­ing my pro­file, I thought I was too ugly for those guys. It is good and bad in the same time.

Anna Zim­mer­mann: Yeah, for sure. There’s def­i­nite­ly a lot of pros and cons to that. It def­i­nite­ly takes away from the meet cute, tra­di­tion­al sto­ry. But like on the bright side, there’s a whole new way to meet peo­ple, right?

Dip­ty Bhuiyan: And I feel like we’re so dig­i­tal now. That’s just, like, the new norm.

Maina Durafour: So, in the end, do you guys think, it’s a bad thing or a good thing to use Tinder?

Tabitha Bak­er: I mean, over­all, I’d say if you want to be in a com­mit­ted rela­tion­ship, don’t rely 100% on Tin­der, I’d say, but you just nev­er know, I guess, right.

Dip­ty Bhuiyan: I feel like it also depends on your inten­tions. If you know you want some­thing seri­ous, go in with that mind­set and don’t mess up.

Anna Zim­mer­mann: Don’t mess up.

Dip­ty Bhuiyan: Yeah, please don’t.

Tabitha Bak­er: All right, well, thank you guys for join­ing us on the inside scoop to col­lege dating.

Maina Durafour: I’m Tabitha, Anna, Maina, and Dipty.

Tabitha Bak­er: And we’ll see you guys’ next time.

All: Bye.

Links to fur­ther research:

Col­lege Dat­ing Cul­ture: Are Dat­ing Apps Ruin­ing Romance?

How Online Dat­ing Apps Can Lead to Burnout — The New York Times

Key Find­ings About Online Dat­ing in the U.S.