News in the dating sphere this week, as Tinder announces its new desktop applet - gone are the famous swipes as desktop users will click and drag or use keyboard arrows to browse through potential romantic liaisons...
Calling itself 'Tinder Online', the interface looks similar to the mobile app but with a permanent sidebar showing your messages, encouraging more conversation and less endless swiping. Having the app on desktop makes it feel more deliberate, maybe more intentional? Like rather than having a swipe on your phone while you've got five minutes waiting for something, you've sat down with a laptop to really have a good Tinder session. Is Tinder where you go to look for actual love? It does happen of course; I may have mentioned many moons ago my friend who had a whirlwind Tinder romance. Update: they're now happily married and expecting their second baby. Anything can happen! But I think if you went in with the mindset of looking for someone to have a proper, serious relationship with, you probably would go for a more traditional dating site?
Maybe this is more of a dating app/site hybrid that the Tinder generation can get on board with. If you're taking your love life a bit more seriously but don't want to go all in and register on match.com then it does offer a recognisable, casual format, but with perhaps stronger chance of finding people who want to talk and fall in luuuurve - at least from a glance at its layout.
I suppose the move towards talking and making connections is good or bad depending on what you're looking for; there were times in the past where I'd have a swipe on Tinder without any real intention to speak to anyone. Whether this is right or wrong, or even 'fair' is something people (men) may question... but tbh bugger off I don't owe you squat. The swiping itself is, I think, a useful practise - particularly if you're in that hideous phase after a breakup where you're miserable and can't imagine being with anyone else. Looking at people and purely thinking about whether you fancy them or not is a good exercise in being single, especially if you've been out of that mindset for a while.
The desktop version is expected to launch in the US later this year; first, it's being rolled out in countries where Tinder users struggle with weak or unreliable mobile signal, such as Brazil, Colombia and Indonesia, so that they can more easily use it over the Internet. Seems like a good move all round to be honest - more people able to use the app, more variety in the kind of experience you want to have! The deciding factor, I guess, will be whether a good number of users take these subliminal suggestions on board and move away from the traditional Tinder hookup. After all, if you're sat there on your laptop hoping to meet someone and you're still matching with the same mobile f@!$boys* then it's not gonna be much different. Only time will tell. Maybe stories like my unicorn friend and her husband will encourage more people to take Tinder a bit more seriously.
*My mum reads this column.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.