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[Love & Sex Issue 2016]

In Vegas’ dating desert, Tinder isn’t just about the hookup

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Aww, they swiped right.
Photo: Christopher DeVargas

We’re drinking rum and debating the purpose of Tinder and toilet-seat covers. Nick swears the little tissue flap is designed to protect man-parts, and that the app doesn’t favor meaningful connections as much as hookers looking for “roses.” This very weird conversation is happening around his theory that Luna swipes through potential love matches in the bathroom.

“Just admit it, you’re on the toilet,” he says.

“You know when you’re on Facebook while you’re watching TV? That’s when I do it, when I’m bored,” Luna says.

“Aaaaaand when you’re on the toilet.”

“I don’t take my phone into the bathroom, because that’s gross.”

“It’s not like you’re taking a cocktail in there!”

It’s banter made for messaging on Tinder, a 3-year-old social interface boasting 9 billion matches, “friends, dates, relationships and everything in between.” This tiki bar is full of people trying to make it happen the old-fashioned way, but I wonder how many are checking their phones in the can ...

All seven of my drinking buddies here tonight have tried Tinder, with wildly varying degrees of dedication and traction. It got recommended to Nick by a friend in LA who said she met lots of cool people. But his first exchange was with a girl dropping hints about hanging out for 150 roses, which he found out was code for dollars thanks to Google. That wasn't the only turnoff. “I don’t like the fact that Tinder’s hooked into Facebook, so you’ll come across somebody where it’s like, you know this person who knows this person, and I don’t want them to know who I know!” he says with a laugh.

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Luna likes that aspect, and has hit up people who know people for intel after a match is made and before a date is accepted. Tinder is mostly a diversion for her, but she still has certain standards. She swipes left on anyone who speaks in emojis or offers a foot massage without even saying hello first. And she's not into lines. She shares a recent gem: So I was on my phone today when I was driving, and a cop pulled me over. He asked what I was doing on my phone, and I showed him your profile on Tinder. He let me off with a warning and said I better get your number.

“I did not respond to him,” she says. “If they seem normal—just saying hi, tell me about yourself—I will respond. But I also have in my profile that I'm not in for random hookups. So as soon as they start getting weird I don’t respond. I mean, dogs are clearly a big plus. I almost automatically swipe right if they’ve got a cute dog.”

The only thing more powerful than a cute dog might be a Super Like. It lets your potential match know you're serious, because you're using the word “super,” and because you've got a limited number of Super Likes to dole out (standard users get one a day; premium users get five). My girl friends Jo and Mel don't use it because they think it comes off clingy. My guy friends don't use it either, Eli because it makes him feel 12, and B.G. because he doesn't take it lightly.

“Here’s the comparison I'll give you: My Ford Taurus that got set on fire, it had an A/C and a max A/C. Drove the car for four years, never once used the max A/C, in the desert, 100 degrees. I was always waiting for the one time when it felt like I needed that boost. So that’s what I’m waiting for,” says B.G. (yes, his car really did get set on fire). As far as the app’s love-finding potential, he says you have to be a lot more attentive than he is. “I pretty much use it as a game. Tinder is full of people who’ll either never check it or just send movie quotes and then see how long it takes people to catch on. I feel like you have to wade through so much sh*t that it is very unlikely; but sure, it’s possible. The same way that it’s unlikely that one of us would meet our future husband or wife in this bar tonight, but it’s possible.”

Jo had been waiting for that magical kismet. She waited for two and a half years after moving to Vegas, finding it pretty impossible to meet anyone under any sort of normal circumstances. So one night she “gave in” to Tinder, after watching a guy friend gleefully swipe through women in his area. She chose it over traditional online dating services because it was free, easy and allowed her to see what was out there with boundaries intact. And there's a lot out there. Between logins last week, Jo got a notification that 230 more people in her 30-mile radius had liked her. But she’s admittedly picky and rarely swipes right. And she has some rules.

“My big dating stipulation is, they have to talk first. I still want the guy to make the first move,” she says. Of course she looks for details about profession and pastimes and personality, but the other big stipulation is that they have to be local. She's looking for something real, which does not involve someone visiting from Kansas. There are plenty of Tinder users in Vegas who are that guy or girl, in for the weekend and looking for stringless fun. But Jo says the app's reputation for soulless hookups is mostly a stigma, especially here. “Because Vegas is so hard to date in, a lot of people are actually looking for relationships. ... If they’re local, I would say 70 percent are not in for hookups.” That doesn't mean they put it all out there on their profiles. “They’ll never say, ‘Looking for a serious relationship.’ But a lot of them will say, ‘Looking to spend time with someone and share all my hobbies.’ You can tell they’re looking for something a little more serious.”

So far, Jo has gone on two dates. One was awful, one was wonderful. Not so different from the odds of an IRL connection, but Eli points out that Tinder “clears the initial air of: Am I interested? Are you interested? So you’re already starting past step one.”

He agrees with Jo that it’s tough to meet people “organically” here if you’re looking for more than a fling. He’s not on Tinder to hook up, but he doesn’t have particular expectations about a relationship either—partly because he’s laid-back, and partly because he’s been propositioned by so many randos seeking weed and bots tied to naughty webcams (he's gotten the “roses” pitch, too). The handful of dates he's been on have ended, at best, in friendship with a side of affirmation. “The thing I get most often, with every girl that I’ve gone out on a date with, is that the reason they continued to talk to me is because guys on those apps are awful—every five seconds they’re like, ‘Let’s hook up. Here’s my hotel room. Here’s a dick pic.’ Or, ‘Hey I have money. I work in nightlife. I’ll get you into a club.’ Most of my success on the app is just being nice, or the fact that I’m not really interested in hooking up. That’s not what I use it for.”

You won't get that information from his profile, which Eli says is entirely a dumping ground for jokes (“If you don’t think I’m funny, I’ve got not a lot else going for me”). He says GIFs are 80 percent of his game, so he's stoked that a recent Tinder update included the capacity for them. He may not be playing the long game like Jo, but he believes the swipe can lead to something meaningful.

“I genuinely like meeting people, so that’s the best benefit for me, even if the date’s not good,” he says. “You never know. That’s the same as regular dating, isn’t it?”

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