Tinder is an app marketed for “online dating” often used by high school students to meet and talk to new people. When two Tinder users’ profiles come up on the other’s profile, and both of them “swipe right,” meaning they “like,” each other, they will receive a notification that they have matched and can send messages.

As part of my ongoing investigation regarding online dating (mainly Tinder) in high school, I decided to get an account of my own. Because Tinder is linked to Facebook, Tinder knows my birthday and can figure out my age, so it put myself in the 13-17 age group.

Unsurprisingly, the majority of people I swiped through were around 16-17 years old. However, then I began to come across the occasional 14-year-old. For those who can’t quite visualize that, that’s the average age of an eighth or ninth grader. More shocking, however, was the fact that 17-year-olds, even those potentially only a month or so from turning 18, could match with a 13-year-old.

Once I got past that snag, I was bombarded with matches and messages from all the people I had randomly swiped yes to as for the intent and purpose of this experiment, I did not swipe-discriminate.

As a nice introduction to Tinder, my very first message from a match was, “Anal?” Not only was I creeped out, but I was pretty worried this was representative of the entire male population on Tinder. I was right to be worried. The next few messages I received inquired upon my availability to send nudes, and a few asked where I lived and if I wanted to meet up.

When I finally received a message that sounded relatively normal and started off with a “Hey” like most conversations do, within a few messages he brought up his liking for beer. He was 17.

A few conversations started off creatively, like the guy who used a math pickup line, and others eventually sent normal messages claiming they were on Tinder “just for some conversation,” though one would think there are far better venues for a conversation besides a hook-up app. Read more