The Grindr experience
Okok, so I downloaded Grindr onto my phone. It has been out on Android for a while now, but so far I've been put off by all the negative reviews for it.
What triggered this change of heart you ask? Well, I met up with 2 friends from secondary school on Boxing Day, one of whom has Grindr on his iphone. As you do, we idly checked out what sort of other gays were in the area :P It is always always interesting to compare what we each find attractive.
Anyway, one particular guy's face caught my eye, and I just couldn't shake the memory from my head, so this morning I decided to download the app and see if I can find him again. And I did! I will also admit that in my search for this guy there were others that were quite cute too in their various ways.
And he's still cute, but reading the accompanying text more closely, it sounds like he's just looking for chat and well, I'm not >:P
All of which triggered the following thoughts:
1) Grindr encourages us to be entirely superficial. If that little square of avatar that jostles with everyone else's picture doesn't catch the eye well, then you get passed over. Given this environment, I have to wonder how effective this is at making friends or more in the long term. On the other hand, is it so different being in a big party with people you are not familiar with? Given no better basis, don't we all just start talking to people we find attractive?
2) Perhaps it is that Grindr enourages us to be judgemental that makes me uneasy. From the safety of a tiny screen, we can openly scoff at people, judge them unworthy, and well, be a bit of a douche. I think we're less likely to act like that when meeting people in person.
3) I put a lot of store in a person's smile as a measure of their personality. I don't think it is the worst way of judging a person, but it still feels superficial. Can you really judge a person by your first impressions?
4) I'm fickle. I'd almost say I fell in love with this guy's face, except for also finding several other profiles attractive. Story of my life really. And now that I've found it, well, I realize just how unrealistic my expectations were.
I still haven't decided whether to actually create an account yet, or just uninstall the whole thing. Any thoughts out there?
What triggered this change of heart you ask? Well, I met up with 2 friends from secondary school on Boxing Day, one of whom has Grindr on his iphone. As you do, we idly checked out what sort of other gays were in the area :P It is always always interesting to compare what we each find attractive.
Anyway, one particular guy's face caught my eye, and I just couldn't shake the memory from my head, so this morning I decided to download the app and see if I can find him again. And I did! I will also admit that in my search for this guy there were others that were quite cute too in their various ways.
And he's still cute, but reading the accompanying text more closely, it sounds like he's just looking for chat and well, I'm not >:P
All of which triggered the following thoughts:
1) Grindr encourages us to be entirely superficial. If that little square of avatar that jostles with everyone else's picture doesn't catch the eye well, then you get passed over. Given this environment, I have to wonder how effective this is at making friends or more in the long term. On the other hand, is it so different being in a big party with people you are not familiar with? Given no better basis, don't we all just start talking to people we find attractive?
2) Perhaps it is that Grindr enourages us to be judgemental that makes me uneasy. From the safety of a tiny screen, we can openly scoff at people, judge them unworthy, and well, be a bit of a douche. I think we're less likely to act like that when meeting people in person.
3) I put a lot of store in a person's smile as a measure of their personality. I don't think it is the worst way of judging a person, but it still feels superficial. Can you really judge a person by your first impressions?
4) I'm fickle. I'd almost say I fell in love with this guy's face, except for also finding several other profiles attractive. Story of my life really. And now that I've found it, well, I realize just how unrealistic my expectations were.
I still haven't decided whether to actually create an account yet, or just uninstall the whole thing. Any thoughts out there?