University of Maryland alumna Elizabeth Pickens started using Tinder in 2014. Within six months, she met her future fiance. Now, the couple is set to marry in October.
Pickens is part of the five percent of Americans who are in a committed relationship with someone they met online, according to Pew Research Center. Young adults, aged 18 to 24, are increasingly using online dating apps to get to know people and hook up — or, in cases like Pickens’, meet their future partner.
In 2013, 10 percent of young adults used online dating apps. Two years later, that spiked to 27 percent, according to the Pew study, while more than 50 percent of Americans thought online dating is a great way to meet people.
What makes a good dating profile versus a bad one? There doesn’t seem to be a specific recipe, but Pickens said the most important thing to remember while using a dating app is to stay true to yourself.
“Both my fiance and I wanted a relationship,” Pickens said. “If that is why you are on a dating app, [then] do not change your standard to hook up to meet someone else’s expectations.”
Physical attraction and having mutual interests is often enough to prompt a swipe right, said Kamran Iqbal, a senior government and politics major.
“Tinder is really simple [to use],” Iqbal said. “Sometimes I get bored, and it’s a good time waster, but it is also fun to talk to people, and it can be an ego booster.”
What’s the fastest way for Iqbal to swipe right?
“If I generally find someone attractive, I’ll swipe on them,” he said. “But if they have memes or animals, I’ll swipe on them anyways.”
Sergio Morales, a senior American studies major, said showing off a pet and pictures of someone having fun are something he looks for in a profile. Morales said he likes “interesting” bios rather than bulleted lists.
Deal-breakers, on the other hand, can be easier to identify, said Morales, who has used a number of different dating apps.
“Deal-breakers would include if she’s culturally insensitive or [a] Nazi,” Morales said. “It’s happened to me before.”
Pickens said she didn’t like when there were expectations of immediate sex and if the person in question was not looking for commitment.
“If you just want to hook up, make that your priority,” Pickens said.
She added that dating apps “can be a great blessing or a curse based on being true to yourself and managing expectations.”
Huda Turabi, a senior information science and Japanese major, used OKCupid for three months in 2016 when she met her current boyfriend.
Turabi recommended that people prioritize the contents of bios and messages over looks and pictures. If someone’s messages were unengaging or she found them creepy, she’d lose interest in talking to them.
“I didn’t like the spam of ‘Hey’ and the cheesy ‘are you X? Because Y’ messages in my inbox,” Turabi said. “Because it sometimes drowned out genuine conversations.”
Iqbal and Morales both said the political beliefs of people they match with are something they seriously consider when looking through profiles. But Iqbal said people’s dating profiles don’t often accurately portray the people behind them, and warned against getting obsessed with the apps.
“It’s important to remember they don’t reflect the ‘real’ you or others,” Iqbal said. “It’s kinda just a lens you’re seeing them through.”
