Each week in “Love Apptually,” Daily Bruin staffers Nico Correia and Natalie Green will take turns attempting to find love in all of the wrong places: dating applications. To help thousands of loveless students, but mostly themselves, Correia and Green will test run and rate five dating apps over the course of one quarter.
I hate Bumble, the feminist dating app – something about this feels wrong to me.
But being a feminist doesn’t mean I’m a man-hater.
I believe feminism means equality, and if you don’t think that is sexy, once a Canadian environmentalist in Budapest wooed me by dancing with me to “Single Ladies.” He told me he was a feminist – twice – before taking me back to his bunk bed.
I thought I would love Bumble, advertised as former Tinder co-founder Whitney Wolfe’s empowered takeover of the dating app game. Like Tinder, users swipe yes or no, and when alerted of a match in her “hive,” the woman must message first. The other catch: The message must happen within 24 hours, which means my phone is constantly reminding me to give someone a “buzz.”
But here’s the downside: Every single man on Bumble is really, really ridiculously good looking. All are actors, models, singers, music producers and CEOs. All with chiseled faces and even more chiseled bodies.
To make matters worse, on those rare occasions when I swipe yes to one of the not-quite-as-attractive-but-still-stunning men with a playful bio, and they actually match me back, they either ignore my half-hearted attempt at an introduction, or the conservation dies out after a few stabs.
I simply believe that people that good-looking did not have to develop the same personality strengths the rest of us did, like intelligence, humor and kindness. My friend Noor tried to comfort me by telling me they are bots, and maybe a few are, but surely not all. Most are actually USC students.
These are the men attractive enough for women to message first.
The most devastating match was a man whose bio said he was his fifth-grade class president – I was my fifth-grade student body president. I immediately messaged him, and after days of silence, I am still convinced he’s the one.
Although I wasn’t planning to keep each app, I kept Tinder to maintain my self-esteem. Thank goodness Tinder remains a safe place where each time I swipe right, I’m rewarded with a near-guaranteed match.
My male friends and app suitors explained to me that this is all part of the two-to-one male-to-female Tinder dilemma. Post-Bumble blues, I feel much more sympathetic to the male dating app plight.
To cheer myself up, I went on a Tinder date with a nice man who unfortunately looked and behaved too much like a boy I made out with a couple of times in my freshman year.
Now, I’m texting a man who wrote me a haiku and recognized where my tacos were from by a photograph – needless to say, if the president doesn’t resurface, I have a backup.
What are your thoughts on Bumble bots? Email Green at ngreen@media.ucla.edu.