One amazing thing about the web 2.0 is that we now have the chance
to listen to the thoughts of people we would never get in contact
with in "real life". Not the wonderful people, the authors, who
become our companions when reading books, but the ordinary people,
who, not too long ago, would have never expressed themselves
publicly. More often than not the effect is devastating. Now you
get the confirmation that the thoughts and feelings of most
contemporaries are more deserted, banal and confused than you
would have ever imagined. On the other hand you can finally check
what other people making the same experiences think about it and
why they think about it that way.
I was watching a TV documentary about Tinder the other day. It was
part of a docu-series called "7 days" where TV reporters for one
week take on the role of "ordinary" people showing what their
occupation (work or leisure) feels like from inside.
If I get this Tinder thing right (I am not a user) this app will
suggest people you could flirt with based on the only criteria
that they must live nearby and you find them visually
attractive. Now, everybody who is not a teenager any more must
admit that this is a very bad idea: once a person who you might
find attractive opens his or her mouth, the attraction is usually
gone. I could never understand how an app like this would make the
process of getting to know somebody less painful.
And this is exactly what we see in the documentary. We learn that
the woman looking for a new partner gets 120 matches in the first
2 days (that means men, who have likewise flagged her as
"attractive") but we see her dating only 4 of them. And three of
these 4 dates are really painful to watch: the emptiness of these
guys is like a swirl that sucks in any word and any feeling,
disposing them in some other universe so they will never come
back. The only date with an interesting person doesn't work out
either (for reasons the viewer doesn't necessarily understand).
The interesting thing (and this why I write about it) came in the
very end when the lady was looking back at her 7 days as a Tinder
user. It is sad, she summarized, that from all these encounters
(we obviously saw only a small fraction of them) only one will be
remembered. That struck me as fascinating since I am sure that it
would have taken me weeks if not months to get the other, horrible
encounters out of my mind. Note to self: The power to forget
easily is a key competence for everyday life that I am definitely
lacking.
