Let’s face it: in today’s society, organically meeting your next boo thing just doesn’t happen anymore. But, in a world where men open conversations with “Sup, ma?” and “I’ve seen you in my dreams,” women aren’t exactly finding their Prince Charming through traditional dating app methods. Bumble is the only app that breaks the typical dating mold: Bumble makes women make the first move.
But, how does it work? Bumble’s swiping feature is the same as other mainstream dating apps: swipe left if you’re not interested and swipe right if you’re feelin’ it. What’s different is what happens when you match with someone. It essentially eliminates the chances of getting bombarded by creepy dudes saying, “Hola bonita” at 2 a.m.
Women on Bumble think that they have the upper hand initiating conversations but that’s simply not the case. Guys can receive A LOT of initial messages from their female matches. At the end of the day, it’s up to the guys if they feel a woman is worth responding to. They can sit and nitpick profiles and if they don’t think they’re worth it, they won’t respond. Meanwhile, women are waiting on the other end thinking that they’re about to start the greatest conversation of their life. In reality, they won’t even get a single word reply.
As a female, when you match with someone, Bumble notifies you that, “you’re in control of this conversation” and, “you have 24 hours to make the first move.”
Having the ability to either start the conversation or ignore the match can be empowering. As women, we love the idea that we can pick and choose which matches we want to engage with. But what happens when a woman does make the first move and starts the conversation, but the guy never even responds?
Female empowerment? Gone.
Say that you do reach out to one match that you actually like. After a small conversation, you’re pleasantly surprised that he’s not a creep and you could see yourself hanging out with him. He’s asking questions about your life, he seems really interested in the conversation, and even hints at meeting up soon.
Then, radio silence. You realize…you’ve been GHOSTED. And not just regular ghosted, but ghosted by some random YOU decided was worth it from a dating app.
And boys are lazy. If their own mother doesn’t hear from them for weeks on end, girl, what makes you think he’ll reply in two minutes? They’ll wear the same shirt and shorts for a month because they’re too lazy to do their laundry. They obviously aren’t going to make an effort to remember to message a girl they met on a dating app three seconds ago.
You’re swiping left and right for what feels like hours and then BOOM! You match with Derek. He’s 6’2″, dark hair, blue eyes, and is working for a prestigious consulting firm downtown. Your heart pounds in your chest as you think of the perfect opening line. You settle for commenting on the cute dog he has in his profile, “Hey handsome, that’s such a cute dog in your pic!” (conversation starters are hard, okay?) Hard part over and if you end up married with five kids you get to say that you made the first move.
Derek responds the next day, “thx.” Dead end.
They’re also forgetful. Oh, you two made plans to grab coffee NEXT Thursday? Fat chance. You’ll message him Thursday morning to confirm and he’ll either ignore you completely or create some wild excuse that his frat bro’s pet chinchilla died and can’t make it.
Bumble really only does one thing: gives women the ability to initiate conversation. It doesn’t account for the possibility of women not getting responses or getting ghosted after starting a successful conversation. It doesn’t take into consideration that men don’t always have the best memory of setting dates a week in advance.
Women aren’t exiting the Bumble app with a sense of empowerment because they message a match first. Causation does not equal correlation and here, just because women message first, doesn’t mean it makes them feel stronger or more powerful.
Alexa, play “No Scrubs” by TLC.
