Rail Pios: A guide to the LC Tinder scene

*The Backdoor is a work of fiction and humor

By Mackenzie Herring

Lewis and Clark may have been seasoned pioneers, but even they never got to encounter the endlessly dynamic wilderness that is LC Tinder. For a school with a culture as synonymous with that of Tinder as Reed is with sobriety, LC truly has adopted its own form of Tinder infamy. Despite the campus being smaller than the projected success of “Tinder U”, you’ll still try to avoid all of the faces you see on this exciting app. Freshman looking for the famous hook-up culture that movies about college promise our youth instead will get to experience the awkward run-ins with faces they’ve messaged with but never got around to actually caring about.

Whether or not you’re on Tinder for a confidence boost from really desperate matches, or were talked into it by that one friend of yours who met their significant other on Tinder, you’re bound to encounter a few familiar faces on this interface: the “five star ratings” from both their mom and the New York Times, a lot of “Krusty Krab Fry cooks” for a group of people considered adults, unique and really helpful minimalist 3 word profiles, no profile at all but a linked spotify, someone who thinks that they’re Eddie Bauer with all of the nature pics they have (and accompanying full-body camo), the one that love to pose with various types of transportation (ex “I’m on a boat”), anthems that are meant to be ironic like Smashmouth’s “All Star”, anthems that are meant to be indicative of taste but are really just a lesser known songs off of a popular indie artist’s first album, 20 year old “CEOs”, tattoo and plant pics, Reed kids that you just know are Reed kids without having to read their bio, the people you swipe left on because they’re too attractive and dress too nice, memes instead of photos because then you know they have humor, and finally, the classic “swipe opposite of your political lean.”

But these are just the profiles you see! The all too familiar archetypes of intimacy deprived app-goers will make you feel like every person you meet is just a shell containing the same awful personality as your ex and somehow also possessing the unreasonable expectations of your mother. Want to continue the conversation off Tinder but are too afraid to give them your number? Great! Add them on Snapchat where your once promising correspondence will eventually fizzle down to you only viewing their story out of some odd sense of curiosity. Anyways, while your matches may be able to “smoke you out”, you’ll never get that high of true human connection.

But don’t worry, because what is really more Pioneer-esque than an LC student on Tinder? Facing what you know to be an unfruitful and intimidating way of playing the field, the endless and meager search with the only change being an increase in distance radius and a lowering of expectations. But hey, at least if you match with another LC student you can make another joke about the onions in the Bon. No one gets sick of that.