Tinder is not just for us average Joes and regular folk anymore
Apparently NFL players have even gotten into the swiping act. The Wall Street Journal, in a story that surprised and amused me, got several footballers from the Jets to talk about their experiences on the uber popular dating and hookup app.
Most said they weren’t exactly leading with their professional athletes statuses to explain who they were. They want real love, the men say. Jets right tackle Breno Giacomini is quoted a number of times in the piece. He says that on Tinder his practice is to tell women—at least initially—that he’s a construction worker. Technically this isn’t a lie; he was a construction worker at one point earlier in life. Later, Breno breaks it to ladies that he is, in fact, a pro athlete.
Cornerback Kyle Wilson says in the Journal article that he joined Tinder to try to meet women he wouldn’t encounter otherwise. Football groupies don’t appeal to him apparently. “You don’t want anything too easy,” he said. To me, him putting it that way is at least a little comforting.
I guess, thinking back, the first mention of celebrities using Tinder crept up earlier this year when it was revealed that Olympians were getting busy in the Athletes Village in Sochi thanks to Tinder. The app was facilitating all kinds of between-competition hanky panky.
Still, I guess this revelation of celebrities taking to Tinder is a tad unexpected. The overriding belief is that they have more means to meet people, more allure, more money. Why would they need a technological intervener that’s in use by the general public?
So far my one brush with celebritydom on Tinder turned out to not be a real celebrity encounter at all. A tall, dark and handsome gent liked me and I swiped right for him. His photo, right off the bat, looked familiar in that “maybe we’ve met in a previous life” sort of way. But I couldn’t place him. Then we got to messaging. The guy soon let me know that he could send me his real photo now that I seemed cool enough from our convo.
“Real picture?” I responded, incredibly confused.
“Yeah, my sister’s also on Tinder and I don’t want her to know that I’m on. So I took a picture of an actor and used it for my profile picture.”
“What?”
And then I thought, ah-ha. That’s why he seemed so familiar. Just which famous face, though, was he using in place of his own? Turns out it was Matt Bomer, the pretty boy from “White Collar” who was in the running to play the lead in “50 Shades of Grey.” Not so famous as Brad Pitt to immediately be a give away but famous enough that I should have realized my Tinder suitor was a fake.
Oh well. Maybe if I keep on Tindering my next match will be a Redskins (or whatever we call our NFL team these days) player on the hunt for more than yardage during the game.
–Dena