"Voulez vous coucher avec moi ce soir?”. This isn’t just a Labelle lyric, but also the opening line of a recent Tinder encounter. At least it made more of an attempt at culture than, “Sit on my William?”. Though it lacked the wit of another charmer’s, “You’re saucier than a direct hit from the Heinz factory”.

Tinder: the smartphone dating app that blends profile matches and texting. Or, as urban dictionary puts it, “The McDonalds for sex”. It gathers basic information from your Facebook profile to match you with like-minded people. Compatibility is based on geographical location and mutual friends and interests. For the uninitiated: you see their photograph, then swipe right to like or left to disregard. It’s all anonymous until someone you ‘like’, likes you back. Thumb’s the word. And then you chat. And the rest, as they say, is history?

According to Tinder, it is. The app claims to generate more than six million matches a day, and says there have been fifty resulting marriage proposals. Such is its popularity that a new condition has been diagnosed: Tinderitis. The localised pain is, apparently, a harmful side effect of incessant swiping. It has even widened our vocabulary, seeing the invention of novel terms such as ‘tindercide’, ‘tinderoni’ and ‘tindernoia’, among others.

Many students need a helping hand on the dating front, yet online options seem more reserved for those in their thirties. Hello, Tinder! Little time investment is required, ditto personal information and it can be passed off as a bit of fun. It gives us the confidence we might have lacked in reality. It has encouraged a dating revival.

It is well-suited to our time-deprived lives. Five minutes of bored procrastination in the library? What better way to pass the time than checking out the locals? And most of them, you already know. Countless Cambridge hook-ups happen thanks to Tinder. That guy you met on a swap? Check. The girl you spotted in the UL? Ditto. Pre-Tinder, you had to hope to somehow bump into them in Fez, or embrace the bold Facebook add. Now, there is an alternative. All without the fear of rejection: because Tinder appears to suggest suitors at random, if that girl hasn’t liked you back, it might just be because she hasn’t come across your profile…

Is there any validity in judging others solely by their appearance? This is, indeed, part of Tinder’s charm. We constantly judge people on appearance, and Tinder rewards this. Judgement is the name of the game.

It appeals to our ego, tapping into what we all want to know: who, of those we find attractive, is attracted to us. Matching with the guy you’ve been checking out is instantly gratifying, and adds to the addictive nature of the app, fuelling a craving for approval. And all without emotional investment. As a generation with a craving for immediacy and a reliance on smartphones, it seems fitting to surrender even this aspect of our lives to our hand-held device.

Tales from Tinder...

Rich: “It’s pretty addictive. I know a girl from Magdalene with over a thousand matches”

Jess: “My friend met an England rugby player through Tinder - Marland Yarde - and went on a couple of dates with him. They had sushi on their second date”

Amy: “My friend went on a tinder date with a guy who ‘worked in music’ at the Junction. She queued for an hour by herself before he turned up
because he ‘doesn’t do queues’ and it turned out he in fact worked in McDonalds”

Judith: “I’m hideously generous with my Tinder likes”

Best Chat...

SAM: “Hey babes. What has seventy two teeth and holds back the Incredible Hulk? My zipper”

Josh: “I bet your name is Jacob. You’re a real cracker”

Will: “You are one hot slice of berry pie”