“If your left leg is Christmas, and your right leg is Easter, can I come for dinner between the holidays?” – a genuine Tinder chat up line.

I have to admit, to myself and to my friends, I caved in. And in my defence it started as a social experiment. Yeah…that’s what they all say for not wanting to sound desperate.

I had overheard a girl talking about her new Tinder account and saying that she had gotten six matches in the thirty minutes of her getting a profile. She was then congratulated by a guy who clearly wanted to be amongst those contenders himself and for a moment it seemed like being successful on Tinder would win you actual desirability points. Considering my lacklustre success in the dating department at Cambridge, it goes without saying that I felt compelled to get more of these said points. If anything, I’d end up with a funny story to tell my friends back home.

The appropriate photos were selected with help from my college husband – a male opinion is apparently what you need to get ahead in the game – and a brief description so to say ‘I’m not trying to be cool, it just so happens that I am’  and the swiping began.

I knew I was picky but this was a massacre of Spartan proportions. At first I was disappointed with the array of choice and of course complained about it. Then I realised what a shallow and objectifying attitude Tinder was giving me. Sure I found some guys with killer cheekbones and hipster beards, but I never thought I’d be so quick in sealing their fate. It was 21 matches and four date offers later, out of which two had only some sort of contraption taped (not joking, as in scotch taped) over their nether areas, that the novelty kind of wore off.

In the short term, it did wonders for my self confidence. 2am ‘come visit my college' propositions aside, it does feel satisfying to be matched by people you yourself thought were attractive. It might just give you hope that one day you’ll find someone with the brains and the looks. But there’s a massive flaw in the whole Tinder experience: the premise of the said ‘match’ is purely based on looks which is why the conversation, virtual or not, often falls behind so quickly. As fun as it may be, it is only contributing to the objectification of both sexes. I would be very surprised if the same pheromone-driven impression that made you swipe right in the first place would also happen on a first Tinder date. Call me a technophobe or a cynic, but I feel like the brevity of that moment when you first lay eyes on that majestic photo of a guy with his top off, uncomfortably tensing, to when your hormones decide to swipe right is inevitably going to mirror your brief Tinder relationship.*

* She says as she swipes away on the library wifi after using up all her data allowance for the next month…