It’s easy to think of 2012 as a simpler time. Indeed, it’s become something of a cliche for centrist media types to rhapsodise about the London Olympics as the last bastion of a more liberal age. Yet when it comes to dating, it’s difficult to deny that a decade ago seems like a different era entirely: a lost world of slipping someone your number, putting personal ads in a newspaper, or connecting with a bookshop magnate in an “over-30s” chatroom. Before “ghosting”, “catfishing” and “breadcrumbing” conjured anything other than children’s fairy tales.
Back then, Tinder – which celebrates its 10-year anniversary next month – felt like something of a fairy tale, too, designed to help people find their happy endings. International dating and relationship coach Christiana Maxion describes the thrill she felt when she heard about the dating app for the first time. “When a friend introduced me to the world of eligible, hot, New York bachelors via the swipe of a thumb, I wondered what on earth this sorcery was,” she laughs. Her second thought was simple: “Get this on my phone!” The idea of Tinder, she continues, “seemed like witchcraft, but the kind I wanted to dabble in.”
