If you don’t know what Tinder is, well, that’s actually why I’m here. To tell you about Tinder.

Consider me your personal tour guide to a newly-discovered corner of the world: smartphone dating apps.

Yes, you read that right. If you do know about Tinder, this article will also be worth your time because, even though I have only been using Tinder for about 24 hours now, you will hear how I’m using it.

Essentially, Tinder is a dating app where you upload information from your Facebook profile, including six pictures and a small biography. Then, local singles look through your profile and either ‘like’ it or ‘dislike’ it.

Similarly, you also go through profiles of local singles and either like or dislike their profiles. If two people mutually like one another’s profiles, they are matched up and given a chat screen to arrange a hangout, date, whatever people do.

You have no way of finding out who has liked or disliked your profile, so you can like profiles without worrying about embarrassment.

That’s right, guys. You can literally like the profile of every single girl within a 160km radius and no one will ever know, except for, you know, a Tinder moderator, and an NSA agent, but still.

It actually is quite a neat idea. When my friend, Sara, suggested I try it, I was quite hesitant because online dating seems like a thing for someone in their mid-thirties who has a lot of cats to try, not a university student.

However, there are actually a lot of Trent girls on Tinder.

Tip: Girls love this app.

I cannot comment on the number of heterosexual guys using the app because when I turned my search on to include guys, I’m pretty sure it only included those who also had guys turned on their search engine.

There were a few, but I think people searching for same-sex relationships generally stick to other apps.

I’ve heard of an app called Grindr, which is supposed to be Tinder, but for people looking for same-sex relationships.

Sara did say there are a lot of cute guys using the app, though.

Online dating has a stigma. For example, Sara didn’t want her real named used, so I used Sara (Eds: Not that Sara though).

Also, I myself feel a twitch of embarrassment admitting that I use the app, but, hey, all in the name of good journalism, right?

So, I found a girl on Tinder and it was love at first sight. I mean, she was definitely a ‘like’, but I’m a man about substance, so I had to read her bio before pressing ‘like’. It stated: “Must be 5’10 to get on this ride.”

After shedding a few tears, my sadness turned into anger at my mother for being short and marrying a short man. If she had only let my father live an empty, lonely life, and had married a taller man, I wouldn’t have to forgo the lonely life that I was going to embark on.

After the emotional turmoil, I realized that this is the Internet and lying about my height is easily done.

I cropped my photos so I looked tall, updated my bio to include my height at 5’11” (only 5 inches taller than my actual height—ahh details.) Brad Paisley was right; I am so much cooler online. I hope she likes me back.

One awkward thing about Tinder is finding people you know in real life. I like all their profiles so if they like mine back, our next encounter can be all kinds of awkward and fun. Except for the one person that I knew a little too well.

Hard pass on my cousin, Tinder.

I would urge you not to put an age restriction on when using the app because age is really just a number. I don’t actually mean that, but what I do mean to say is that seeing older people on Tinder is hilarious.

Just like Facebook and Twitter, the younger generation started using it first, but our parents, teachers, and elders eventually got on-board as well.

Don’t restrict your horizon to only those in your age bracket. Just imagine, wouldn’t finding a professor or a friend’s parent make all that flicking through profiles worthwhile?

This is also how you can claim you use the app sarcastically. (You’re welcome.)

Although I am planning on deleting my account, I’m not doing it right away. I’m a hopeless romantic and meeting a girl on Tinder is, well, simply put, not meeting a girl in a super amazing way.

I did find a practical use for it for the time being, though.

I found a profile of a girl I met briefly in real life, and I actually am really into her. I am terrible at picking up on hints, though, and really can’t tell if she is into me. So, I liked her profile and I’ll give it a week for her to find mine and like it.

If she does, that takes out a bit of the stomach-wrenching guess work that comes with meeting someone new.

If she doesn’t like my profile, I’ll still be left guessing. (If you’re reading this, sorry for writing about you in the newspaper.)

I’m still skeptical as to whether girls use the app to actually meet guys. Sara doesn’t.

She said, “It is just a confidence booster. It’s cool when people like you, but it doesn’t mean you want to meet up.”

I don’t know if she actually meant that, or if she was just saying that to impress me because there is the stigma attached to online dating that people will lie. (Sorry, Sara, I do believe you, most of the time.)

She did admit that one of her friends meets guys off of Tinder, though, but her friends call her “that girl:” Tinderella.

All in all, it is a really neat idea and a great way for shy people to meet in a low-risk way. Tinder is a new thing around Trent and Peterborough, but in other areas like Toronto and the U.S., I’ve been told, it is becoming quite mainstream and really is challenging the stigma that online dating has been tagged with.

We have sites where we can tell people about the events and problems in our lives in just 140 characters or less, document our lives through pictures, wish people “happy birthday” on their walls … I really don’t see anything that different with an online speed dating system like Tinder.

I’m just a little too Ted Mosby for Tinder. Like most girls that viewed my profile today said: Hard pass, Tinder.