An oxymoron it seems like, doesn’t it? Grindr etiquette. But alas, it does exist—and here are some tips so we can all Grind a bit more happily in 2013.
First and foremost, Grindr is your oyster: it is what you make it.
All too often, you have insipid and inept Grindr pundits who tell everyone, “Let’s be honest: this is a fuck app.” Well, not for everyone, but yes, for you. Congrats. Like any social media app, Grindr is nothing more or less than what you make it and no one has to fall into the way that it plays off of male sexual compulsivity and tactlessness unless you wanna play with it. Think of Instagram: though the essential aspect of the app remains the same for all—to share pictures—some people use it as a professional portfolio, some use it as a showcase of what disgustingly goes into their stomachs daily, some use it as a public mirror… Grindr is no different. There is the essential aspect that remains the same for all—it connects queers guys—but what it connects queer guys for is entirely up to you. If you feel dirty, grab a bottle of Purel before and after handling.
Be smart with your self-advertising: don’t say you’re here for “just friends” followed by “prefer latin/azn, top, 8c.”
This sounds easy but it’s not (though some achieve it… overwhelmingly well). Beyond the all-too-common, magical Internet ruler (as if average men on Grindr assume they can oust scientific fact by skipping past the 5 button straight to 8), there are other false advertisements that even corporate America finds egregious. Don’t you dare have the audacity to claim a “face pic is REQUIRED” upon initial contact when your profile is a close-up of your denim-covered thigh or a deeply redundant sunset shot. Don’t you dare contemplate having utterly idiotic claims of “no fems, masc only” when your bright blue cocktail is being held up in the air like a bachelorette gone wild with her Boone Farms spritzes. Don’t you dare claim you want a “clean and nice guy” when your room makes Superstorm Sandy say, “Ew.” And my gods, please, for the love of everything homo, do not have talks of proclaimed intelligence and “real men” and professionals when **((~~uR pRoFilE lUks LyKe a 8y/O jUs DiSScOv3r3d A KEYboArD*^*))~~**
People aren’t as stupid as you think: your flip-phone from 2004 gives it away.
Much like the aforementioned Internet ruler, your grainy and pixelated mirror shot taken with your Motorola Razr (the OG one)… Well, 99% of the Grinding world smells sketch and wants to give you a Darwin Award. Much like the morons who Photoshop-fail because they only edit themselves in their mirror shots instead of the reflection as well, everyone knows Grindr requires one thing: a smartphone. You don’t have pictures on your phone? You’re too busy to send pics right now but you’ve been logged on all day? These strictly stupid statements on top of your dismally disdainful profile pic (my gods, how long have you held onto that picture?) makes absolutely zero-zilch-no sense to anyone living in 2013. Yay for regressive evolution!
Hats and sunglasses (particularly in your bathroom) are for the most part entirely creepy.
This is the hijab of the Grindr community. Hate to break it to ya, but there is a reason that all your friends love the pic of you in your glasses but aren’t so thrilled with other photographic interpretations of your face: it amplifies your attractiveness because it covers key features—mainly your eyes and your head. Even the most troll-like of men can seem fairly attractive if they cover half their face. So stop acting like you were a bride bought for land and oil and take the covers off. It’s… It’s seriously annoying. And for the sake of class, if you’re insistent upon the whole hat-n-glasses thing, at least step outside of your dingy bathroom so your hermit-factor drops down a (half) percentage point. Masks, anyone?
Properly communicate—be it via the block button or a textual response.
There is, for some unbeknownst reason, this extremely perplexing thing that happens to the neurons of humans once they get to hide behind a computer screen: they lose all sense of reality. Quite literally. The general rule is that you should communicate like you would with any human interaction. Re-play the scenario in a bar and your response in that situation will help you guage how to approach. If you don’t like someone, Grindr niftily created the block button (though personally, I think wit wins over idiocy). If you’re bored, don’t expect your boring responses to provide you entertainment in return. If you’re interested—be it in chatting or otherwise—then talk. And if you want someone to rail you with a bacon-covered phallus, well… You’re just special.
Own yourself: you are who you are and if you try to hide all that, it’s just lack of confidence and honesty.
Here is the crux of this whole sitch: if you are trying to “attract” more guys by excluding details about your physical appearance, why the hell would you want—even for a one night stand—to be around someone who would reject you for such characteristics in the first place? You’re only doing one thing and that’s lengthening and worsening your cry-me-a-river moments in the shower due to lifelong fears of rejection. If they don’t like you for you who are, well… screw ’em (not literally but you get my drift). Like one of the Queens of Comedy, Adele Givens, said, “I don’t care what’s wrong with you or how fucked up you think you are, somebody out there loves your ass. So if you’re buck-toothed, bitch: relax. Chill out, Bucky Baby, you gonna be alright. ‘Cause I bet there’s a man in the house right now who want nothin’ less than a bitch who can bite an apple through a fence.”
Ahhhhmen.
Now go. Be merry. Go on block binges. Have conversations with those you will never ever meet. Exchange inappropriate pics. Ask someone on a date. Meet a person for coffee.
As I said, Grindr is your oyster.