That’s amore! Or is it?

Image credit: Alashi, via gettyimages

Here’s the deal: I bet that at least 90% of those of you, right here reading this article, have heard at least once in their life about Tinder. It’s inevitable: in English-speaking countries, the renowned dating app has been an extremely exploited tool. A sort of geosocial, facilitating catalyst in the architecture of people’s social interactions. But love, supposedly a universal feeling, can be navigated very differently depending on a country’s culture. So, what’s online dating like in Italy?

It is no surprise that the vast majority of active users belong to the Northern regions: Milano climbs the charts, followed by Torino and university cities like Bologna and Padova. Where there’s a high concentration of 18-25 age groups, Tinder’s usage proliferates. The explanation for this concerns Italy’s unequal distribution of progress, whether that be social or political. Because of the more economically strategic position that the North occupies, people’s mentality has a better chance of being exposed to more innovation. This leads to more open-mindedness, when it comes to downloading and using dating apps like Tinder. However, just like the number of profiles being created increases, so do unsubscriptions. Various data suggests that almost half of the Italians who create a profile on the app, later unsubscribe.

So, what makes Italians so unsatisfied?

I thought the best way to investigate it from an organic perspective was to ask them directly. Firstly, Italians don’t seem to be fans of the “situationship” dynamic. Alessia’s account (21, single) reflects this quite well: 

“I don’t have Tinder. I think that in Italy it’s mostly used for a recreational purpose, for fun, essentially for everything other than serious and long-lasting relationships. On Tinder, you find people frustrated by previous exes, who seek freedom or have been rejected and want to redeem themselves, with something/someone to distract themselves. If a person aims to build more solid relationships, they’d prefer real encounters. That’s why I don’t and have never used social media for that, as they’re not the best way to meet people I have never seen in real life before. It feels too alienating, distant: I don’t know who I’m talking to, what sort of person they are and I don’t trust that. The right person will arrive in the real world, and that’s the only place I want to meet them in” 

There seems to be this sense of being almost stuck in the virtual world, when actually all it takes is asking someone out and participating in a 3D dating network. Some are willing to believe that there are those who use it with more serious intentions (Ludovica (20, single)). However, Valeria (20, single) mentions how a lot of Italians view it as something you should be ashamed of and ultimately hide. This could however apply more to the mentality found in the “provincia”, which is inevitably more old-fashioned and restrictive than not.  

On the other hand, Chiara (19, in a relationship) explains that despite the main agreement upon the attribute of casual, she doesn’t think that there’s a negative prejudice against Tinder. However, she does recognise that, at least in Italy, it’s not used to start a serious relationship (or simply to get to know people). She continues: “moreover, it’s not popular within young people, but more so with 30-40 year olds, which doesn’t entice so much its use.” Here, again, the lack of trust echoes. And it keeps being a common theme:

Matilda (20, single): “I don’t have Tinder: the idea of getting to know people online makes me anxious! Especially because of the catfish issue, talking to people “a scatola chiusa” (“sight unseen”). It just doesn’t inspire me, but I know a lot of people that use it, at university, who got lucky! What I also believe is that Tinder in Italy grows more popular amongst the LGBT+ community” (which explains the booming of matches during Pride month). “I’ve also  heard stories from my friends where they’ve been approached by creepy people, like sugar daddies, which adds to my skepticism towards the app.”

Clearly, risks are always present but isn’t that true for real life as well? Just because you meet someone on Tinder, it doesn’t have to stay on Tinder. Asking them to meet up can be an easy fix to the alienation felt by chatting purely online. The app doesn’t need to be controlling you, you’re controlling it: unmatching it’s a matter of seconds, because you can and should use the platform as you wish.

Image credit: Thomas Paterson

But there’s also those who would use it, as a people-watch device, but don’t for different reasons:

Chiara (20, single): “I had a fake Tinder profile a while ago, because I wanted to see who was using the app in my town. I found that there were people who used it seriously, surprisingly enough, but I got scared so I deleted it!”

Giulia (21, in a relationship): “I don’t have Tinder, already having a boyfriend, but I know that you can also find friends on the app... What I would like to try is setting up a fake profile (just like my boyfriend did). He made friends out of it, except for that time when he found this profile of a girl who was 1km away, also called Giulia and with similar pictures… That kind of freaked him out. I’m kind of old-fashioned when it comes to dating, but I don’t have any bad feelings towards Tinder. Who knows, maybe one day… if only I had less social anxiety!”

I relate to Giulia’s worry, but equally must say: chi non soffre di ansia sociale! Tinder could be perceived as something for extroverts, who are usually not afraid to put themselves out there. However, I would argue that it’s a much better tool for introverts, as there’s less pressure when it comes to first impressions if you can lay out what you want people to see and know about you, when they come across your profile. And that’s exactly what our last interviewee agrees upon:

Nicolò (21, in a relationship): “I think it’s a great idea, it allows people with common interests to find each other virtually- “nell’immediato”-. I’ve never had relationships that began through social media, purely because it never happened. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it and people shouldn’t be labelled because of it. It’s good to put yourself out there and, to be honest, social media like Instagram are used in the same way. Tinder’s only different because our intentions are simply more explicit.”

All in all, we should be expecting this kind of feedback: after all, Italians are generally warmer people (and I am generalising, as Marianne Sheridan quotes). Tinder presents itself as a velocity medium, that seems to steal meaning out of interactions, doomed to be casual. But I also think that it’s very limiting and dishonest to reach this conclusion. The truth is, we’re all searching for something that we don’t know of. And until we stop being vague about that, we’ll keep following the proverbio “fidarsi è bene, non fidarsi è meglio” (to trust is good, but not to trust is better).