Love Stories

Can we agree that no one really "likes" using dating apps? It's just that there aren't many better options anymore, and that's saying something because dating apps truly don't work very well.

A recent survey showed that about eight percent of people met their current or most recent partner on a dating app or website. That's...a pretty low number, considering these apps have been extremely popular and mainstream for well over a decade. Why aren't they more effective? Well, apps encourage people to look for stimulation and validation rather than real connection. They encourage shallow behaviors and preferences, and they make it easy to ghost and go find someone new at the drop of a hat—or just because you're suddenly not feeling the vibe.

All signs currently point to the problem, and dating apps in general, getting worse rather than better. And the excruciating "women only like tall men!" discourse will never recover from the latest development.

Tinder, widely considered the most popular dating app in the United States, recently added a new and controversial premium feature for some paying users. They'll now be able to filter out potential matches by height.

If you're a paid user with access to the setting in your profile, you'll be able to set a maximum and minimum height for people you'd like to match with.

Tinder is the top dating app in the United States. Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

Tinder actually isn't the first app to try this. Bumble previously had height filtering as a premium option before eventually removing the feature (though there's still an open spot in your profile to list it). Hinge has a height option as well. And now, Tinder. It's all part of Tinder's new rebrand to be taken more seriously as a way for Gen Z users to find real connection and relationships, as younger generations are less drawn to hook-ups. They're calling it a "broader effort to help people connect more intentionally on Tinder."

(To be fair, the height setting is not a hard filter. It's just a strong suggestion that helps guide the algorithm. It's also, for now, just a test and not a permanent feature.)

The trouble is that height seems to be the only physical attribute you can filter by, which plays into some really nasty stereotypes about heightism and online dating. But hey, preferences are preferences. Luckily, the announcement sparked a firestorm of interest and debate about the new feature—and dating app users have lots of ideas for new filters they'd like to see in the near future.

Weight filter

Yes, this is the obvious joke suggestion that's been made all over the Internet in response to Tinder's news. But it's kind of fair. Who gets to decide which physical preferences are offensive and which are legitimate?

Salary/Net income filter

It's perfectly reasonable to want a partner with a stable career. But do we really care about the actual career or do we just want to make sure they make enough money? Honestly. Some users would like to see a salary slider in the settings to weed out anyone who can't match their lifestyle, or who might get weird about splitting the bill on the first date.

Hair and eye color filter

You might prefer a partner with dark hair, and that might show up in your swiping preferences. But why bother swiping when you could essentially just erase light-haired people from your entire world with a filter? After all, what really matters is efficiency and saving everyone time.

Cup size / penis size filter

OK, look, I didn't say it, but this one has come up on all the dating app subreddits many, many times. Sometimes in jest, sometimes not...

Abs filter

It's not enough to be able to see whether someone has abs or not in their photos. To save everyone time and maximize efficiency, we should just auto-filter them out if they don't have a six-pack. Or, conversely, if you're not down with eating chicken and broccoli for every meal, you can filter the gym-heads out from the get-go.

Fishing/hunting filter

Women on social media have been clamoring for this one for a while, and would surely pay top dollar. We've got AI technology now; there's no reason we can't tell that a guy is holding a fish or a severed deer head in his photo and promptly remove him from the queue. The filter can work overtime for if someone's holding a gun.

Conversely, you might be really into these things, and the filter could end up working in your favor, too.

A hunting/fishing filter on Tinder: Who says no? Photo by luis arias on Unsplash

Onlyfans filter

Similarly, there's got to be a way to run text analysis on a profile to find out if the person is hawking a paid NSFW profile online somewhere.

Married filter

You'd think this wouldn't be necessary, but here are we. One survey recently found that an astounding 65% of Tinder users were married or in a relationship. Whether they're polyamorous, looking for a third, cheating, or something else... can we auto-scan the photos for a wedding ring or something? Run the names against a marriage license database?

Spelling and grammar filter

There's no reason that Tinder and Bumble couldn't partner with Grammarly and give us a sense of people's reading or literacy level, filtering out anyone who doesn't meet a certain standard.

Old photo / heavily filtered photo filter

Surely, we have the technology for this. If people are misrepresenting the way they look with fancy filters or outdated photos, then premium users should reserve the right to have those people removed from their queue. If the photo was taken with an Olympus digital camera circa 2002, let the filter do its thing!

Some users want the Tinder algorithm to weed out people with old or heavily filtered photosUnsplash

Some of the new filter ideas are clearly ridiculous. Others might actually be helpful. But put them all together and it paints a pretty bleak picture of modern dating.

Having preferences and likes or dislikes is totally fine, and a natural part of dating. The idea is that you're supposed to find these things out with your eyes or by actually talking to people and learning about them. Being genuinely curious about another human being you find attractive and interesting is part of the process. Skipping that by adding preferential filters that remove more and more people from your orbit is antithetical to what looking for love is supposed to be all about. And maybe that's exactly what Tinder and the other apps (many of whom are owned by the same corporation) are going for.

NPR cleverly points out that we shouldn't forget dating apps are run by for-profit companies. When two people meet on the app, fall in love, and settle down together, the app loses two crucial users. Keeping people frustrated, stuck on the app, and desperate enough to pony up for "premium features" and better filtering is the better move for them—and of course, spotlighting a few happy endings here and there just to give everyone some hope.

"Heightism" definitely exists in the dating world, and especially on apps, but it definitely seems like Tinder is intentionally stoking that fire to boost their paid user base. Now you've got short guys that are hurt and pissed off, and women that are sick of being accused of being shallow for their legitimate preferences, and everyone's angry at everyone else. It's a move that ultimately drives us further apart.