As someone who doesn’t necessarily fit the “Grindr” mold of muscular/fit/twink, it can be incredibly difficult to peruse an app where you feel as if your chances of getting someone to respond is about as likely as Alaska Thunderf**k not saying “HIIIEEEEE” at a fan meet and greet.
I own my size and am proud of it, nor do I feel like my confidence gets diminished if someone doesn’t respond to me or blocks me the minute I say hello to them on any form of app. However, it’s always fascinated me how men will choose to message a blank profile with no stats compared to one that is front and center in terms of who the person really is.
The opportunity to test this sort of thing happened last night when I checked into a hotel in NYC. My intention for it was to go back on the popular gay app (I’ve deleted it many times before for my own reasons) and see how many men would hit me up if I left everything blank but my age.
I made it that much more interesting by adding that I was at a hotel, as it's sort of common for men who use the app for hookup purposes to want to say they are at a location like that. So, it was as simple as this: age, @hotel. Nothing more, nothing less.
There was really no intention for me to meet anyone, but this was something I wanted to really experiment with and find out why they would even hit me up in the first place based on pretty much zilch.
In the three primetime hours that I did this about 20-25 different profiles hit me up with a “Hey”, “Hosting?” or just sending me random pics of their bodies. Three of them blocked me when I sent them an actual picture of myself, a bunch didn’t even respond after I did and some of the others were totally interested (those I've kept in contact with).
It was something that left me confused yet fascinated about it all. Why do we feel the desire to want to hit someone up who is simply a blank screen?
The no photo thing on apps like Grindr is not a new thing, this has been going on for several years now. Yet many of us still contact them in hopes that the photo they send is, for one, actually them, and two, something that we are desiring this very moment.
I can understand the allure of it, however it’s frustrating how men who put all their details in their profile are rejected or blocked based off who they are. This goes beyond someone’s size, it can be because of many things like them being too old or even their race.
The summation of all of this really isn’t anything shocking or new, just something I wanted to try out from the perspective of someone who has had a love/hate sort of relationship with these apps. Bottom line… in real life someone can’t block you for simply saying hi. And that’s more than fine with me.
This post was created by one of our Contributing Writers and does not reflect the opinion of Instinct Magazine or the other Contributing Writers when it comes to this subject.
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