I was looking through Craigslist’s Missed Connections — for journalism, guys — and discovered that flirting in the city has apparently reached a new low.
According to one of the Missed Connections, a sweet sounding woman riding the 1 California tried in vain to
get a cute dude’s attention but was thwarted by Tinder. The guy was so
interested in “hot or notting” the women on his phone that he didn’t notice this gal's pretty fucking obvious attempts to get his attention. She even stalked followed him off the bus!
At first I thought the post might be a PR stunt by Tinder’s hype machine. But no, Tinder’s communications director told me that sadly, it isn’t. And then I tried to email the woman who posted the ad — I’m guessing she thought I was one of those creepy dudes who aren’t actually a Missed Connection and replies anyway (not cool). She never replied.
So I’m wondering, if it is true, has flirting in San Francisco reached a new low? I’m not trying to go all Carrie Bradshaw on you, but seriously, ignoring real-live flirting on Muni is taking our obsession with technology a little bit far.
I mean it’s cool that we all love our phones and that basically everyone uses some kind of online dating service to find what they’re looking for. And of course we’ve all seen the possibilities of artificial love in Her, where the hero falls in love with a piece of software.
But Her was a movie, and “OS One” was an artificial intelligence. This is San Francisco, and Tinder is an app that shows pictures. I mean, come on single people of San Francisco – get your shit together, to take out your earbuds, and look around. Notice when someone cute is flirting with you on the bus.