KNUCKLEHEAD NEWS

The vivacious blender whips up a frothy mocha java latte concoction behind the counter; a disgruntled middle-aged man looking so intently at his computer screen pounds away on the keyboard; two 20-year-old girls behind giant sunglasses discuss their crazy Thursday night in line. I slide into a booth at the crowded Starbucks and admire the glowing couple sitting across from me inserting straws into their Grande cups and giggling about something silly as lovebirds do.

 

I find out that these lovebirds are recently married. Lucy and Dillon Walker just got back from an African Safari honeymoon four days before. The young, blissful couple met almost two years ago when Lucy swiped right on Dillon’s photo on the popular dating app, Bumble. The rest is history and marriage and typical Starbucks orders for these two.

 

“My process is pretty simple. I’m not on Facebook. I’m not on anything, social media. Twitter, anything. My friends put me on that and then that was it,” Dillon explained about his Bumble beginnings.

 

This seems to be pretty typical for most dating app users: “my friend made me do it.” However, even your friend making you an account can result in success.

 

Both Lucy and Dillon agreed that Bumble was the best option for them compared to other dating apps. They found that it was more about dating and less about hooking up. While the initial step to join the app was daunting, they knew that this was a potentially easier avenue to dating and the reward could be a lifetime of happiness.

 

“I had to lower my pride because I got on this and I was like ok I’m getting on this to date,” Lucy said in regards to why she joined Bumble. “I just think it’s harder now to meet people with, like, work because most jobs are more demanding or you’re traveling a lot. This is an easier way to meet someone.”

 

What makes Bumble different is that the girl is the one to strike up the conversation. Once the girl has a match, she has 24 hours to send a message to the guy and await his response. The ball is in the ladies’ court. The girls are leading the way. This “not-so-typical” online dating experience relieves pressure for the guy, but could also lay on some intimidation and self-consciousness.

 

“I think it was fine. I liked it because you are out of control. It’s like hey hopefully she wants to talk to me or at least say hi,” said Dillon on his thoughts about girls making the first move.

 

Going into dating and especially online dating, the last thing anyone wants to do is lower their standards. Whether it be what your significant other is involved in, passionate about, believes to be true or how they spend their Saturday nights. These aspects of a person’s life are definitive and important when getting to know someone. Specifically, these characteristics could potentially cause for some serious conflict if the two people are not on the same page.

 

For Lucy, she ran into trouble finding guys she could relate to from the beginning. Her faith is something that is really important to her and she was not sure if the guys she was matching up with were on the same page about this. Although online dating seemed easier, it was not all heart eyes and boxes of chocolates. It became exhausting filtering through hundreds of dudes and not finding a single possibility.

 

“I got annoyed because I feel like I would go through a ton of guys and either they were like…you could tell right away that’s not what I’m wanting, or they looked like something I might want and then we started talking and I was like oh gosh no. So I decided to put something more about my faith on there. From there, the filter got better for who I was looking for,” Lucy said about her experience sifting through all of the guys.  

 

Dillon said the fact that Lucy had listed that her faith is important to her, was the reason he decided to swipe right when flipping through all the girls.

 

“Then she came up and the thing she said that attracted me was "my faith is important to me," and my faith is important to me too. That’s pretty much it,” Dillon explains.

 

The lovebirds are very thankful for Bumble and have even encouraged their friends to get on and see if they can have success as well.

 

“A lot of my friends are now starting to get on because they want to start dating someone seriously and have seen the success Dillon and I have had,” Lucy describes as she sips her iced coffee.

 

With technology becoming more advanced each day, dating apps will continue to grow and relationships amongst dating app users will flourish.

 

Who knows, maybe one day we’ll all be swiping right, or worse, left.