“It’s a Match!” - A qualitative study of university students’ reflections and behaviours when engaging in romantic and sexual relationships

The dating culture and how one can initiate romantic and sexual relationships have developed and changed over the years. The purpose of this research is to explore the Swedish university students’ dating culture. How Tinder is used and how self-presentation looks on Tinder versus offline among the students. The study uses 10 qualitative personal semi-structured interviews with Swedish students, between the ages of 18-24 years. The theoretical framework used in the analysis to help explain the data are Goffman’s self-presentation theory and Butler’s gender theory. The analysis reveals how social norms and presentation of oneself and others on Tinder and offline works differently. On Tinder the impressions of others are based on only their pictures, bios and sometimes texts, which can be misleading since the possibility of concealing parts that do not fit with the idealize role a person tries to be. While offline one can get a feeling of a person from their whole performance where it is harder to conceal parts of oneself and that makes it feel more authentic. Furthermore, some social norms were more apparent on Tinder than offline; people took more safety precautions meeting someone from Tinder than they would if they met someone from a club and people were shallower on Tinder, they went more on a person’s appearance than offline where they went on mostly personality.This thesis explores Swedish university students’, in Lund, dating lives and how they use Tinder to meet new people for romantic or sexual relationships, but also how they hook up with people in the clubs. Personal interviews were made with 10 students, 5 men and 5 women, where they were asked about their use of Tinder and how the engage in relationships offline as well, to get an insight of the difference between Tinder and offline. The study found that most people felt Tinder to be shallow and that you could easily misjudge another person on the app, since people enhance their idealize parts of themselves on Tinder. Offline, on the other hand, felt more authentic because of the chance to be able to connect with someone’s personality and not only viewing a thought-out profile on them. Still, though, the interviewees saw positive aspects of Tinder as well, it gives the opportunity to meet new people you might not otherwise have met, and also it gives a clearer sign that someone is interested in you than it does offline. That is because a match usually means the person you matched with finds you attractive and interesting, while at the club you have to look for more subtle signs, as glances and eye contact. The male interviewees found it easier to initiate contact on Tinder, as they thought a match was clearer. The female interviewees felt that it could be easier to hook up offline, since it usually just happens without thought and they would go by instinct. Even though, women got more matches than men, however the men usually were the ones who send the first message on Tinder. The study did also find that, all of the women took more safety precautions when they would meet someone from Tinder than if they would hook up with someone from a club. They made sure to meet in public and told a friend they were going on a Tinder date. This could be because on Tinder it is harder to really know who the person is before you meet offline. The men also said they took more precautions on Tinder than they would at the clubs, but not in the same extent as the women. Most of the men said they were not worried about their own safety when meeting someone from Tinder. It seems that on Tinder some social norms are more apparent, hence women are more cautious on Tinder than men, which acts out the gender norm of women feeling the need to take precautions when meeting a man for the first time. Furthermore, on Tinder the interviewees felt that people dare to write more things, sometimes even explicit or rude messages, than what they would dare to say offline. This is because on Tinder there are less consequence than it would be offline