Otherwise Known As:

STAR CROSSED MATCHES, or

JEDI TINDER TRICKS, or

THE SWIPE RIGHT AWAKENS, or

WHEN I DIDN’T WANT TO SEE SOLO, SOLO, or

A GALACTIC IDEA: That time I Thought About Inviting a Tinder Match to Star Wars

By Sarah Lockwood*

My relationships with Star Wars and Tinder are the exact opposite. I grew up with Star Wars. I’m on Tinder because I’m all grown up. My dad introduced me to Star Wars. My dad does not know I’m on Tinder. Star Wars characters are always in my heart. Tinder characters are, well, characters. 

One fretful afternoon, I considered uniting these paradoxical worlds.

It all started a short time ago in a galaxy quite nearby when my family saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens without me. Okay, okay, I was invited, but I had a friend in town and I chose friendship over starships. I figured it was cooler to sit back and let people freak out about it. I’d see it when the crowds died down, right? Right. that’s what I told myself.

That was Friday. 

On Tuesdays, my local theater has a special that makes movie tickets affordable enough to actually consider going. But Tuesday arrived and I had no one to go with. In just five days, both of my siblings had already seen the film twice. I was determined not to ask my parents or anyone who had already seen it for that matter. I wanted to experience Episode VII with someone else who was also seeing it fresh. I started ticking through my friends on my hand. She’s not into Star Wars, she’s already gone home for the holidays, I know she already saw it, he works nights now, she’ll definitely be going with her boyfriend… Blast!

I started feeling sorry for myself. I have no friends! My family hates me! I’m the only single person in this city!

But then,

What if I went with someone from Tinder…

A Star Wars date! It sounded so romantic. We could literally cuddle under the stars...and X-wing fighters and destroyers. 

I would also get a head start on my unofficial resolution to “get out there more,” i.e. force myself to go on dates #IRL. It was time to make my own luck. 

After all, I had just listened to Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari on Audible, and I was inspired by his findings about Tinder. While the app is notorious for hookups, it’s become an increasingly legitimate way to meet significant others and begin long-term relationships. That’s what Aziz says, so it be true.

(Pause. If you haven’t read Modern Romance yet, you should know it’s not just a comedy book. It’s full of surprisingly well-researched stories and trends about dating in today’s world. It’s painfully dead on, but mercifully softened by Aziz’s wit. Even better when you listen to him read it. Book Review Over.)

Back to my plan: asking a Tinder guy to Star Wars.

After all, a man who would want to see Star Wars with me would clearly have a solid appreciation of intricate musical motifs and deep characters. He’d be a J.J. Abrams fan, and he’d have a healthy affection for fantasy—not in a geeky Battlestar Galactica way, but in a he-cherishes-the-importance-of-imagination sort of way. He’ll be my very own Han Solo. He’ll whisk me away in his Millennium Falcon, and we’ll make out under the setting of three suns.

Now to find a date. I’ve only met one Tinder match in person, and I’ve deleted and re-added the app half a dozen times, so I’m a bit of a noob – or Padawan, if you will. In fact, I should really take a hint from my friend Cazey, because I’m still embarrassed to even talk about app dating.

I opened Tinder and started scrolling through my matches. Who to take? One of the twenty whose opening line was “What’s up?” The one who brags in his bio that he flosses his teeth? The one with hair longer and more luscious than mine? Or should I play Russian Roulette with the one whose profile pic is a group photo? Did I really swipe right to these guys?

Cue the panic. All of a sudden, the scheme felt pathetic. I couldn’t ask someone to see Star Wars with me. That’s third date material. Plus, what if he was a little too much of a fan? Like what if he wore a costume and/or talked about all the planets whose names I don’t know? What if he talked through the whole thing and ruined it? Worse, what if I couldn’t find a single Tinder match who would go with me?!

Overwhelmed with the extreme possibilities of the best- and worst-case scenarios, I froze.

I did nothing.

Whether I dodged a terribly awkward bullet or missed out on meeting my one true love, I will never know.

On Christmas Eve, I had to plug my ears and hum carols while my cousins discussed the movie. But I made it two and a half weeks without seeing or hearing any spoilers. So thanks, world, for being adults about that.

Ultimately, I ran into a friend on New Year’s Eve who hadn’t seen the movie either and was looking for someone else to see it with. (And good thing, because she didn’t seem to mind my cheers and tears throughout the nostalgic masterpiece that Episode VII turned out to be.)

As luck would have it, this friend is a Tinder Pro and has gone on tons of dates, which have turned into road trips, new friends, and even some multi-month relationships. The Force of the Right Swipe is With Her. Learn from her I plan to.  

*Sarah loves working in the glamorous world of magazine publishing and apologizes for the Star Wars puns. She couldn’t resist. Sarah and her dog, Merlin, live in a house that she somehow managed to buy in Richmond, VA. She’s always painting or hot-glue-gunning something and blogs about her adventures in homeownership and pretending to be an adult at CreativeAdulting.com and on her Instagram @CreativeAdulting.

**If you want to learn how to use Tinder without using Facebook, check out this article: 3 Ways to Set Up a Tinder Profile (Without Facebook).

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