Whether you’ve found yourself a perfect significant other or are single as a Pringle, there is no doubt that at one point or another you have found yourself desperately setting up a Tinder profile. At least that’s what I did, in Malta.
And what a place the Maltese dating market is. I’ve never reached the end of Tinder before, but in Malta I’m sure I have swiped my way through all of the profiles. And let’s be real – changing the settings to age 65+ with the hopes of finding a sugar daddy isn’t an option for everyone either.
While guys have told me the options for girls are countless compared to theirs, that says nothing about the quality of the meat. In the neat selection of Maltese guys with at least one fishing pic and Scandinavian guys working in iGaming with no life ambitions, I am yet to find someone I would genuinely like to meet (or hook) up with.
That being said, I still have a massive advantage: I am not Maltese. So the chance of accidentally swiping right on that hot cousin on your dad’s side isn’t one of my fears – unlike for some of my friends. And if you aren’t somehow related, you will surely have entire friend groups in common. No one is unknown to anyone in Malta.
Even without having a certain type, it also seems like everyone on Tinder is the same. You can imagine every guy living at home, eating Twistees for breakfast and wearing grey sweatpants in their third-hand car.
Or for the foreign versions, getting completely wasted on watered-down drinks in Paceville while talking about their iGaming salary on any given weekday.
By the way, when did travelling and fitness become character traits? Do you really lack so much personality that going to the gym and having holidays twice a year adequately describes who you are as a person?
But if you look past all of that, you’ll get to the part where you’ve actually matched. If they even dare to send the first message, do not expect anything thought-provoking. A simple “How are you?” seems to be the most guys can come up with these days. What happened to creative pick-up lines?
After the initial hellos and copy-pasted introductions, I’d say you end up actually talking with about one out of five people you match with. Some conversations last days, and actually take some interesting turns. Others get stranded right after you figure out what they study.
A few days or – in special cases – weeks into mildly entertaining conversation, you might consider meeting up. But unlike in a city, there aren’t many neutral places to meet up on the island. You have chances of running into someone you (both) know anywhere. And that’s something you probably want to avoid at all costs.
I’m not gonna lie, I usually don’t meet people I matched with on Tinder. So I won’t go into awkward dates, nasty catfish situations and crushed expectations. But somehow still, it seems like guys expect you to be truly invested in the Tinder game.
What’s up with being so clingy in Malta? I had someone track me down on Facebook to ask me why I stopped messaging after we had a conversation on Tinder. As if eleven exchanged messages on an app I sporadically use grants you life-long access to conversation with me.
So, like many of my friends, I lowkey gave up on becoming Tinderella in Malta. I don’t want to become part of the fam and date my friend’s cousins, so that’s a no-go. I also don’t think I’ll find that the love of my life is a certain Azzopardi with a variation of fish in their profile pictures.
I think we’ll have to figure this out the old-fashioned way.