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Tinder addict who swiped on 500 women a day ends up in therapy
Whether dating apps are good or bad is always up for debate, but one dater ended up in therapy when his Tinder addiction became too much; he was swiping on 500 women a day.
Unlike most users who turn to the apps to find people with similar interests to go on dates with, the 27-year-old Ed Turner’s intention was totally different. He only sought validation and it didn’t end well.
Man becomes addicted to swiping right on women
The British man told iNews that he first downloaded the app in 2015 at the age of 18. He never intended to find a potential dater. Ed was only interested in getting more and more matches as he got “high” from it.
He would swipe on every woman on the app and stare at his phone for hours in anticipation of their responses. If he didn’t hear from his matches, it would end up affecting his “mood and personality.”
He said he only matched with five percent of women he swiped right on and those who spoke to him were fewer than that. If they didn’t initiate the conversation, his fear of abandonment would only become worse.
Ed said: If a person didnt respond to me or didnt message me in the first place it would crush me.”
“I would get highs when I was getting a lot of matches with people that I found attractive but it would always be followed by a crash because its not sustainable,” he added.
Tinder addict had to go to therapy
At the peak of his addiction, Ed was chatting with 10 women at a time and would go out on dinner dates once a week. But he never thoroughly enjoyed it.
Ed said: “I could never tell you what I was really looking for. It got to the point where I was like, Right I have to ask this person on a date otherwise theyre going to stop talking to me.”
“I knew eventually Id have to talk to people about going on an actual date. When it got to that point, I was almost uninterested,” he further shared.
He treated online dating like “window shopping” and he fed on the validation he got from all the matches. Even when he got into a serious relationship in 2021, which lasted a year, Ed couldn’t stop thinking about dating apps. Although he didn’t use them, he felt like a “bad partner”.
However, when he was in a relationship, Ed says the high was “gone”. Eventually, he enlisted the help of therapy to deal with his addiction. He went a month after “quitting” only to redownload them again.
Using dating apps to only match with women became a “game” for him and he lost touch with reality. At one point, Ed struggled to strike up a conversation in real life as he was too used to communicating virtually.
I was going through severe bouts of depression for months at a time and I would lie in bed not wanting to do anything after some of those rejections,” he said.
Despite the therapy and confrontation with his mental health, Ed continues to use dating apps but more consciously. He doesn’t swipe right on everyone and only dates once a few months.
