Clarkisha Explains: An Updated List of the 10 People I Swipe Left On

Four years ago, I made what could be considered a brave or completely insipid choice and joined Tinder. As my Nigerian colleagues would say, since that time, I have never known peace. Or a normal love story, for that matter.

Every story of mine is either gross comedy, a cautionary tale, or something you think would only happen on TV. I like a good mess (obviously), but it gets kind of tiring to always be at the center of it. So, to cut back on that kind of drama in my life, I had come up with a list x years ago of what I auto-swipe left on, just as a way to basically pre-screen the foolishness.

Of course, that list has become semi-obsolete since I’m now out out, so guess who decided to make a new one?

So, without further ado, here is an updated list on the 10 people I always swipe LEFT on on Tinder:

1. Cops

Most Black folx and queer folx who are actually about it (and any intersection thereof) have this policy. Particularly for Pride.

And my Kit Kat is no exception.

Firefighters are okay. Cops? Nah.

2. People who have ONLY one picture on their profile.

My mind automatically assumes “laziness” with this, but I try not to assume the worst in people (“try” being the operative word).

I’m mostly skeptical of this because the singular shot is almost always a body shot—and not even the good kind. The lights too dim or all wrong or even if it’s not a body shot and it’s actually your face, I remain skeptical because how do I know you always look like that? What if this one picture happens to have, let’s say, your best angle and when I see you in person, you look like Flats The Flounder  from SpongeBob?

Exactly. Life is too short to be catfished. More pics, please.

3. People who wear sunglasses in ALL of their photos.

They say the eyes are the gateway to the soul.

I don’t know how true that is, but I can tell a helluva lot about a person depending on what’s going on in their eyes.

And unless this person doubles as Scott Summers when they’re off the clock, I’ma be more than a little suspicious if there is not a single picture of you without sunglasses on. It’s beyond weird. It’s also very fuckboi-ish.

4. People holding or shooting rifles in their photos.

I come from the Southern part of this country, where everyone is really enthusiastic about guns (and catching fish and showing it off apparently). I’ve always thought it was more than annoying and since it’s usually done by cishet [White] men, I’ve always taken it as some show of mAScUlinE sTreNGTH or some shit. Or hell, maybe a euphemism for dick size.

Either way, I think it’s fucking obnoxious and it is a MAJOR red flag for me.

5. People who have written absolutely nothing for their Tinder bio cannot be trusted.

I call this one laziness part two.

The whole having no picture or having one picture thing is very off-putting, but the no bio thing somehow throws me off more because…like…what the fuck are we going to talk about?

Like, seriously. If you have no bio, then your chosen swiper will have to play 21 questions with you and that probably won’t be all that fun. So. Why not help us all out write something, anything, there?

6. People who have nothing but emojis in their bio.

You know, the only thing worse than no bio…is a bio full of emojis.

This is equally, if not more, annoying than number five because while no bio leaves me all confused on what to even approach you with, a bio of just emojis is frustrating because you clearly put something in that bio but now I have to decide if I want to decode it all.

Emojis are appealing because not only do they allow you to emote through flat text, but SOMETIMES, emojis mean different things to different people and groups. They can be inside jokes too. So while an eggplant to some of us means that there’s finna be some woohooing in the near future, an eggplant to someone else just may mean that they like eggplant and dassit.

So basically I don’t have time to decode your sushi + boat + fire hydrant + pained smile + lamp string code [insert shrug emoji here].

7. Couples.

As a bisexual woman on Tinder, couples are THE WORST. I honestly could have named them 1 – 7 of my “yes, I will swipe left on you, heaux” list because they are that annoying.

What is so annoying about them, you ask? Well, there are several things.

The first is that these fuckers do not read. It doesn’t matter how many times you put “I do not want to have a threesome with you and your crusty, dusty man” in your bio. They will skip over that and like you anyway. SUPER LIKE you even.

The worst of this though is when you happen to swipe on a fine ass girl, whose bio is pretty dope, and then you go to talk to her and the first thing out of her mouth is “hey, so we’re looking for a unicorn—”

TL;DR: Couples are trash. But couples who use the women in their pairing as trojan horse bait are even worse.

8. People with the American Flag Overlay/Rainbow Overlay from 2015 on their Tinder Photos

2015 was an oddly non-memorable year, but one thing that did happen that year was Facebook doing weird shit and filters for folx profile pictures.

And this was about the time that both the rainbow overlay and the American flag overlay were born.

I’m 200% against following overhyped trends anyway, but what I noticed, especially with the rainbow one, is that even though it was made to show off Pride, whole ass homophobes would use it and spew anti-gay things or very racist gay people would spew anti-Black things at about the same frequency. People did the same with the American flag one, but were more patriotic (read: nationalist) with it, which was…fun.

The same is the case in 2018. Even on Tinder. So fuck yeah, I’ma swipe left.

9. [Aspiring] MMA Fighters who are Hella Aryan

Look.

It’s 2018 and this is Trump’s world now. And in Trump’s world, you got White supremacists and nationalists making a comeback like they are back in style like overalls.

And for me, I’ve noticed that a lot of them are hella Aryan and somehow are drawn to MMA fighting (don’t believe me, check the research).

Thus, I do not have time to go for some dude who is training to be in the Aryan Brotherhood.

Nah, that’s how bitches like me go missing. I’ma pass!

10. “I’m Only Here To Network” Headasses

Bitch.

Go to LinkedIn. Why are you on Tinder??

Annnnnnnnnd that is the updated list of people I swipe left on on Tinder. Will it change? Will it remain the same?

Find out next time on Dragon Ball Z!