• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, September 9, 2015

Since its launch in 2012, Tinder has quickly become the most popular way for people to meet new people based on their shared interest in having sex. But the app’s well-known swipe-right-or-left interface has its limitations, giving users a simple binary choice between “yes” or “no.” That doesn’t give them much room to express degrees of interest, neglecting the wide range of emotions between passing fancy and all-out infatuation.

To make the whole system a little more nuanced and expressive, Tinder is adding a new feature called the “Super Like,” which strikes me as possibly, just possibly, the worst idea ever.

Basically the “Super Like” feature lets users tell potential matches that they, yes, super like them before they have actually matched -- meaning the other user sees this little love note when they are asked to swipe right or left on the first user’s profile. Tinder is testing the “Super Like” feature in Australia, where users only get five “Super Likes” per day -- unless, of course, they pay to upgrade to Tinder Plus, which gives them unlimited right-swipes and “Super Likes.”

Beyond its obvious venal motive, why is this such a terrible idea? Let me count the ways. First of all, call me a cynic (many have), but when it comes to matters of the heart and loins, at least in the initial stages of interaction, people are at their Darwinian worst, judging whether someone is “a catch,” an even match, or not worth their time -- and perversely a lot of this judgment is based on how the other person acts, the basis of the classic strategy of “playing hard to get.” In this context an open expression of “super liking” someone could well backfire: remember Woody Allen’s joke (based on Groucho Marx’s joke) about not wanting to join any club that would have him as a member?

Second, there’s also the fact that someone who says they “super like” someone else really just thinks they super like them, based on what is after all a very superficial profile. What happens when they meet up and discover that there’s no chemistry at all? Does the second person feel deceived or “led on”?

By the same token, in some cases the second user (the “super likee”) may be deterred from matching out of concern that they would be leading the first user on after being “super liked” by them. And by yet another token, introducing the “super like” puts pressure on users to display this new level of interest. It’s not hard to imagine guys, in particular, paying to upgrade to Tinder Plus and just “super liking” everybody they see, just like they used to promiscuously swipe right -- which is doubtless precisely what Tinder is hoping they’ll do.

Oh, the travails of 21^st century dating.