By Maryleigh Sharp

Picture a man sitting in the lobby waiting for his interview. Brown hair slicked back, tight white button down shirt, pressed blue cotton dress pants.

He sees a woman who is late for work in jeans and a T-shirt, and whose long blonde hair is a mess.She runs to the bathroom and comes out all dazzled and new wearing a black dress shirt and pants. That girl could be me!Promptly, he asks for my number. Would he have asked for my number before I changed? Would he have even looked my way without my makeup on?Probably not, but that’s the exciting part.

It’s the knot you get in your stomach when you meet someone for the first time, perhaps the way he smiles and laughs because of how nervous he is. That’s what I miss about meeting someone for the first time. The technology we have now is great, but it seems like we are judging someone behind a screen instead of getting out there and meeting someone face to face.

According to Jess Donn and Richard Sherman, psychologists with the University of Miami, “7.7 percent of college students and 19.7 percent of graduate students had taken steps to meet a potential romantic partner online.”

Which brings me to the smartphone app called Tinder.

Tinder allows its users to rate each other over Facebook pictures. But it doesn’t post anything on their Facebook.

According to Tinder’s website, “Tinder sees more than 850 million swipes and more than 10 million matches every single day.”

Basically, Tinder tells users, “Swipe right on a photograph to fall in love or get that boost of confidence and swipe left on a photograph to deem the person unattractive.”

The dazzling woman swiped right and so did he and now they are a match, which means the option of “keep playing” or talking to each other occurs.

What will they do? I guess we’ll never know.

Obviously Tinder is giving love seekers a whole new way of meeting someone, including getting those butterflies in the

stomach when a match occurs or often reading sayings messages such as “I want to meet you now.”

But by using Tinder we are solely judging people off their looks, and, sadly, that is the one thing the app is doing right.

Now before you say, “I don’t judge people off their looks,” or “I’m not that kind of person,” consider the following.

When I asked a group of 10 students how they would like to meet their “ideal love interest,” three said they would want to meet through a friend, one said at the bar, and five said on the Tinder app, which was not suggested as an option.

Most people use the Tinder app to get the occasional “hook up,” while others look for “Mr. or Mrs. Perfect.” That’s oddly enough what the app is doing right.

Despite its potential for finding my perfect match, I deleted the Tinder app after two days because of what some men said: “D—m girl, I want to paint you green and sp–k you like a disobedient avocado,” or “That shirt looks great on you but better on the ground.”

And the only reason I put it back onto my phone was because my friends told me to give it another shot.

Yet, by giving it another shot I realized one thing: I don’t think Tinder’s approach on dating is the right way to meet someone because it treats relationships like a game.

We have the option to “keep playing” and that’s what throws me off. I want to like someone and talk to him, yet I have the option to pick out more than one person to “fall in love with” or “hook up with.”

So I become addicted to “playing” an active role in someone’s life in hopes that it will improve my love life.

My experience with Tinder just wasn’t one I ever want to go through again.

I don’t think that any person should have to deal with a company who can make a game of an individual’s dating life, when one’s heart is more valuable than the cost to make the app.

So I would rather have my heart not “keep playing.”