You might think Tinder is just for casual flings and getting laid. Not for Susan from Boston. She sees utility in the hook-up app for finding someone to help her dig her car out of the insane snowfall that’s hammered the city over the past few weeks. She made her intentions crystal clear in her profile, waiting for a suitor to hit her up:
Susan Zalkind tells her tale in Boston Magazine. At first she had some luck!
I swiped right exactly a dozen times. Instead of looking for men I was necessarily attracted to, I looked for men who seemed especially wholesome. (If only this Venn diagram had a greater overlap, perhaps I wouldn’t be in this predicament at all.) In less than 15 minutes, I got 11 matches and three offers. It probably helped that it was the Friday before Valentine’s Day. I checked that my roommate would be home, and moved forward on a first come, first shovel basis.
Luckily for me, the first person who responded was a 38-year-old man I’ll call Ted. “Brilliant!” he opened. “I can offer a shoveled driveway.” I told him it was nothing too dramatic, and he said he would stop by the next morning. I gave him my address. Or at least, an address that was somewhat near mine. Ted seemed too good to be true. I was skeptical.
He proved me wrong. The next morning, he showed up with a shovel and an ice pick, and he did not kill me. He got to work shoveling out my car while I picked up a coffee and a scone for him. I don’t live very close to a café, so I was gone for about 45 minutes. When I came back, my car was mostly shoveled out. I helped, we chatted—mostly about his ex—and before I knew it, my car was free. Ted wasn’t creepy at all. I think he just got a kick out of being chivalrous and having a little company on Valentine’s Day.
But then things went south as the winter progressed:
I’ve come to learn that the trick to using Tinder to get strangers to shovel out your car may be to find someone exactly like Ted because my next attempts did not go quite as smoothly. Soon after Ted left, the region was slammed by Neptune, and my car was buried under another foot of snow, plus whatever my neighbor tossed its way. This time, when I swiped right a dozen times, I got six matches, one invitation to make a pornographic film, and one offer to shovel on the condition of hot cocoa but with no follow up. So I swiped four more times and luckily enough, got four matches and four offers.
Eventually she found someone to dig out her Honda Fit out again, but not without some attempts from thirsty dudes looking to do more than just shoveling.
Genius or troll? I could see thing becoming a thing on Tinder for sourcing free labor to do menial tasks people don’t want to do: Mow my lawn, rake the leaves, wash my car. Then chalk it up as an “audition” for dating.
[H/T: Business Insider]