I know Tinder has a reputation of being an application used mostly for hooking up or casual dating, but in Japan it is a bit different. In Nagoya, at least, I noticed many of the women I saw were seeking friendship or were using Tinder for social networking. I once met a woman who was using it as a way to meet people so she could ask them on their views about life and use them for her college research paper. She was fairly interesting to talk to, but it’s definitely not the type of thing I expected when I first started using the app. I went through many matches on Tinder without meeting a single person interested in dating. Despite this, I also had a couple of times where I did meet someone and tried hanging out with them. The ones I did meet this way were usually quite serious about the relationship and made it clear they weren’t interested in something casual. This, too, was in stark contrast to what I had expected from the application’s reputation. While I think the app would be easier to use in Tokyo or one of the other cities larger than Nagoya, I can’t say the experience of using it was unpleasant, especially since my current relationship came from Tinder.

For people looking for dates, I would probably recommend the other dating apps available in Japan – there are quite a few apps more popular than Tinder among Japanese people.  If you’re simply looking to meet or talk with interesting people, then Tinder might be the place for you. I know someone who exclusively uses the application to meet new people to befriend and hang out with. She says she has a lot of success making friends this way, though I did not share her experience. I imagine this was because I wasn’t going into the application with the same goal in mind. If you’ve decided to user Tinder, the best advice I can give is to be patient. Unless you’re lucky, it can be a very slow process to meet someone with the same interests. Don’t be disheartened, though. A positive thing is you can do Tinder in between all the other things you’re doing in your life instead of devoting long hours of time on unsuccessful searches. Looking back, it was a pleasant experience for me overall. I hope those of you that try it find what you’re looking for, too.