I’d rather be single than on Tinder. It’s much safer

As more cases come to light about online dating disasters, I’m ever thankful to be safely single. Call me conservative, but I prefer the idea of meeting someone through proven channels.

As more cases come to light about online dating disasters, being single sounds like the safer option. (Pic: Supplied)

There are more than 50 million active users on Tinder. I will never be one of them.

That means I will not only have more free time — the average user spends 90 minutes per day on the phone, swiping thumbs left or right in the hope of hooking up — but also precious peace of mind.

As more cases come to light about online dating disasters, I’m ever thankful to be safely single.

Last weekend Port Macquarie doctor Angela Jay, 28, was stabbed 11 times and doused in petrol by a man she met on Tinder.

Her calm head, as she crawled in agony to the neighbours and instructed them how to stop her bleeding out, is all that saved her.

Paul Lambert, a 36-year-old deranged stalker from Brisbane, was shot dead by police.

It turns out Lambert, who had changed his name from Paul Scales, had a history of terrorising women and was a self-described “psychopath”.

Not that Angela Jay could have known that from the absence of background checking afforded on Tinder.

While some online trysts capture national attention — including that of Gold Coast man Gable Tostee who was acquitted of murder and manslaughter in relation to the death of New Zealander Warriena Wright and has subsequently sold his story to 60 Minutes — many fly under the radar.

A friend of mine tried Tinder recently and after rejecting a bunch of profile photos of bloke’s “junk” — a charming introduction to a person if ever there was one — she swiped right.

Woo hoo! A handsome enough face AND the guy was straight, single and employed (increasingly rare attributes in the heterosexual dating world).

Online, he had potential. In person, he had none.

Within minutes of them meeting for coffee, it was clear that the guy was not only 10 years older than his profile shot but he said he was married and suggested a threesome.

With Tinder, you cannot be certain what you’re going to get.

Looks can be deceiving — and never more so than with the filters and fakery so easily applied online. Hello? There are people who earn a living writing other people’s dating profiles, embellishing for impact and “clickability”.

Lying is common when the chance of detection is slim.

A study by Pew Research Centre has found that 54 per cent of online daters say people have “seriously misrepresented” themselves in their profiles.

Worse still, three in 10 say they have been contacted by someone in a way that made them feel harassed or uneasy.

And women are far more likely than men to have a bad experience.

Big surprise. Not.

Women, generally, are not interested in no-strings attached sex.

We want meaningful relationships that involve intimacy in all its forms, including companionship and the potential of commitment.

Yes, I know women who profess to be up for anything with anyone in the bedroom but biologically, females are not wired for sex alone.

Recent research by Andrew Galperin and Martie Haselton from the University of California at Los Angeles confirms this.

They compared a series of case studies against long-held evolutionary psychology and found men and women reacted very differently to casual sex.

In short, women regret it. Men regret only that they didn’t have it.

“Some of the most important decisions in people’s lives involve whether to have sex, with whom to have sex, and in which social and relationship contexts to have sex,” they write in the Archives of Sexual Behaviour.

“These decisions can result in a variety of consequences, including enhancing or damaging reputations, producing debilitating illness, bonding partners together, breaking up friendships and families, producing children, and leaving people wondering for decades about ‘the one who got away’.”

Regrets, I’ve had a few. Haven’t we all?

But turning to Tinder isn’t the answer. Neither is putting faith in dating sites that over-promise in the perfect match department.

To be fair, I know of one couple who hooked up on Tinder and, a year later, appear to be deliriously happy.

I also have three friends, all with brains and a no-bullshit radar, who have met their respective princes via RSVP.

But all admit they had to kiss a lot, and I mean a lot, of toads first.

Could I be bothered? No.

I’m told, more times than I care to hear, that online dating is unavoidable in this age of overblown busyness and sedentary lifestyles.

Well, I’m digging in. Call me conservative, but I prefer the idea of meeting someone through proven channels such as mutual friends or common interests.

It’s safer, less risky and I’m in no danger of getting arthritis from an overactive thumb joint.

Kylie Lang is an associate editor of The Courier-Mail