Last year, I officially downloaded a dating app. Up until that point, I had the pleasure of living my life without the horrendous sites that are supposed to help you find your soul mate. I wish I could go back to that time, before I had Tinder, Grindr, or Growlr. All these apps have done is make me more cynical about dating.

I have only had one girlfriend in my entire life, and we dated for six years, so maybe I am slightly naïve on this topic. But I suppose I have always viewed the actual concept of dating as awkward, yet magical.

While dating apps are advertised as way to get rid of all the uncomfortable first stages of dating, it only seems to exemplify the worst parts about dating. The superficial “lust at first sight” is the only thing dating apps offer people.

When looking at people’s profiles on Tinder, I normally see six different photos of a person and maybe two sentences describing what they’re like. When someone swipes right on me, or anyone for that matter, it is based on if they think the person is attractive. It completely erases the portion of the relationship in which you like someone for who they are as a person and banks on physical attraction first.

As a minority on a dating app, I get more people fetishizing me because I am black than I get people who actually want to meet me because of who I am on the inside.

Yes, that may sound cheesy and maybe a tad bit dramatic, but I would like to think that people as a whole are better than that — that we see beauty as more than just skin deep. But dating apps stole that innocence from me.