So I finally did it. After a night in, a little too much wine, and lots of encouragement, I put myself on tinder.

It was nerve-wracking at first. I thought the whole idea was a little barbaric; basically a menu of human beings that you can reject with little to no effort. Now I am very pragmatic about sex, but I’m also a romantic at heart and something about the culture of the app just made me feel a little repulsed.

I set myself some rules. I would always read bios. If they linked their Instagram I’d have a look. If they linked a song I’d listen to it. If they had a photo of a dog, that immediately increased their chances.

Now I know what you might be thinking. I was taking this fairly seriously, and tinder is a hook-up site. Well, on some level that’s true, but I’d been on there a day before I saw more and more men writing in their bios things like “I’m not here to collect matches” or “I’m not looking for a one-night stand, I’m looking for a relationship.”

I was looking for a relationship too, but the world of online dating was very new to me, hence the rules I set myself. It seemed to be that you could tell who was there for the same reasons as me, and who should have just used the bio “My Name Is Buck…”

Unfortunately what I hadn’t counted on was the fact that sometimes people are liars.

There were a few who seemed nice enough, but couldn’t seem to maintain a conversation. There were others who seemed sweet but a little desperate. There were some who were friendly, but harassed me with dick pics the second I gave them my snapchat.

A few guys seemed super lovely, then vanished, and I soon found that was fairly common too. Much better than those who continued to talk with me only to later reveal they were dating several women at the same time.

Now you can call me naive, call me stupid and old-fashioned, but I just think that if you go on a date with someone, then arrange a second date with them, you should probably not be seeing other people too? To me that just smacks of “You’re okay, but I’m keeping you as a bench-warmer in case I meet someone better…”

Then there were the guys who said they were there for a relationship, but actually just wanted a fuck buddy. One guy was incredibly sweet and attentive, used me for sex, then flew off the handle and acted like he was the injured party when I questioned his sudden coldness. I’ve never felt so used in all my life, honestly.

I went into tinder with a lot of nerves and innocence, and deleted it from my phone a few days back feeling utterly horrified and disillusioned by the whole thing. I saw a side to people I really didn’t like, and it’s shaken me hard.

That said, I’m not giving up. I’m on OKCupid now, which so far seems to stand me in much better stead to meet like-minded people. I feel like my experience on tinder was unpleasant, and I have a slightly thicker skin because of it, but really I think that’s awful. A month and a bunch of strangers left me slightly more damaged than I was in the first place, and I can’t imagine they even thought twice about that.