So as you can imagine, for me, the ingenious invention that is the popular social media dating app Tinder was an absolute godsend.

I have been an avid user of the app for a couple of years now and I have few complaints.

I have dated tradesmen, doctors, nurses, farmers, students and office workers and even made a few friends that I hope to keep in my life for many years to come.

But I’m a busy woman and my one issue with Tinder is that it can be addictive and time consuming.

There is an ego boost with every match, a tingle of excitement with every new message, and a thrill of adrenaline with every first date that keeps you prowling the site late at night looking for a rush.

The next few days were touch and go, I had a blazing row with a tinder match that led to us going our separate ways and another tinder buddy moved to Dublin

So, in the spirit of Lent, I decided to delete Tinder from my phone and forgo online dating for 40 days and 40 nights.

It started apprehensively. Pancake Tuesday was spent feverishly swiping left and right hoping to make a few matches and quickly progress to WhatsApp before having to abstain from the almost endless supply of men available at the touch of a button.

At the start, I found it hard to keep off Tinder. It is just so damn easy to meet new people and have a thrilling first date instead of staying in on a Tuesday night. I missed developing relationships with people and learning about new personalities, but it has to be said I did find myself re-immersing in friendships that had become somewhat neglected in my fast-paced Tinder swiping lifestyle.

In the grand scheme of things, tinges of boredom were a small price to pay for the time suddenly available to me to read a book, do some writing or just hang out with friends, more than a few of which commented how nice it was that I was not always on my phone.

And so my abstention seemed a good idea at the start, but after seven days the full effect of my cold turkey started to hit me. Weiterlesen