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Love Apptually: Squad game strong even when dating app is not

By Natalie Green

May 26, 2016 1:12 a.m.

Each week in “Love Apptually,” Daily Bruin staffers Nico Correia and Natalie Green will take turns attempting to find love in all of the wrong places: dating applications. To help thousands of loveless students, but mostly themselves, Correia and Green will test run and rate five dating apps over the course of one quarter.

I sat around a bottle of wine and began swiping.

For our last app of the quarter, Nico and I decided upon Squad – a group dating app.

Friends make individual dating app profiles and then join together on teams of two to five, where they individually swipe on other groups – same-sex, mix-gendered or opposite sex. At least one swipe on each side opens a collective chat box of both squads. Or, as the app puts it: #squadgoals.

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The app design is horrible. Squad messages load poorly, and some men appear to be on fake squads with their dogs.

I created a Beyoncé-approved single ladies squad with three female friends. Our squad tagline: “Buy us cheap wine.”

Since there are few Los Angeles-area users, the majority of squads we swiped were thousands of miles away – the app elected to ignore our 10-mile distance preference.

We encountered winners like “What up my Glip Glop” and “Looking for girls with chapped lips and dandruff.”

As appealing as many of the squads seemed, our most active conversations were wine tipsy texts with a group of men in Tokyo labeled, “Handjobs and kittens,” and Nico’s mixed-gender, mixed-sexuality squad: “It’s easy to plan an orgy, but it’s harder to get everyone to come.”

But the best thing about Squad? My friends cackling together over wine without a date in sight. (#realsquadgoals)

I’m pretty transparent when it comes to “Love Apptually.” I wanted an excuse to put myself out there and meet new people (i.e., men). And like my dating app profile says, I really do want material for my future “Modern Love” column.

As much as I mocked people who said I might fall in love by the end of the quarter, a small teeny part of my Grinch heart did want my own surprise happy ending – to get into The New York Times and to make my heart grow three times as big.

It’s week nine, and I’m writing my last column alone at my computer at 1 a.m., but I’m strangely optimistic.

Like Nico, my life is going great. I can’t complain too much about not having a significant other when it’s hard to ignore how little I care about being single – and that has everything to do with the incredible people I already know and not the anxiety-inducing dates I’ve gone on with strangers.

Compared to Mindy Kaling in season one of “The Mindy Project,” I might be having a lot less sex, but I’m also happy to be surrounded by my squad sans romantic love.

Don’t worry, I’m keeping myself open. I just think I’m more likely to find a person I think is attractive in real life than on a dating app. My phone already feels lighter.

And on that note, I’d like my final column to serve in part as a “Spotted on Bruin Walk” for the boy who said I had a great smile at Kerckhoff.

I’m not looking for love, apptually. But a solid “like” might be nice. So hi.

Are you the cute customer from Kerckhoff Coffee House? Email Green at [email protected].

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