The 12 “Potter” Characters You Meet on Tinder
One of the things we love so much about the Harry Potter books is the wonderful, unique characters who often do the thing we least expect. But faced with the advent of Tinder, you can’t tell me that Harry and the others would’ve been able to avoid the “Am I more of the mountaintop yoga profile pic or the enjoying brunch profile pic?” dilemma. They’re only human, after all.
Because Tinder, my friends, is the great leveler. It reduces all of humanity to its lowest common denominator, with an appeal to both our primal instincts and our love of clichés and tropes as a way of pigeon-holing other people.
Basically, that is all to say that I love it, and if it weren’t for Tinder I would never have gotten a boyfriend.
A number of the Harry Potter characters were great at magic, morals, and fighting but not so hot on relationships – so let’s find out how they would’ve gone when confronted by modern-day Internet romance.
1. THE GIRL WHO COULD NOT FIND ANYONE WORSE ON TINDER THAN SHE’S DATED ALREADY
Ginny has never quite trusted text messages, and Facebook chat gives her conniptions, but her bar for online dating is set at “not a murderer,” so she’s having a pretty good time, actually.
Her bio specifies that she doesn’t want to date anyone who keeps reptiles, which seems like an odd thing to say.
2. THE SCHEMER
This isn’t his real name or his real puppy. He’s not planning for the connection to become meaningful enough for the person in question to find out. Or care.
He has an algorithm that right-swipes for him.
3. THE EMBARRASSED CELEBRITY
Like poor Ed Sheeran, Tinder forced a verified blue tick on a mortified Harry Potter’s account because of the sheer number of people impersonating him on the app.
You could usually tell the imposters anyway because of the number of “ride my Firebolt” jokes in their bios; the real Harry’s, whatever the text, is essentially an awkward “Erm…”
4. THE LIVE-ACTION MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE LYRIC
The things she says are so disturbing that even the most committed of hook-up artists, using Tinder exclusively after midnight on a Saturday, are worried about whether what she’s saying is true. After all, you can’t just go around saying you’ll do things like that with people’s blood; it’d be a crime.
In saying that, it doesn’t really put guys off. Some guys aren’t put off by anything.
5. THE GUY WHO HAS IT ALL BUT JUST CAN’T GET A RIGHT SWIPE
Everyone knows this guy. He’s smart, genuinely nice, and has gone from a bit dorky to totally smoking looks wise, almost overnight.
Is it bad luck? Trying too hard? Or is it genuinely that hard to believe that he’s real?
Whatever it is, no kitten, no puppy, no army action, or underwear shot can convince a girl to swipe right on this guy. Sometimes he thinks he was cursed at birth.
6. THE PERSON TRYING TO HIDE AN AWKWARD FEATURE OF THEIR APPEARANCE
Tinder users’ suspicions are automatically aroused when another user’s pic is blurry, only shows a small sliver of them, or has something obscuring their face.
I don’t want to be rude, but Voldemort doesn’t have any nose.
The other tactic for hiding what you look like is to only post group photos so that users can’t tell which are of you and which are your friends.
Voldemort doesn’t have any friends.
7. THE GIRL WHO DOESN’T REALIZE SHE’S TOO GOOD FOR TINDER
Hermione studiously agonizes over every candidate before swiping and looks up all their mutual friends on Facebook to make a mental matrix of where they’d fit into her life before checking out their LinkedIn to see whether they did any post-graduate study.
On the rare occasion she swipes right, her Austen-quoting opening gambits to the conversation are usually parried with a simple “DTF?”
Two weeks after downloading it, she will delete the app in a slightly tipsy fury and get another cat. She will download it again a month later.
8. THE MID-LIFE CRISIS
Doesn’t realize this links up with his Facebook account. He’s about to find out the hard way.
9. THE GAMER
Want a fishing portrait, an “I’m going down, I’m yelling Tinder ;-)” joke, or a conversation that starts with practiced faux-whimsy like “Would you rather eat a marshmallow-sized cloud or a cloud-sized marshmallow”? Look no further than Ronald Weasley.
He’s read every top-ten list of tips to impressing witches on Tinder, and the only thing standing between him and trying all of them is time and his swiping hand.
10. THE MASSIVE UNDERSTATEMENT
When his bio says, “I’m tall, dark, and cute animals are my life,” it does not in any sense mean what you think it means. And by the time your first date ends looking for his escaped massive spider in the Forbidden Forest, it’s already too late.
See also: “I’m really into politics” (i.e., not sure if you’re sexily issues-literate or “Trump 2016!”).
11. THE ALWAYS-HOPEFUL
Yes, this is a photo of him. From 30 years ago. It is also the last time he had a haircut. No one has dared take a photo of him in the ensuing decades, and he has no idea that this is not still what he looks like.
12. THE DARK HORSE
No one is both this hot and this weird. Guys who have got as far as conversing with Luna have theories that include her being a spam-bot, a Hollywood movie viral marketing campaign, or a Buzzfeed writer trying to generate content for her next trend piece about Millennial dating.
They are not sure which of these prospects is most terrifying.
