Tinder makes its first match in ANTARCTICA (and date was only a 45 minute helicopter ride away)

An American scientist conducting research at Antarctica’s McMurdo Station on a lonely December night decided to log on to ‘Tinder’, a very popular dating mobile app. He had used the dating app back home in the US.

He was curious to find out if any women had a profile that showed their location to be in the frigid, callous landscape. At the beginning, there were no profiles in his immediate location, which isn’t very surprising.

But when he extended the app’s location range, he actually did find someone! And would you believe it – another researcher, working at another field camp 45-minutes away from the base station, only accessible by helicopter. He swiped the app to the right, indicating that he was interested, and a few minutes later, they ‘Tinder’-matched!

She was, at the time, in her tent at the McMurdo Dry Valleys when they matched. The researcher requested to remain anonymous because he was concerned that the government would revoke his internet privileges if they found out he was using valuable broadband data to look for personal dates.

The blue ice covering Lake Fryxell, in the Transantarctic Mountains, comes from glacial meltwater from the Canada Glacier and other smaller glaciers.

She was quite literally camping in Antarctica, logged onto ‘Tinder’ and found her male counterpart. It’s simply mind blowing!

The ‘Tinder’ company agreed that this was the first match on this continent, although ‘Tinder’ doesn’t keep statistics on Antarctica users (unsurprisingly). It’s also highly likely it will be the only one this year.

The McMurdo scientist says that in the beginning, he thought ‘Tinder’ could be a fun way to rejuvenate Antarctica’s limited, end-of-the-earth dating scene, but operating budget reductions and last fall’s government shutdown have demolished the dating pool.

It was quite exciting, thinking about the absurdity of ‘Tinder’ in Antarctica. But now, because of the shutdown, there are 200 fewer scientists than there should be, The Cut reported.

A few weeks after the scientists connected, he finally met his ‘Tinder’ match. The interaction was only momentary — she had to leave Antarctica the next day — but he expects they’ll have some time to hang out again before the summer research season ends. As yet, nobody has become ‘the first Antarctican Tinder hookup in history’. But his ‘Tinder’ match is coming back. Who knows what will happen? There’s always hope!