Is it better to meet at Tinder than on Tinder?

WASHINGTON - There's something about Tinder that feels very high school: The dating app is built on immediate hot-or-not judgments. If you have a mutual friend or two, it's noted on a person's profile, signaling what clique they might be part of. But most high school of all: There's a lot more talk of crushes and hooking up than actual action.

So it's fitting that, Thursday night at the W Hotel in Washington, a party sponsored by Tinder and the Independent Journal Review, in partnership with Rock the Vote, embraced a high school theme. There were voting booths where attendees could swipe left or right through profiles of Washington journalists as a way of "voting" for a king and queen for this weekend's nerd prom (aka the White House correspondents' dinner).

In a hallway between the POV rooftop bar and a larger room stood fake profiles of presidential candidates. (The Donald's faux bio boasts: "I'm a wall of a man. I like long walks down my golden escalator.") And similar to digital Tinder, the real-life version had lots of singles milling about, eager to meet someone, but few real-life connections.

Before you could get to the party, however, an interminable line. How many Tinder profiles can you swipe through in 45 minutes, I wondered, and handed my phone over to a married friend to swipe for me. (He quickly lost interest.) Christina Simmons, a 27-year-old woman who eventually made it to the party upstairs said that she saw "a really cute guy in line," but she was with a male friend, which made it hard to connect with a potential romantic interest.

Another 27-year-old woman (yes, ask anyone at this party their age and odds are the answer will be 27) parsed the semantics of the party: "One of my friends wants to meet a girl here so he can say they met at Tinder, not on Tinder." A Tinder party (or any party of young Washingtonians) has another peculiar offline-online dynamic: "There are people here whose names I don't know, but I recognize from Tinder," she said.

There were not a lot of conversations taking place to fill in those blanks. Candace Bailey - who, yes, is also 27 - said she was hoping to meet someone at the party but only met actor Michael Kelly (who plays Doug Stamper on "House of Cards" instead). So not the "love of my life, but it's a step closer, you know," she deadpanned.

Neve Campbell also milled about but wasn't as well-recognized. Could it be because today's 27-year-olds are too young to remember her "Party of Five" days? (They were in kindergarten when the show began in 1994.)

When I asked a group of women whether they were single, one raised her arm triumphantly and yelled, "sinnnngle." The women refused to be named and would only give their ages - 24, 25, 26 and 32. They had hoped for love connections, too, though they were there for work, just to be clear. "We look good, right?" one of them said. And they did. But no right-swipe conversations have taken place.

Toward the end of the night, I spotted a man who had taken the prom king robe for himself, despite not being on the ballot. "Why wouldn't I be prom king," asked Jim McGavin, 27, who insisted on calling me Sarah, despite my repeated corrections.

"Can you find my prom queen?" he said, "I was hoping you could help me out."

Did he try talking to some women in the room, in search of said queen?

"No," McGavin replied. "The ladies can come talk to me."