I joke my love life is like a soap opera. The only conclusion I can come to about this is the fact it happens so I can share it with all my readers.
2014 for me was a bad year for love, breakups and attracting people who weren’t right for me. I find though because I work so often, meeting people only happens when I’m at a bar. And though I’m loving the single life at the moment, I figured seeing what’s out there isn’t gonna hurt. And meeting the man of my dreams while I’m taking selfies with my martini isn’t going to happen so under a blanket on the couch, pondering with my aching neck and likely eternal spinsterhood, I made the questionable decision to download Tinder. I considered the app a perfect match for my dating laziness. It is literally as simple as swipe left for ‘pass’ and right for ‘go’. In short, it’s the place where humanity, grammar and conversation skills go to die. For an app based mostly on looks, these are some pretty ugly truths. So, it was with this in mind and some liquid courage on board that I dipped my feet into Tinder’s murky waters last month.
And as a serial relationship person, I thought Tinder would be a good way to ease back into dating. It is an interesting juxtaposition in my social circles; as some of my friends are settling down, buying houses, getting married and having children, I'm just out of a 3 year relationship and finding my feet in the adult world alone for the first time in a long time, talking to strangers and enduring being sent dick pics.
In a way, tinder is everything i thought it would be: a cesspool of broken hearts, shirtless photos and sleazy one-liners. It is the equivalent of a Saturday morning meat market that prioritises attractiveness over personality. But the swiping part is actually quite fun, particularly as a social experiment – there are some absolute gems of idiocy and oddity, and some fairly terrifying stuff too. Sorting through the Charizards and Pikachus of this world is a lot like playing “hot or not” and, while it might sound incredibly vain, no one would bat an eyelid if you did the same thing in a bar or club. Tinder is the online version of that first up-and-down look you’d give someone at the Disney trivia night after-party - when you’re mildly inebriated and the conversation has switched to the portrayal of non-human animals in Pocahontas - only now, you’re positive the admiring look is mutual, because Tinder told you so.
Needless to say, I ended up getting a sizeable amount of matches. Some of which never made contact and a good majority wrote messages that blatantly express their sexual innuendoes. I was propositioned for sex every other message. No shame. Just straight up “wanna bang?’ first messages. And it was gross. Don’t get me wrong. Like most women, I love sex! I am a willing participant in this sweaty game of rubbing genitals. However, my mouth isn’t just a hole for someone's dick. It more often than not spouts out hilarious, wise-beyond-my-years rhetoric that you should be grateful to be in earshot of. This applies to the majority of women.
Eventually, it became apparent to me that Tinder really is just TINDER - an app to meet different kinds of people whose intentions should not be defined nor questioned. So I turned my neurosis off and stopped taking everyone’s messages seriously. I would oftentimes ignore the rude messages and on a good day, let out a sarcastic retort. But more importantly, I became an expert at picking out behavioural patterns. I became very sharp at sorting out which “Hi. How are you?” messages to reply to.
And so the saga of my tinder exploits began. I started experimenting. There was cute and funny Justin. A finance manager who thinks I’m way too much trouble for him. Our banter would often revolve around how his beard is really making me and the rest of womankind asexual. Then there was Peter - dude on a rebound. We would mostly talk about his ex and how gloriously shocked he is at how easy it is to get laid as a single male these days. Then Jonathan - a Sydney born Caribbean man who knows my ex very well. We exchanged a few flirtatious banter until he eventually realised the inevitable - I’m the chick that everyone in his community knew so he bailed. Not that I even considered talking to him outside of tinder but apparently, he can’t offer me sex or anything more because of the complexity of the situation. Yeah about that, Jonathan….can’t say it crossed my mind either so no love lost there.
So here I was - a pro tinderer, swiping away and having mindless conversations with random strangers, when another guy that I matched with messaged me. Let’s call him David. Nothing really stood out about him except that he could spell better than the others and his pics were just of him - no group photos, photos of kids, dogs or other women. And he didn’t have anything written on his profile. So I spoke to him. Then like a pro who comes from the old school, he gave me his number for me to text him. I contemplated on it then decided against it. Instead, I gave him my number and told him to text me. Five minutes later, I got a text from him saying I have a massive ego. A few banters later and I was on the phone to him for 5 hours. It was both surprising and refreshing at the same time. Surprising because I found myself enjoying having a conversation with someone that I met online and refreshing because it was basically the first contact that I’ve had with a man in a long time that didn’t involve looking at the screen on my phone.
And so I decided to be more receptive to David. Come Saturday night, he called after we exchanged a few text messages. Now I don’t exactly remember the course of our conversation that night but for some reason, I agreed for him to come over my place at a very unholy hour on a saturday night. I justified it by telling myself that we have become phone friends so we might as well meet up and get it out of the way. Besides, not once has he tried to sleaze on to me over the phone so he can’t be that horrible in person. And call me hypocritical but I am not one of those DTF bitches. I know you’re all rolling your eyes at me right now but here’s my argument: 1) I didn’t make an effort to dress up - I was wearing my trackies; 2) I didn’t bother putting on make-up; and most importantly, 3) I was wearing grandma panties! Surely this rebuttal would silence your judgmental minds.
So then David showed up in my doorstep. It wasn’t as awkward as I thought it would be. We got on to it like we have known each other before tinder. We laughed a lot and had a few banter. And then it happened. With one swift movement, he scooped me up and kissed me. I wasn’t exactly sure what went through my mind at that moment but I knew it felt good. Well I imagine a huge part of it can be attributed to the fact that I haven’t had physical contact with any man since late December last year (remember, Frenchie? yeah there was no one else after him! - HEY I'VE BEEN BUSY WITH OTHER THINGS, OK!). But as a human being with hormones, things escalated pretty quickly. And so I, a self-proclaimed non-DTF chick, might have actually become an accidental DTF tinder-oni.
The next day, my neurosis was in full force. Questions were reeling through my brain faster than the Skyliner Keisei Electronic Trains in Tokyo. Does he think I’m a slut for sleeping with him on our first meeting? Or did he already make that assumption before I even slept with him because I agreed to let him come over my place at 1am on a Sunday morning? Wait, did I just have my first tinder bang? Have I just been baptised and initiated into this hook-up culture that has plagued my generation? Should I feel bad about what I’ve done? Hold up! Do I even feel bad about it? Does he look at me differently now because I said I’m not DTF and then I totally acted like I am? Does it even matter? Do I care? Should I care? Is this what you’re supposed to be doing these days as a single woman? Am I ok with it? Why did I even agree to meet up? What do I really want out of tinder? Did I secretly want a tinder shag and channel my inner DTF chick? Or did I want to meet someone and date them and eventually be in a relationship with them? Or am I just there because I have obvious time-wasting issues and being winter and all, I’m running out of ways to entertain myself?
Since I’m way too much of a basket case to answer any of my questions, I decided to consult the experts:
Mum: Oh sweetie, did you at least use a condom? Don’t be irresponsible! I don’t want grandchildren out of wedlock! (Not really the point here mum but thanks for the tip!)
Sarah: You’re both consenting adults. You can have sex with anyone you want and it doesn’t make you a slut. You know yourself better than anyone else does. And you have never been one who cares about someone else’s opinion? What is going on?
Nounou: You’re 27. Time to grow up. I slept with some of my tinder dates. Do you think I’m a slut? The most important thing is how you see yourself amidst all these. His opinion and everyone else’s are irrelevant. You should know that - being the "I don’t give a fuck" advocate and all.
Miles: Ummmm….you’re not a slut. But you just basically became one of those girls who say they’re not DTF but they totally are!
Ok maybe I shouldn’t have asked Miles’ opinion on this one because he still refuses to have a platonic friendship with me after all these years.
I guess the jump from long-term relationship with a guy who knew me inside out to meeting strangers and hoping there was a connection is a strange one. I had heard so much about being a single girl in her late twenties - everything from Sex and the City episodes to think pieces in The Atlantic swarmed around my brain as I prepared myself for this new stage of my life.
But unlike what the click-bait articles try to claim, my generation, Gen Y, the millenials, whatever you want to call us - don’t really do anything differently than any other generation before us. Unsurprisingly enough, teenagers have always had sex - it’s only in recent years that they’ve been more vocal about it. It wasn’t Tinder or the Internet that caused this so called hook up culture. It’s just that now teens and young adults, particularly women, can be more open about their sex lives without being cast out of society forever.
There’s a certain aspect of slut shaming that is inherent in critiques of hook up culture. They dedicate thousands of words to rebuking consenting adults for getting naked and feeling good, and yet ignore the bigger problem with teenage sex - the lack of sexual education and prevalence of violence against women. They seem so sure that we’re all having ridiculous amounts of sex with numerous partners and that it’s somehow damaging to our health.
But here’s the thing - we’re not all having orgies and forgoing commitment. Whilst some are single and fancy free, a larger percentage of my Facebook friend’s list are happily coupled up and committed. They’re having babies and picking out linens, generally progressing down the exact path the previous generations have. I’m becoming the odd one out as a 27 year old who seemingly isn’t interested in anything serious right now.
So what’s it like to date as a late twenties feminist with a big mouth and the tendency to piss off men? A year on and I have learned a lot.
Sexual politics, the to and fro between people who are, or could be, or want to be attracted to each other is a complicated business. There’s a reason why so much of our popular culture is obsessed with romance - because we, as a human race, are too. it’s partly socially conditioned, but largely biological. As a general rule, we yearn for partnership and sex. It’s something I think we forget sometimes, that the reason we can get worked up over seemingly minimal interactions with people we’re attracted to is because our chemistry is making us.
But if there’s one thing I’ve taken from this experience, it’s challenging the idea that men on tinder like to hook up and women are only ever after something more long term. It throws out the sexist generalisation that hooking up is a male-only pastime and finally acknowledges that women like to have sex too (sometimes just sex, hold the relationship). The anonymity of it means both parties are more inclined to be open about what they’re after, and the simple action of swiping left or right puts the power in the hands of both men and women. In theory, at least, this makes Tinder a feminist ideal. As soon as we stop demonising or slut shaming women for having safe consensual sex with other consenting adults, we can begin to talk about general equality and genitalia liberation.
However, in saying that, Tinder might not be the seedy underbelly of online hook-ups I assumed it to be, but it’s no Romeo and Juliet for the modern day either. The app has changed the dating game, but the accepted misogyny on our screens, in our universities and on our streets has stayed the same – the denial of women’s sexual agency has never been more public or, thankfully, more contested. By dismantling the myth of a masculine hook-up culture, we can start to see things like Tinder as any other subjective experience – eating pizza, getting a driver’s license or having kids.
I’m not sure whether Tinder will stand the test of time on my iPhone, though. Data is precious. And I’m all for tradition and romance. I have an old soul. I prefer to date the old-fashioned way. I want to find a guy, lock eyes with him, and fall madly in love. And I’m really not sure if I can endure another dick pic from someone that I haven’t even met in person. Or meeting up with a random stranger in the middle of the night and then going through bouts of neurosis the next day.
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