An Indian girl’s Tinder experience in the US

Anaya Mathur
Jul 27, 2017 · 7 min read

So, it started as a joke. Trust me, it did. I had been happily single for over two years of my life and thanks to my exes, had blocked prospective guys out because I was just too scared to have any bad experience. In fact, it was in my post break-up stage that I realized how I had lost the grip of my life and career over a guy. And to try my hand at a stable career, I came to the US. Away from my folks, whenever loneliness crept in, I would download OkCupid, flirt around and witness the horde of men who were interested in me, satiate my ego and then, deactivate the app. When it troubled me more, I would visit a local bar, eye some guys, see their need to get in my pants and then get out of the place.

It worked well for me, I think. And no, I don’t want to sound like a narcissist bitch who thinks she is Princess Diana. Let’s just establish the fact that there are always people who are desperate and horny and would be interested as long as you have a pair of tits and a butt. Always. So, now that we have it covered, let me go back. Yes, it worked well for me. Until I switched apartments to sublease this place that had four flatmates. I am 68% extroverted according to Myer and Briggs, so I went ahead and decided to take the lease. And my bout of l-think-I-should-date started.

As I moved in, I got to see that most of my flatmates had relationships, with their significant others hanging out in our apartment throughout. This followed a lot of making out, boob touch, ass grope and lovey-dovey yelling in the living room. I was alone with no mouth to kiss for the longest time I could imagine. And after two months of moving in, I decided I had to try, give something a chance. To be fair, this wasn’t the only reason, staying single for two years makes you rigid, but it was a large part of it. Call me gullible or whatever, but I’m sure everybody knows the feels.

Honestly, I didn’t think white guys, atleast the decent kinds, would be into me. Let’s face it people; the number of hot or handsome guys is gravely fewer than the amount of good looking girls. The ratio is atleast 1:20. And over that, maybe it is my Indian blind infatuation to whiteness that makes me opine that white people with their white and pink skin, and light hair, are ravishing. How do I, with my boring mocha colored skin, at all stand a chance? I was sure to get nothing good out of this. This is when my friend challenged me. He believed that Indian girls are considered exotic and beautiful, and Indian guys are labelled unattractive and undesirable. And we decided to test this theory.

Therefore, I downloaded Tinder. For the first time.

In five months, I don’t really know how I can sum up my experience with this app, but it has been entertaining for sure. It is going to be a task to not come across as condescending through this piece, but I will try.

So what was I looking for? Umm, a good time. I wasn’t ready for anything serious and didn’t want a hookup. I am 25 and I work in technology with a steady income. Obviously, I wasn’t going to swipe right on welders or construction workers or servers or security guards, with shady photographs and piercings here and there. No, I do not think I’m better than you, I just don’t see a connection. My target match was somebody with a decent job, good education, tall, fit physique and atleast a tad bit handsome. It’s Tinder for gods’ sake.

What eventually happened? So, my friend was partly right. I did match with considerable guys. But, the true stories lie in the conversations right? Out of the many matches, I had atleast some conversation with maybe a 20%. And this includes the chats I initiated. Therefore, you can clearly deduce that this number is really low. There could be multiple reasons for it; simple set of pictures and bio (when I say simple, I mean standard, nothing thoughtfully igniting a dialogue), the fact that I evidently look brown, my name is clearly unusual or whatever.

Anyway, these conversations fell into the below categories.

Firstly, the I’m-too-good-for-you people. So, I’ve done that and also, received that. We match, one initiates a conversation, but the other never responds. Typically, the guys who never responded were the hot ones I really wanted to go on a date with. Sigh! And the ones I never responded to, were the seemingly okayish ones with whom I matched when I was drunk or my friends were drunk (my committed friends love hacking my Tinder profile and the adrenaline and rush of swiping right and left) or I was only intrigued to see if this would result in a match or no. Ahh, Tinder is cruel.

Second, the I’m-so-horny-I-wanna-fuck people. Agreed, Tinder has the reputation of being sleazy and weird. I try my very best to filter that in my matches itself. But noticeably, it isn’t enough. Just the other day, this guy kept going on and on about how he didn’t sleep because he was horny, but too tired to deal with it and is really looking forward to watching some good porn soon and ‘treating’ himself. When he didn’t get any response, he went ahead and implicitly asked if something could happen that night. *Blocked*.

Third, come the most hilarious set of people who know nothing outside of themselves, their city, state and maybe country. In my conversations with this set, I’ve been mistaken to be Hispanic, Latina and some have directly began chats in Spanish. A lot of people have quizzed me about my fluency in English, given English is the privileged language of a few A-list countries in the world (sarcasm, Assholes!). And some assumed that I’d have loved Slumdog Millionaire and Outsourced. Puff! And this doesn’t limit here. Upon understanding that I work in technology, the only, the ONLY, question I got was whether I could fix computers and/or mobiles. Yes, that is what I do (sarcasm again, Assholes!).

Fourth have been the people I call drifters. These kind of species chat with you, heck some even invite you on a date, and you in turn get to meet some of them, and one fine moment, it stops. The stop can be either sudden or gradual, made famous by the term ghosting away. And there is sometimes, no explanation to this. And your last fragment of dignity does not allow you to quiz them with respect to it either. Okay, I am making myself sound like a victim of this but, unfortunately, I’ve got my hands dirty with this too. But I like to believe they had it coming; you cannot suddenly proclaim that you want to be a stripper or say something like I reminded them that they haven’t had Indian food in ages. Nope, not gonna work. Also, the cultural difference plays a large hand here, in my opinion. Like I cannot deal with y’all and dawg and dope. And my accent isn’t exactly what certain people expect.

Fifth, are the creepers and stalkers. Within a day, they have added you on other social media platforms and searched you everywhere. And they text you excessively. I shit you not, there was this guy who matched with me on day one, added me on Instagram and Snapchat on day two, read through my answers in Quora by day three and visited my defunct Twitter page on day four. All with just my full name. And obviously, we never went on a date. It is fine to be informed about a person, but it is shit scary to know that he has lurked you everywhere. Like I don’t want to meet a guy who is either going to kill me after the date, or send me crazy letters scribbled with blood.

In sixth category, come the desperate people who either don’t understand that they are being ghosted or are just plain desperate. No, I didn’t reply to your cheesy pick-up line. No, I won’t reply to the joke after that. No, the GIF sent later doesn’t interest me. And no, your invitation to anything led next won’t make me fall in love with you. I really appreciate but, geez, relax. I cannot be the only dumb-fuck who swiped you right.

In the final category, come the perfect men. The ones who initiate the conversation and say the right words. Who don’t make it sound like they want to score you. They don’t fool you with jobs like Category Analyst where the only thing to do is design how to keep cans of beers in a gas station; they have real meaningful jobs. The ones who are genuinely interested in you and knowing more about your life. Sounds charming right? It’s because they don’t exist! Or even if they did, they are either taken or aren’t on Tinder.

Needless to say, I never found love on Tinder. And I’m quite positive that it won’t result in one either, for me. But I knew Tinder wasn’t meant for love. It was meant to be an interesting experience. It was meant to make me get out there and be uncomfortable. It was meant to allow me to be confused, dazzled and irritated, all at once. It was meant to drive me to discover myself and grow upon it. And most importantly, it was meant to be exactly the way it was. For me, Tinder has been like that roller-coaster ride that people awe about; the one that races up and plummets down, the one that inverts in air and propels you in the middle, the one that makes your stomach gurgle and leaves you screaming, the one that makes you nervous at the start and stronger at the end.

Tinder got me to try great bars and sumptuous food. Tinder also drove me to what is now my favorite park in the city. Tinder made me realize that being unapologetically yourself is amazing too. Tinder pushed me to embrace myself a little more with every experience.

Anaya Mathur

Awkward bio writer. Self discover. Passionate. Random. Trying to make the most out of life in this lifetime.

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