Why I still haven’t gone on a single Tinder date
Exhibit A — A Bangalore girl with a goofy sense of humour and an awful resemblance to a fat house cat. She’s not really sure where she is romantically but is interested in meeting a variety of guys — maybe even go out with someone she wouldn’t have found on her own or hadn’t actually ever considered (like a Zumba instructor). She’s downright practical, thinks the book, ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’, is a bible for women and knows fantasies all too well from reality. This is probably the most experimental phase of her life, strictly speaking as a straight person. She has kissed a girl and she don’t like it tew much.
Tinder as an app was designed to improve upon the flaws of other dating websites like OkCupid that had more creeps than potentials or Grindr (the gay hook-up app). Especially for women in India, Tinder cloaks them from undesired attention until of course there is a mutual interest when both parties swipe right at each other’s profile.
Yet, it also has the trappings of regular dating, which most oft begins with a lot of texting (innuendo-ing most of it) and if all things go well, Whatsapping until you actually meet or at least, stalk them on Facebook. While I was holidaying in Goa with a friend, I noticed that he was always on Grindr, looking to spot the nearest beef on the beach shack. Dating in Grinder world is sexual survival of the fittest, where the erstwhile a/s/l is replaced by preference (catcher or pitcher), penis size and dickfie (dick selfies). In straight world, unless you’re shady, it’s either the super hot pictures of the person, their livelihood or the conversations that decides whether this goes to the bedroom, public restroom or only uptil a coffee shop.
But much like regular dating, the mind games and the gender politics are at play. Many reviews of the app mostly read like to me the authors were ready to dismiss it without giving it much of a genuine try. I’ve never cared for dating sites in my life or anything remotely self help. Yet the sense of choice and control it offered not just piqued my curiosity but allured me towards it.
After a few initial days of beti (that clever pun on ‘beta’) testing, I came upon my criteria for swiping right, loosely based on a socio-biological mathematical formula:
a) How creatively random the About Me is, ‘cause it’s like the most open question in life and how you answer this is some window into your outlook.
b) Common interests on Facebook Of course, interests as common as as How I Met Your Mother were not as indicative as the more unusual or niche choices like Vice Magazine that were brownie point winners.
c) A creative approach to clothing. You don’t have to be girly to get imaginative with your wear.
d) A face with an interesting personality. Sure, conventionally attractive folks would have some upper hand at this but I’ve always believed there are good looking people and there are interesting looking people.
Initially, I did get a bit carried away with being more lenient, towards the better hunks of the 27–32 year old chunk, who were using the app approximately 5 kilometers from me. But better sense prevailed and I soon enough dug into the fulfillment of a type I’d never dated — DJs.
The DJ got me failing in love again
Our conversation was pretty routine and not an inch out of the box. Considering I was so fresh into it, my expectations were low in the beginning, almost as if I were going through with arranged marriage.
This guy wasn’t your regular marriage or farmhouse party DJ; he was also into visual arts and painted fantastic murals. I say so myself because I got to see them at a shack in Anjuna beach, Goa. By a chance incident, we realized he was a few kilometers away playing at another club along the same beach. I somehow missed him at a rave party I unwittingly went for, totally unsure of what to expect.
Psychedelic was his funk and it gave me a headache. I was admittedly more disappointed at how alt, ergo, cool I wasn’t, despite all the generous credit I gave myself for.
He said he’d meet me later at another shack but no show. The next day he messages and again, plans to ‘maybe’ (operative word) show up later. You guessed it. Later, he made some awkward attempts at being awkward to meet with my friends around. At that moment, I was still the most open-minded person on earth, looking at this more as a way to meet interesting people at least. But no show. He messages 24 hours later, ‘Are you back in Bangalore?’ on my bus back to the city. I replied, ‘Yes’…24 hours later.
Loin actually
We had met before at one of the old school bars in town. Conversationally speaking, he only got interesting the sooner I realized that and there was a reason for it. There are fewer straight men out there with a quirky fashion sense and an attitude to carry it off. Most girls like bad boys. Being a non-conformist, I always liked the ones who were different. Familiarity here bred better conversations. That familiarity gave a strange sense of comfort even if we had just exchanged names and what we did for a living in the short time that we met earlier.
Somewhat soon enough we were almost constantly whatsapping, something that had simply fallen out of habit for me. It was kind of annoying sometimes but then not entirely, either. At times, we kind of gauged into each other’s state of mind and mood and even talked shop! This looked like first Tinder date potential and I felt a mix of excitement more than experimentation this time.
I set the date in a nondescript looking old tiffin room. After the rush hour, the ambience of the quiet murmur around is much pleasant, even private. Did I think this through? Well, let’s just say I have a plentiful bucket lists to check. While his excitement was evident from his constant IMs, I still wasn’t sure of what to expect. Unluckily or so, I took ill the day of the date and my debit card wouldn’t work. I would have gone despite being under the weather (tested the ‘out of the bed’ look on him) but I couldn’t compromise on my feminist values by not paying my half. I was guilty enough as it is of the pouty selfies I had uploaded to my profile when the app wasn’t getting me the desired matches.
I apologized and asked for a rain check. I could tell he was disappointed and entertained his whatsapp chats a wee bit more to make up for it. I was hoping the rain check would happen over the weekend, which did as we agreed for a breakfast on Sunday after briefly running into each other the day before. I woke up the following Sunday admiring the sense of overdue adventure I was finally pushing myself towards, as I should have been in my twenties.
Just then, he whatsapped a picture of what looked like cheese slices on an omellette. I replied, ‘Hangover breakfast?’. He apparently got trapped into cooking breakfast for his family and had some last minute errands to run for his last minute trip. I didn’t reply. I just headed home, worked on a presentation and cooked up a big meal for my entourage of 25 year old boys. Gloating over my achievement of cooking a pork red curry that was actually good, I felt tempted to whatsapp him a picture. I didn’t.
Is Tinder a hook up or dating app for straight people?
The inspiration for Tinder comes from an age where romance for millenials blossoms digitally whether through social media, whatsapp or even virtual reality games. As Drew Barrymore’s character said in the movie, He’s Just Not That Into You’, “I had this guy leave me a voice mail at work, and so I called him at home, and he emailed me to my BlackBerry, and so I texted to his cell, and now you just have to go around checking all these different portals just to get rejected by seven different technologies. It’s exhausting.”.
For queer folks, Tinder is like a low end version of Grindr or they would still prefer the old school Planet Romeo to it. Calling Tinder a hook up app is kind of a misnomer considering it’s not as easy to get ass in an app popular among a heteronormative target group.
Speaking to a gay friend, he said women don’t have it as easy as gay men contrary to the belief that it’s easier for women to get laid. In gay hook ups, there’s hardly any emotional drama involved as expectations are clear and straightforward. Of course, if there’s more mutual interest than what they have in the sheets, there’s as much possibility of dating longer term or even domestic partnership. Even for women who are just looking to have some fun, than hoping to find “the one”, there’s not enough self entitlement to be sexually forward even if we well assert our choices or consent. As difficult as it was to admit, my own experience and gameplay didn’t break any myths. While I was frustrated with how these men were so content with texting, I wanted them to show more initiative to meet. Later, I did take matters into my own hands but when a guy constantly evades meeting you with excuses about just how busy he is with his awesomely fabulous life, he’s just not that into you.
I may not be speaking for everyone but do women in India abundantly and without inhibition pursue men sexually or otherwise? We’re still old school about courtship and hardly ever put ourselves out there for fear of losing face even among our peers. We’ve learnt too early and rigidly not to be “that girl who throws herself at men”. We still don’t have that entitlement to be explicit with our desire, as men have always been, whether women reciprocate or not. Not to mention the perrineal fear of sexual violence that women in India live with. Also, are men even ready for a new breed of women who make their own choices in sex? The Instagram account @byefelipe would not lead you to believe so.
Do I hate guys now? Not any more or less than I did before. Did it just confirm my theory about men all along? Somewhat but that’s hardly surprising.
Do I hate the app? On the contrary, I would still ask you to try anything once. Sure I didn’t get as lucky as a friend who found a banker by the day and fiction writer by the night boyfriend out of it. But that’s life. Tinder’s no different from it.
