Swiping left and swiping right: A chronicle of Tinder dating in New York
What can I say about Tinder, honestly it has become the bread and butter of my dating life here in New York. How fancy does it sound, that in this period I am not single, I am not in a relationship but i am dating. And not a specific someone but 3 or 4 someones at the time. Once one of them is gone, falls off the wagon, I can easily kill some time on the way to work recruiting the next victim.The process becomes like a ritual, repeated again and again without any excitement. I have become a dating machine. I can repeat the same actions again and again without any sentiment or emotion. At any given moment, I am dating at least three people, messaging three more that I haven't dated yet and talking on Tinder with 2 or 3 more. Dating in NYC is just like working for the HR department of your vagina: lots of research, lots of communication and unmet desires.
Chat for a while and see if this could work. If I live in Brooklyn and he lives in Harlem any meeting is out of question cause basically that‘s’ like a long distance relationship and who does that anymore ? This chatting phase is one of the hardest cause we have to build an excitement between each other that overlaps our other open conversations with other people. If the discussion loses its tension and passion even for a minute , the message remains unanswered and the thread shall be abandoned. If all goes well we get to exchange numbers. Send messages on the phone. This is the part were some people, might be looking for some innocent sexting to masturbate with before bed. Some might send a dick pick. If any of those things happen, I laugh and move along to some other single boy. Then for the next few weeks, we get to complain about our busy schedules. Find a time and place where we can meet. If this period overpasses the month and the two individuals are unable to settle on a date cause they are both so so so so busy (cause god forbid this is New York and if you are not busy , why are you here ?), then the first date will never happen. But both individuals might text each other occasionally especially on cold Monday nights after work around 8pm. If all goes well and you managed to overpass all those obstacles you get to finally Go on that first date.
Once upon a time, i used to find first dates scary. I would be filled with butterflies and excitement. I would spend hours preparing: take a long bath, do a face mask, put on some perfume, do my make up, decide what i am going to wear while having a long phone call with best friend and listening to pop music. Nowadays, i go on first dates sweaty after my hot barre class or after work carrying dirty Tupperware in my tote bag. I wear what i would wear anyway , if I have a lipstick in my bag I might try and put it on. Honestly, I put the least effort possible. Cause if this one doesn't work, tomorrow there might be another one, and the day after tomorrow another one and so on.
Dating in New York is a unique experience, of its own kind. First of all, most of the men i date are Americans and they have super interesting life stories. It seems almost like a movie, you hear how they grew up, where did they go to school how they ended up here. To me they are extremely exotic, regardless their race. They went to high schools with a cafeteria,a drama club, jocks and cheerleaders, they went to colleges and lived in dorm rooms , they knew people who were in fraternities, they lived in suburbia just like the people in the movies. This situation is all amusing by its own but if you add free drinks, free dinner or a free ticket to the movies in the mix, its not that bad for a weekday , right? I do my cultural research and if all goes well, I might get some sex by the end of it.
The problems start when everything goes really well. And there is connection and chemistry and you have fun and the sex is great and you are ready for that second, third, fourth date. And dates go by, it all goes well. You get excited and then boom ! They realize that they are developing something and they didn't want something serious in the first place. And this might be serious ? So then, the drama begins. They happen to be very busy or something else has happened, and after an interrogation from my side they spit it out. “Maybe we should just be friends. I don’t want anything serious right now”. Cause apparently having fun and sex is very serious and we all have to define the terms of this condition. And the more fun it is, the further away they have to run away from it. And so the circle begins again.
Men in Greece, men in New York, men in Prague and men in Germany are mostly confused little puppies. They have absolutely no idea, who they are, what they want, why they are dating or what they wanna do through the app. They think they just want to have sex. But they are all alone and scared and want some company. But they don’t want to be too excited about the company they are going to have. Everything has to be under control. Not too good but not too bad, not too cold but not too intimate, not too crazy in bed but not too innocent, not too friendly but not too intimidating , not too smart but cute, not too pretty but not ugly but above all , one must never ever g form honest and sincere relationships with those other human beings surrounding him. After all, we are all replaceable. With a few swipes we can end up on another date, with another person, with another brain, with another body. And we can again try to develop a connection that is super casual and not too intense. And if things get serious we can always throw the entire thing in the garbage bin and try again.
Swipe, text,date,fuck. Change partner. Repeat.
