Tinderview #1 — Antonio

Jeremy Lambert
Aug 28, 2017 · 8 min read

Antonio, 29, is a self-proclaimed nerd who enjoys running and Dr. Pepper.

I was nervous prior to meeting Antonio at Starbucks. I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing. I have done hundreds of interviews in my life, but nothing quite like this. All I had was an idea that I believed in and a desire to create something special.

Antonio, 29, was the first person who was genuinely interested in meeting with me. I swiped right on him after checking his profile and seeing that we had common interests. We both enjoyed running and Dr. Pepper. Two things that definitely go hand-in-hand.

After a couple of messages back-and-forth, we set up a meeting. My expectations were low. I figured we would talk for 30-minutes, he would give me some good information that would allow me to write a story, and that would be it.

I recognized him walking up through the window. Phew. Not a catfish. He walked in wearing a Dr. Pepper shirt, which he later told me wasn’t planned. I was drinking a Dr. Pepper, which wasn’t planned either. It’s just the only thing I drink.

He ordered a drink and we stepped outside to chat. It was a bit cloudy and there was a chance of rain, but there was more room.

We sat down in a relatively quiet area. After making sure he was comfortable with me recording the conversation, I pulled out my phone.

Recorder on.

I opened with the simple question of “how long have you been on Tinder and what made you join the app?”

He told me that he’s been on the app for about a year to a year and a half.

“I did the gay apps. Grindr, Scruff, Jack’d. Then Tinder gained momentum so I decided to give it a shot.”

He went on to say that “it could be a hookup app, but it also led to my previous relationship of a year. I’ve met a few friends on Tinder as well. We’re not that compatible but we have common interests.”

He said that he’s hooked up with two guys through Tinder and that in both cases, each party knew it was a one-and-done thing and nothing more.

I shared my week-long Tinder experience with him. How my interests is set to both male and female and how I swipe right on everyone because of what my goal is. I told him that I match with just about every guy, but maybe one out of ten girls and wondered if guys just swipe right on everyone looking for a hook up.

I asked him if he just swiped right on everyone and hoped for the best or if he went beyond the first picture and checked out the bio.

“Picture and bio,” he said.

He told me that the first picture for some people is them with multiple people, so you don’t know which one they are, or it’s of an angle that makes them look more attractive.

I had a feeling that people often “lied” in their first picture to get you to check their bio and look at other pictures. I am guilty of this myself. My profile picture is of me interviewing Carolina Panthers linebacker Luke Kuechly from a far angle. I did this on purpose so people would either think I’m the good looking NFL star and swipe right or they’d click my bio and see why I’m on the app.

When Antonio swiped right on me, my profile picture was still a singular picture of myself, but that he checked out my bio to see if he thought we’d be a match. That’s when he saw that I am a writer, which is what piqued his interest.

This steered our conversation away from Tinder and into the heart of who Antonio is.

He was upfront about growing up gay, saying that he knew at an early age that he liked boys.

“I had a crush on one of my classmates and we kissed. That was my first kiss, I was six or seven. I just knew.”

He came out to his mom when he was 17 after she found a DVD of Queer As Folk in his room. “She was crying and she asked, ‘do you like men?’” he said. “Time didn’t technically stop, but for a split second my decision was going to make or break my relationship with her.”

After confessing that he did like men, Antonio’s mother was accepting of her son’s choice.

“She said, ‘You’re not a monster. You’re still my son.’”

I asked if he was bullied or treated as an outcast for being gay. Fortunately, he didn’t have any horror stories to share. He grew up going to a private school where there was zero tolerance for bullying. His friends thought he was initially joking when he told them.

The only backlash came from his sister, but not because of who he is, just the way she found out. Instead of hearing from her brother that he was gay, she found out from a vindictive ex of Antonio’s.

Hearing that Antonio received unanimous support from his friends and family made me happy and hopeful. There are good people out there who can look past sexual orientation and accept that who you like doesn’t define who you are.

We moved on to Antonio’s passion: filmmaking.

He told me that he’s studying to become a filmmaker and that he studied abroad in Puebla, Mexico four years ago before moving to the United States.

“Film making has been my passion since I was 6 or 7, when I got my first VCR and VHS tape for Christmas. Unfortunately, family issues caused me to move here and stop studying. Now I work in retail, which sucks.”

His story reminded me of myself. I shared with him my ups and downs as a struggling writer as a way of further connecting. He told me that he’s never lost the passion to become a film maker and that he’s applied to film making schools, recently getting accepted to Vancouver Film School.

This led to a lengthy discussion about breaking into the film industry and various films.

We both talked about the frustrations of how technology has made it easier for creative minds to gain notoriety without being creative. How viral videos shot on an iPhone lead to more fortune than a film maker crafting the perfect scene for the perfect shot.

“Even when I go to the movies, I find every flaw in every shot,” said Antonio. “And I just wonder ‘how do they get work?’ Sometimes it’s who you know.”

He told me that his favorite genre of movie is horror, specifically French horror. “They make the best horror films. The goriest I’ve ever seen,” he said. “Then the Japanese. Then, within the last 10 years, Americans with the whole torture porn. They’re a little bit late in the game.”

He mentioned High Tension as one of his favorite films as it focuses on “mental illness in the goriest way.”

Another film he referenced was Blue Is The Warmest Color saying, “that film changed my perspective. The movie is about a lesbian couple. One has blue hair, which inspired me to dye my hair blue. It got me a lot of attention. It spoke to me from a queer perspective.”

We discussed how America has moved to a safer culture in film and how it’s done more harm than good. As a self-admitted nerd and Harley Quinn fanatic, Antonio wasn’t too thrilled with the recent Suicide Squad movie.

“When I saw how they butchered the Mad Love story in Suicide Squad, I was like ‘fuck.’ But that was the best I could get because they want to make money and kids have to go see it.”

Our discussion of the current culture in film transformed into a discussion about America and the current state of the country.

Like two-thirds of the nation, Antonio disapproves of current President Donald Trump. We spent what felt like an hour talking about how people are more openly racist and homophobic now than they were a year ago and how America isn’t what he thought it would be when he moved here four years ago.

I told him how America likes to glamorize those with the loudest opinions or those with the flashiest lifestyle, which is off-putting to the rest of the world. He gave me an anecdote about his friends going on vacation to Italy and saying they were from Canada, just so they wouldn’t have to deal with locals dismissing them for being American.

After two and a half hours of talking, I thought we had hit a stopping point.

I got more information and stories than I could have dreamed of. The whole conversation felt less like an interview and more like two friends chatting about life. It was without a doubt the longest first date I’ve ever had.

After I turned the recorder off, we continued to chat about daily life. That’s when he mentioned to me his Catfish story.

Recorder back on.

As a huge fan of the show Catfish, I had to get his story on record. He told me that he had seen the original documentary, but didn’t watch the television show.

The story he told me was reminiscent of 90 percent of Catfish episodes. In his early 20’s, Antonio’s friend was chatting with another guy he had met through Facebook. The friend already had a boyfriend and the conversation with the online guy had been getting “a little too sexual.”

The friend passed off the guy to Antonio and the two hit it off.

“He said he was 29. I was 22. We online dated for two years. I didn’t date any physical person. We lived about two to three hours away.”

Catfish fans can see where this is going. The guy online had a handful of pictures, they never met in person despite the short distance between them, they never video chatted due to his camera not working or him not knowing how to work the camera.

“He said that he didn’t like taking pictures because he was losing his hair,” said Antonio.

Here’s where the story takes a turn.

In the two years that he had been talking to the Catfish, Antonio met a couple online and had been talking to them.

“I went to meet the couple and (the Catfish) was going to join us,” he said. “I hung out with them and cried because (the Catfish) never showed up. Then (the Catfish) stopped texting me.”

A few months later, Antonio realized that the couple knew a lot more about him than he had revealed. That’s when he put two and two together and figured out that the couple happened to be his Catfish.

After confronting them, the younger gentlemen admitted to being in love with Antonio for the two years. He even split with his partner in hopes to pursue a relationship. Feeling lied to, Antonio rejected his advances.

We spent another half hour talking about the encompassing world of Catfish. I told him how his story parallels many episodes of the show and picked his brain about being someone who has confronted a Catfish.

Three hours after we shook hands for the first time and made proper introductions, the recorder went off for good.

The nerves in my body were a distant memory as we exchanged contact information and went our separate ways. If anything, he probably ruined my upcoming Tinderview experiences because of how easy and relaxing this encounter ended up being.

I learned more about Tinder, but more importantly, I learned about a person and a culture that I was unfamiliar with. I can’t say enough good things about Antonio and how open and honest he was with me.

Tinderview

Learning about Tinder and Life

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Jeremy Lambert

Written by

Writing is therapy

Tinderview

Learning about Tinder and Life

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