Tinderview #8 — Paul

Paul, 49, loves college

I had a feeling that I upset Paul before we even met. In my defense, it wasn’t my fault. We had been trying to set something up for a couple of days when I thought he had disappeared on me. About a week after my last message, he sent me a message saying, “Hi. Did you still want to meet or do you need to punt?” His passive aggressive tone was odd considering I had sent him the last message and he never replied.

Or so I thought.

Turns out, he sent me a message setting up a time and place the week prior, I just never received it. It got me wondering how often there are missed connections on the app due to message glitches.

With the misunderstanding behind us, Paul and I sat down at a hidden-away cafe in Chapel Hill.

Recorder on.

Paul started by telling me that he joined Tinder because he’s new to the Chapel Hill area and didn’t know anyone. “I was looking for a combination of friendship and dates,” he said. Paul said he hasn’t had much success, but he has been on a few dates and managed to make a good friend through the app.

I wondered if his profile, specifically the part where he mentions that he works a lot, is a turn off for potential matches.

“No,” he said. “Part of it is I’m 49 and live in a college town. So, most people are between 23 and 30. I bet they don’t even have their settings set up for a 50-year-old man. And to be honest, I don’t go that low with my settings.”

Figuring that there wasn’t too much to talk about when it comes to the app, we quickly moved away from the Tinder aspect of the interview. I asked Paul what he does for a living and he told me that he’s currently a fourth year PHD student, studying public policy.

“I used to work for the federal government, in the department of labor. I helped to implement and write rules for wage protections. Before that, I got a Master’s in public policy from Georgetown and before that I worked at Hallmark cards for 14 years.”

My ears immediately perked up. It may sound odd, but I’ve always wanted to meet a greeting card writer. I personally hate cards because they sit on your table for a day or two before ending up in the trash. But I love making my own cards for special occasions. I thought writing greeting cards would be an interesting job and something I might be pretty good at.

Paul told me that he started working in the Hallmark human resources department, but that he wasn’t happy there. After filling out a portfolio and the proper paperwork, he was moved to the writing staff.

I asked whether he had a favorite subject/holiday to write about and that’s when he explained how the greeting card writing process works.

“The only card group that had their own dedicated writers was Shoebox. There were 8 or 10 Shoebox writers and everyone else was in a big pool. I was in the big pool, which I liked more. So, every day was different. I would write humor, non-humor, religious, non-religious, birthday, Christmas, Mother’s Day, long, short. I had to do everything.

I became renowned for being good with dogs. So whenever they needed someone to write in a dogs voice, I was usually pretty successful at that. I liked the more contemporary, conversational, but still-heightened cards. Not metered or lined, just shorter, more casual stuff.”

I wondered if he ever thought about taking his greeting card writings skills into other creative avenues like comic books or fiction instead of public policy.

“I did, but I’m not that ambitious,” he said. “I need an assignment in order to write, which is one of the reasons that I never write.”

He continued by saying that he prefers to write “precise and meticulous” pieces such as rules and regulations and that he doesn’t miss the creative aspect.

Earlier, Paul had mentioned that he had attended graduated from Cornell and Georgetown prior to now attending UNC and that he is an academic by nature. I wanted to know more about Paul growing up.

“(I grew up in) Naperville, Illinois — a suburb of Chicago. It was a well groomed, well manicured, booming suburb. Very sheltered. I went to a catholic school. When I was in 3rd grade, the school got its first black student. We had maybe one more black student when I graduated.”

For college, Paul went to Rice University in Texas. I wondered how he dealt with cultural change between Naperville and Houston. He told me that he deliberately chose to go to a big city, but couldn’t quite articulate what he learned because it was so long ago.

It was at Rice that Paul fell in love with being an academic. His answer as to why he loves being an academic is rather simple, “I just enjoy it.

It’s not a career move. I had a good career at the department of labor and a good quality of life. I just wanted to get this PHD. I’m single, I’m never going to have kids, I don’t have ambitions for a big house. So, if I don’t do shit like this, shame on me.”

He continued to say that he basically designed his life to give himself the freedom to be able to pursue such academic goals.

Paul elaborated on why he loves academics by saying that he enjoys researching, teaching, and learning. I asked him what he’s currently researching and he told that he’s currently looking at minimum wage and how it impacts individual decisions. He’s essentially asking the question, “would more people work if the minimum wage were higher?”

Thus far, he’s found that a higher minimum wage does drive people into the labor force.

Being 49 and attending UNC, I asked Paul if he felt out of place on campus.

“Not really, because I’m in my element. I’m academic by nature. I’m a great researcher, thinker, and generally smart person. So this is a good place for me to be. I’m older than my two advisors and most of my professors, but it doesn’t bother me.”

Despite being in his element, I imagined that it was still tough for him to make friends being an older gentleman on a college campus. That’s when he told me a story about a recent social for the LGBTQ group that he had RSVP’d for, but dropped at the last second.

“I didn’t want to show up to a room and try to socialize with 25-year-olds,” he said.

This brought us back to Tinder and led me to ask if he’s on other dating sites. He responded by saying that he hasn’t tried Match or eHarmony because he thinks being on those sites means you’re looking for “the one,” which he is currently not pursuing.

When I brought up Tinder being “the dating app” in the gay community and apps like Grindr being “the hook up” app, Paul quickly offered a different opinion.

“I disagree. I met two of my best friends off Grindr,” he said.

He showed me his Grindr profile and what I saw was a grid of men. Not knowing how the app works, I wasn’t sure if I was seeing his matches or potential matches. Having done a bit of research now that I’m home, I learned that I was looking at both. Grindr shows you potential matches who are online and people you’ve marked as favorites. Conversing on the app seems far easier than it is on Tinder.

We finished our conversation with Paul admitting that it was hard for him not to ask me a million questions during the interview because he is such an introvert. After I turned the recorder off, that’s when he started firing his questions at me.

We left with me once again apologizing for the mix up and not getting his message, but thanking him for following up the next week.

I didn’t quite know what to expect when I met Paul given his age. I found a man who might be a bit shy and picky when it comes to relationships, but someone who knows what he wants out of life.