Modern Romance (Part I)
The modern way to woo a lady
(A story that in no way reflects things that happened to me in the past... honest.)
Right. Left. Left. Definite left. Right. Right. Right. Left. Right. No, wait. Oh well, too late. Left.
This is how I spend good deal my free time. You may wonder what I'm doing. I'm on Tinder, of course. A handy, app-based meat market where you can meet your next meaningless sexual encounter and/or eternal soul mate. Odds are on the former.
Lucy, 24. Loves travelling, partying with the girls and cosy nights in. Is that a euphemism? Oh - must be taller than 6 feet. Left.
Rebecca, 26. Adores coffee. Travelling is 'literally her life'. 'No fuckboys'. Right.
Anna, 37. 'No time-wasters.' Claims she knows what she wants. Probably having a hard time finding it if she's dredging Tinder at that advanced age. Looks like hard work. Left.
I wonder how many times I've swiped. A thousand? Ten thousand? Lot of good it's done me. There was that one-night-stand which I'd rather forget about and a few awkward, tedious dates. You know the kind.
“So do you like music?”
“Yeah!”
“Oh, cool. What kind?”
“Erm. All kinds! I have a really eclectic taste.”
“And your favourite film?”
“Oh gosh, that's hard. I don't know. Something deep like Shawshank Redeption. Have you heard of it?”
You only have to be physically present for most of these kinds of dates. Mentally I'm firmly on autopilot. That said, I usually ignore the 'Warning: Low Altitude!' alerts and let it all crash straight into the mountainside. But where else to meet girls nowadays?
Belinda, 42. Recently divorced. Oh, God, no. Left.
Beth, 19. Claims she was 'Born To Travel'. Loves nightclubs. Practically nude in some photos. Would definitely hate me within 15 seconds of meeting. Still... might put out. Right.
How did people used to meet? Through friends? Church? Car boots? My parents met at school, but nowadays staying with someone from school would be considered weird: something that might still happen in Appalachia or a remote Irish village, but certainly not among the normies of Middle England. No, you have to 'get out there' and 'play the field'. In a world where your next partner is a swipe away, commitment becomes a quaintly antiquated notion – like chivalry or putting your coat over a puddle so a lady doesn't get her feet wet. Anyway, where are the ladies nowadays?
Star, 28. Suspiciously strong jawline. Weird name too. Looking for open-minded people. Used to be a ma... Left.
Agnes, 23. Bit of a funny name. Oh, right, she's Polish: that explains it. Looks nice. She's not obviously totally pissed in any of her photos. Recently moved here for work. Right.
Match!
Well that's rare enough. I'm not exactly an oil painting. Two and a half decades of shunning physical activity doesn't lend itself to the development of a Tinder-profile-worthy body. The beer and microwaved curries probably didn't help much either.
Anyway, she can't see my pale, flabby, formless torso underneath the clothes in my carefully constructed profile. Photos with friends, photos with hobbies, photos somewhere pretty. All pruned and manicured to make myself as acceptable as possible. Holidays in the sun: in, revealing my growing existential dread: out.
Now the hard part. What on earth to say.
On that point though, perhaps a Tinder where you had to admit all your massive, glaring shortcomings would save everyone a good deal of time. I hate having to wait until the third date to find out that she's an utter psycho, or for her to find out I voted for Brexit.
Anyway, right, Agnes. Have to stand out – how many hundreds of other hopeless bedroom-bound swipers are trying to woo my Polish princess?
Something funny? Who am I kidding, I'm not funny. Something serious? Maybe I can ask her if she likes Poland's right-wing Law & Justice party. No, too soon. That's third date stuff.
I scroll through her photos. Her with family, her with her pet dog, her somewhere on holiday, her doing some pottery.
She'd probably hate the word but she looks... pleasant.
In a world full of the most mini mini-skirts and photos where you can almost smell the tequila, pleasantness is criminally underrated attribute, at least in my books. Still, I can't really start with 'you look pleasant' – that borderline backhanded compliment hardly gets the fires of passion burning.
'You have a very lovely smile :-)'
Not a great effort, I admit. I wonder how many messages she is actually getting. A lot I guess. Tinder is overwhelmingly used by men. For the girls it's like fishing with dynamite. No wonder I only usually match with 5s and some very questionable 6s. Agnes looks nice: there must be something up. If the odds are stacked that much in your favour and you end up with yours truly, perhaps you're fishing in the wrong pond. Or using the wrong dynamite.
Sometimes during these interminable swipe sessions I begin to think I shouldn't have broken up with Lucy. Life would have been easy – but maybe too easy. Besides, the family loathed me. Very tolerant and supporting all the right causes, but utterly unable to cope with anyone who disagreed with them. Then again I suppose I'm all-round disagreeable.
Anyway, what happened to Agnes? Why isn't she replying? She's probably inundated with messages. Time to carry on. Love discovered and lost, and all in the time it takes to type seven words and an emoji.
Joanna, 29. Recently out of long term relationship. Loves 'being crazy'. Left.
My phone dings. Another match!
Who? Rose? I don't remember her. Then again, after a thousand swipes who can be expected to keep track.
Do people still think meeting on Tinder strange? I guess not. It's not like the 1990s with weirdos on internet chat groups. It's normal now. Still, I'd rather meet someone in real life. If you acted in real life like you act on Tinder people would rightly think you a sociopathic sexual predator. Do it on an app, though, and it's all alright.
Anyway. Rose? Who? I read her profile again: she loves travelling too. Does anyone have any other hobbies? Is travelling even a hobby? I think they just mean they like going on holiday.
It dings again. Agatha!
(Part II tomorrow. Let me know what you thought.)
I sympathise with your situation but you really are looking in the wrong place. You are clearly an intelligent person, well above average so I would start by stating that in your profile and expecting intelligence from anyone who responds to you. You won’t have a problem knowing what to say.