While today’s kids have a whole new cohort of Princesses who stand up for themselves, face their challenges in a meaningful way, and have sisterly love which triumphs all evil, the Princesses of my generation were always magically saved by a True Love’s Kiss (TLK). We grew up in a time where no Princess ever did anything but be pretty and clueless throughout the whole film, and God forbid she ever confronted her oppressors in any way. Instead, she had all her problems solved because a big strong man showed up, saved the day and galloped with her into the sunset on a white horse.
Of course, as a child, I had no reason to suspect that reality isn’t like that — that love isn’t eternal, that relationships actually require effort, and that “Happily Ever After” doesn’t necessarily mean forever. The concept of ‘dating’ was utterly unknown to me — the Princesses would meet a Prince (who in Snow White’s case didn’t even utter a single word), magically fall in love with him (superficial much?) and immediately get married. Ta-da! Problem solved. Kissing boys gave you cooties anyway. Only later, when life inserted experiences such as ‘heartbreak’ and ‘unrequited love’ did I start writing angry letters to Disney. It gave unrealistic expectations to generations of women who were out there looking for their own Prince Charming to sweep them off their feet, and set them up for failure and disappointment from Crush 1, Day 1.
Day 6,021 and I found myself at work, spending the last minutes of the workday taking a quiz on Buzzfeed to find out which Disney Princess I was. The phone rang, interrupting my in-depth thought process while trying to figure out the right answer to “What do you look for in a soul mate?”. It was my perennially single friend John, with whom I luckily have the same 9–5 schedule and is always up for after-work drink(s). We agreed we would meet at our standard location, both with things to share but mainly because it had been such a long week, and it was only a Wednesday. Oh and, Mulan. I got Mulan. Funny because I have tried to make a man out of almost every guy I have ever dated. Maybe Buzzfeed was on to something.
The second drink was down and the gateways to what adults (I shudder at the word) call… *emotions* were wide opened. John had come to realize that his attempts to seem like a Prince Charming penned by Disney come to life (wait, is that Prince Charming, or Pinocchio?) had no place in the city’s dating scene, so he asked my advice on how to step up his game (or step down?). For demonstration purposes of the “modern approaches”, I used my Instagram and the way in which chaps nonchalantly slide in my DMs, which is not how Prince Charming got Cinderella (even though she still managed to ghost him somehow). In the process of explaining how guys do it (exemplified, with to-dos and not-to-dos), we realized the most prominent issue — his dislike for social media showcased by his 36 followers and the astounding amount of 13 *gasp* following was getting him nowhere.
Insert Tinder. After John’s countless protestations that entering the digital sphere of the dating world would yield nothing but disappointment, being the amazing friend that I am, I agreed to join as well to get him to go through with it. If it was as bad as he expected it to be, at least we’d both be going through the same online dating horror together. We both downloaded the app, and soon enough, we popped up in each other’s decks (proximity setting?). Swipe right. Ting! There was the first match.
Just to make this clear — yes, I swipe right on ALL my friends, and no, that doesn’t mean I’m DTF. It’s more like a friendly wave in a bar where we see each other flirting with other people and a wave that certainly doesn’t point down to my panties in a “Come and get it” manner. Another friend of mine, and a self-proclaimed Tinder pro who we’ll call… Elias, says that I’m misusing Tinder and that I’m missing the point by turning it into a friend directory, which doesn’t stop me from being mad at him for swiping left on me. The audacity.
At first, setting up a profile seems relatively straightforward — connect it to your Facebook, it pulls basic info and it’s a done deal. But then you start thinking about the touch-ups — which pictures to include that send the right message (that is if you know which message you’re trying to share and I was *cLuELeSs*), and what the hell to write in the bio when I stopped being comfortable talking about myself circa the age of 6. I settled for a tone that said “I’m quite chill so not gonna yell at you for getting drunk if you don’t yell at me”, but also “I have a personality and interests which are non-negotiable”.
The end result: 3 pictures and a sentence-long bio. The first picture, focus on my face while I’m staring into the sunset and wind is dramatically blowing my hair. The second picture, me being a proud dog mom and playing aeroplane with Jean (my dog), which is technically a body shot. The third picture is a perfect date meme and includes pizza, beer and a pup all carefully posed on a blanket at the beach.
My bio turned out to be, well, me in the truest sense, focusing on some of my interests and the fact that my cheesecake obsession has become a personality trait rather than just a food preference. That accompanied by emojis of a camera, a girl dancing and an aeroplane, either showing my engaging personality with diverse interests or subtly signalling that I can’t dedicate to one particular hobby in life and stick with it. Dating is a gamble.
in my spare time I like to read, write, eat raspberry cheesecake and fall for emotionally unavailable people. 👌
📸💃✈️
Three days later, I came to conclude that Tinder is addictive: buttered–popcorn-at-the-cinema, rich-milk-chocolate addictive. What used to be boring stretches of time spent mindlessly scrolling through social media had become little windows of opportunity for matching, filled by a simple move with my thumb: left, left, left, right. The distinctive sound of the notification announcing I got a new match brought a quick dopamine rush every time and triggered me to reach for my phone immediately. And yet, with every new message, all that delight would sink quicker than the Titanic. I couldn’t help but wonder — if this is what online dating is about, why do people still do it?
Before I let you embark on my Tinder journey, I first have to put this out here — Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs should include proper grammar and punctuation.
I mean, if you cannot be bothered to phrase the first message right (which is a big part of the first impression as I’ve only seen a small set of pictures of you before), how can I expect that you will put any effort in our communication at any point in time?
Simultaneously ruining the mood and fond childhood memories is not the way to go about it. I guess as an avid Harry Potter fan I should’ve seen this coming, much like he should’ve seen the ‘unmatch’, but boy do I wonder if this line has ever yielded results with anyone. If it has, please let me know, I’d like to pick your brain for a bit.
There are many reasons why using corny, cheesy pick up lines doesn’t work; the most important one (to me) — them being the indicator of low social skills and utter shallowness. But then again, when it comes to a platform on which you make the pass/fail decision solely based on a picture (and maybe a few lines), is it reasonable to search for anything more profound than the superficial?
I sometimes wonder if us Millenials and Gen Zs have become romantically challenged and if the World Health Organisation will recognize it as a procreation disorder.
Many faces have come and gone in the stack of cards. Guys with Let’s-make-this-a-guessing-game group pictures, I-can-take-care-of-something pet pictures, Shirtless-because-I-don’t-understand-women abs pictures, I-will-provide-for-you catch pictures — the list goes on. I swiped through the endless stream of faces as if they were nothing more than carefully arranged pixels, rather than actual living men who laugh and fart and pretend they are not crying at sad films where the dog dies in the end.
Do we all treat Tinder like a game? An RPG in which we are outdoorsy and adventurous individuals who are vegan, love hiking and watch GoT. We put together a profile that will end up in a deck of cards showing our characters’ status: health, mana, equipped items, position in the race, and so on, in the best skin we have available. GL HF, swipe? Except, while we’re trying to max out our carefully-crafted characters, we forget how to actually approach someone, so we lag in real life. My kill-to-death ratio isn’t good in this one as I haven’t agreed to go on a single date, but then I don’t even know what the end prize is… a shag, a boyfriend, a TLK? AFK, will not BRB.
The screenshots could go on and on, but I think you get the full picture. It was a Friday night, and a dear friend pulled me out of my head and off to a party. I dragged my ass over to the bar, of course, an hour and a half later than planned because of my unwillingness to get ready or go out, still wondering if we could find love in the analogue world. Determined to hang out with my chosen partner for the night — booze, I stood by the round bar table idly watching other people get drunk as well, when I noticed one cute guy shyly glancing at me. Was it an IRL glitch?
Sometimes, you can see a million pictures of someone and still not be sure exactly what they look like. Most definitely, you can’t know how their presence makes you feel, if you like the sound of their voice, or whether or not you ‘click’, and I knew all of that in the first minute. Mental ‘swipe right’? And I got a new Crush, number I-don’t-know-which since I stopped counting a long time ago. But it makes me wonder — what is chemistry really, and how can it be so immediate and apparent in person and yet lack so much online?
As for John… Well, after a night out bar hopping in the bitter winter weather, he found himself unable to find a taxi home. Rang and rang for almost half an hour with no success. But he wasn’t alone in the taxi search it seems. A girl, who he later got to find out was called Emma, was nearby facing the same issue. When the Gods of Taxi showed mercy on Emma and sent her a car, she showed John mercy and asked if he’d like to share. The following day, he had a dozen red roses delivered to her office. It seems that, for all his efforts, there’s still a bit of Prince Charming in him. The outcome — no one knows yet, but John was sure about one thing
“Fuck Tinder. I’d take overbooked taxi companies and a bit of luck over it any day of the week.”
And he does have a point. I mean — isn’t a game of fate far more exciting than battling through the text-based gamification of love that is Tinder?
