A male friend of mine, Matt, had a rather sinister experience recently, with Tinder to thank for it. He had matched with a “reasonably attractive” girl and they decided to meet up… at her house… because her parents were away… Now if thats not an invitation to fuck, I don’t know what is. Unfortunately for Matt, on arrival it became clear that he had been semi-catfished. Not fully catfished, because the photos on her Tinder were genuinely photos of herself, but they were craftily taken and very very flattering. I hate to comment on a girls looks as though that is her worth, but it’s important for me to express Matt’s thought processes to get the full comedic value of this story. Painfully awkward Tinder greeting out of the way, they went straight to her bedroom, because, Tinder. After 5 minutes of difficult “first date” conversation, not helped by Matt’s internal panic at the situation, this girl pounced onto him for a propa snog. Next thing Matt knew, he was fingering her.. natural progression? Don’t ask.
It took Matt a further 5 minutes to reassess the situation, and realise he felt a little “violated”. He told the girl he needed a pee, went to the bathroom and had one of those ‘looking in the mirror and wondering what your life has become’ moments. He crept out of the house without saying goodbye.
But the cherry on top of this story is this: On the drive home, a mentally vulnerable Matt decided he needed a fag to calm down, and while rolling, he noticed that the plaster which had been previously located on his finger was missing. Lost forever inside the catfish.
This week I witnessed a truly god-awful date in the restaurant where I work, reminding me that not only have I not been on a date in an embarrassingly long time, but also of how painfully awkward they can be. The story is this: I was serving a couple who had met a few years ago, and had then been reunited on the dating app: Plenty of Fish (POF), the boy hand’t stopped pestering the girl for a date and eventually she gave in. I wasn’t fully aware of the situation until Nelson, our lovely barman, informed me that the female half of the date had been coming into the bar at every opportunity to get away from the male half and bitch about how awful he was. Before this discovery I had mistaken the fact that the couple were sat in silence, both on their phones, to mean they had been together for many many years and were bored of each other. When I went to take their payment, said boy scooted off, leaving the girl to pay their bill, and me and her to have a gossip. Apparently he was rude, arrogant, and both a conversation-ender and lazy conversation-maker, and to top it all off, had accepted her polite offer to pay the bill. This girl had been having such a bad time that Nelson had actually found her online on POF during the date itself, and sent her a cheeky “You’d have a much better time with me” message… time will tell if he makes a better impression.
Armed with the chat up line “Ici pour bonnes temps, pas longtemps” I took to French Tinder on my first trip to Paris in February. For those of you who don’t speak French, that says “Here for a good time, not a long time”. It is a line inspired by the Canadian who I thought I was exclusive with until my pal found him on Tinder with this very smooth line. Anyway, bad “ex’s” aside, it got me a superlike. Nice. This Superliker, Pierre, spent the next 2 months chatting me up via facebook, apparently desperate for me to come back to Paris so we could meet. Well, his wishes were answered because I love Paris and I LOVE my best friend Céline who is studying for her Masters there.
But, dates don’t lead to relationships, do they?
I had a shocking realisation last week, whilst listening to a radio feature about dating. The DJ introduced the topic, “last week we talked about the end of relationships, breakups, so this week, we’re talking about the start of relationships: first dates” I snorted, how ridiculous to suggest that a first date would lead anywhere. Its 2016 and we don’t live in a rom-com. But as I came out of my cynical, seasoned single twenty-something stupor, I realised, she was right, at the start of all relationships, there has to be a first date. But surely I can’t be the only person who’s constantly going on first dates yet not finding constant relationship offers?
the holy fail 