A Tale of Modern Love

That time I tried Tinder for 24 minutes.

Let’s get this straight off the bat here, lest my husband thinks I’m cheating on him via a really great cover up like “oh, I’m writing an article – that’s why I downloaded Tinder…”

Yep, I’m married. I haven’t dated in a billion years. But when it got to the point where even Calvin Klein Jeans was tapping the app for their latest campaign, my interest was officially piqued…

So, in the pursuit of understanding my girl squad’s conversations about modern dating, I decided to download Tinder for fun.

The first thing to *pop up* was not my first date (boom tish), but an alert. “Tinder would like to access your photos, likes, relationship interests and profile.” Geez man, take a girl to coffee first.

My first ‘match’ was a 24-year-old boy – yes, boy – who had chosen a picture of himself fearfully patting a deer. His description was nothing but a chicken drumstick emoji, a cigarette emoji, and five loudspeaker emojis. I mean loud music is great and all, but not five times as good as chicken. Denied.

Next up was a 23-year-old, whose description was “looking for a lady to go on late night Maccas runs with.” Right now, I’m scared about how much Facebook knows about me. Either I lied about my age somewhere (entirely possible), or they’re spot on about my secret life as a junk food loving cougar. Denied.

Third victim. I mean, potential date. A 29-year-old (finally, someone within a decade) who appears remotely normal. Nothing to see here. That is, until I see his description: “Nothing motivates me more than seeing an inspirational quote on a girl’s tinder profile”. OH GOD TINDER, YOU DON’T KNOW ME AT ALL. Denied.

Ok, Tinder, you have one more chance. Don’t fail me now – I need some remotely possible fantasy outcome that confirms that there is at least a small pool of normal men out there to pick from when my husband leaves me following this article. A very, very small pool.

Fourth times the charm… and I get Hamish. He’s 25 (ok, maybe with makeup I could pass for his much older sister, I can deal with that.) His profile picture is holding a VB in work boots sawing a plank of wood. And I just bought an apartment and need a whole lot of cabinetry made… THINGS ARE LOOKING UP!

Oh no. Wait. His description is ‘just a normal dude.’ Ha! I’ve watched wayyyy too many Lifetime movies to fall for that. Serial killer for sure.

One final red stamp swishes across my last hope, and Hamish’s VB loving face is emblazoned with NOPE in caps (by the way Tinder, that’s way harsh) – and it reveals a guy named Stuart, whose profile pic is just a huge bong.

This last glimpse at the dating pool of Aussie men in Melbourne makes me think that a lot more time and investment than I’m willing to give is needed to climb the Tinder mountain. Kind of like dating IRL. Or shopping for vintage clothing.

I delete the app considering all the frogs I kissed before I found my prince…and all the vintage dresses I bought that I thought made me look like Bianca Jagger, but in fact made me look like a reject from Burning Man.

Twenty-four minutes of Tinder and my advice is: Stick with it ladies. It takes a while to find your cabinet-making dream man. And then you can keep him forever… or until he finishes your cabinets, at least.