Dear Tinder Date,
Thank you for our sparkling conversation the other day. It helped me heal and believe in the goodness of people, once again.
I had never thought of myself as a Tinder person. I had found the platform reductive, and an elaborate urban dating sham. It seemed like another version of Netflix and Chill, and as much as I find hookups to be hugely liberating, I refrain from them because I don’t like the idea of giving myself away to someone I’ve barely known. Also, my paranoia comes in the way, as I am left fearing what if the guy turns out to be a savage murderer! But more on my paranoia later.
Why Did I Join The Tinder Tide?
Well you see, breakups can be hard. They can leave you feeling angry and dejected, regretful, unsure of yourself, and uncertain of the future. To battle this negativity and to avoid stumbling into a negative spiral, I downloaded the app and began swiping.
The feeling of reading someone’s bio and swiping them left or right can pretty much be likened to what an HR person might feel — sifting through (and rejecting) hundreds of resumes in a day. Taxing stuff!
You know what they say about judging a book by its cover — and here I was, not only judging the book, but vigorously swiping it left or right.
Tinderesting?
In my book, the rules were simple. The guys with bare chests, bad grammar and hookup-suggesting lines were swiped left (rejected). While the ones looking decent and well-educated were swiped right.
Luckily, there were many matches (which means both of us had ‘liked’ each other and could now chat). Some chats stopped merely at the salutations (I could only tolerate that much of them, seriously), while the creeps were immediately ‘unmatched’.
The D-Word
Most of the chatting was innocuous . But I was still unsure of the D (dating) word. I didn’t know how to react when Date 1 suggested we meet up for coffee. The friends egged on, and I said yes. He was a PhD researcher in the defense space from a well-known university in the States, here for a workshop. When I met him, he came across as a remarkably drab man. A nerd who had zero charm.
As soon as we settled down, he did the unforgivable. He mentioned Donald Trump and off we began arguing about international affairs while perched in the middle of Punjab Grill.
The argument escalated further as we talked about demonetisation.
Alas, that was exactly what my friend had warned me against. Anything but the news, Divyani!
Were there any sparks between us? Honestly, the spark plug had fused that evening.
After the animosity of the debate settled, we slowly started steering towards conversations of the heart. I told him about my heartbreak, while he told me about his. Amidst the gloomy chat, we both promised to each other that we will never stop believing in love. Before leaving, he gave me a hug. It didn’t have the electrifying effect of a lover’s hug, but the strange warmth of a fellow human being’s. I remember coming back from the night happier.
Date Number 2
A few days later, I decided to meet Random Date #2. This time, I met the guy at a pub, where we danced, laughed and joked. He was the shy type, while I, the boisterous one. I made him laugh and slowly, he began to loosen up. While walking me home, we sat at a corner. I was still a little buzzed. He told me he had been hung up on a woman for many years and that he didn’t know how to move on. I told him to stop chasing closure — that it was a luxury just a handful get. The rest have to battle their feelings and move on. In that moment, him and I, two people who had never met each other before, felt lighter, having bared our pain as we stared into the darkness of the night.
Before leaving, he told me I was someone he had opened up to after many years. He gave me a big bear hug before leaving and said he hoped I found someone who would really value me. We are still in touch.
Possible Date 3
This person, a young entrepreneur, and I have been having fantastic conversations on life, pain, ambition and spirituality. He happens to be a thrill junkie, and while defending my dislike for all adrenaline pumping adventures, I have boldly declared to him that I have done something far riskier than anything he’s ever done — fall in love even after getting my heart broken many times.
We’ve shared our heartbreaks digitally, and are now sharing our hopes over smileys. I do hope he asks me out for a date soon!
Coming back to what I had initially set out to say: Tinder is helping me at a very vulnerable phase in my life. Whenever I feel lonely, I am comforted with the fact that I have literally millions of people that I can strike up a conversation with, through just a few swipes. It reassures me, that there are a lot of good people out there, just waiting to enter your life; that often, when we are feeling down, we shouldn’t hesitate to reach out, even to strangers. They won’t disappoint.
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