The T Files

WARNING: ALL STORIES ARE TRUE AND MAY CAUSE EMOTIONAL DAMAGE

Ok so, you’ve downloaded Tinder, you’ve signed up, and after a few minutes of exercising that thumb, you get your first match. (Hooray, well done you!) So what now? Send the first message or wait for them to respond? (pfft everyone knows why you’re on this, let’s not be coy) And then, you get a notification, a little flame, a message from an admirer, what’s it going to be? Boring and predictable “hey”, question relating to your profile, “Why do you hate tribal tattoos so much?” or interesting question about your stance on political issues, “What is your opinion on cat abortions?” Cue scary but appropriate music. Tinder is a frightening place to be when you’re young and single, and lets you view mutual friends…

I’ve had my fair share (and a few other people’s too) of weirdos on this fantastic app, and saved some of their numbers in my phone as Mr. (insert name here) Tinder, and also refer to them as “Tinder Bitches” which makes me feel like a pimp, and which I also find hilarious. Some time after a lot of back and forth chatting, yawn-worthy small talk and a good deal of flirting I have also met up with a few of them. You get that lovely but odd first date butterfly feeling; are you about to meet someone you can eat comfortably in front of, that you can spend all day in front of the TV in your pyjamas with, who gets your sense of humour?! Or are you going to meet someone who is vaguely reminiscent of a child star turned drug addict and let them stay at your house? Who knows, it is Tinder, after all!

Not all of them were complete failures, however, after my most recent dates, I have had a powerful feeling that I should delete the app and hang up my Tinderella tiara forever, especially after an encounter with a phenomenon called coverticus racistus (a covert racist). He was an officer in the Navy, few years older than me, and despite the double texting (PLEASE RECOGNIZE THIS AS A WARNING SIGN IN THE FUTURE) I decided I would go for a coffee with him. It was very strange. First off, he was leaving the next day to go on a course for 6 weeks, but that wasn’t even what bothered me: tinderslut fo lyf. I began to search for the Eject-O-Seat lever when he began talking about how we were going to make this work long distance while he was away, like legit talking about trains and shit. FIRST DATE. Something you should know about me, I do give creeps alot of scope, don’t know why, and so I let him keep debating where was in the middle for us and what hotel we should stay in FOR ANOTHER 2 HOURS, then came breaking point. This guy was talking about some Pakistani sailors he bunked with (no camp synchronised dancing 😦 sorry guys) and he actually used the phrase, “I’m not racist but…” I am an opinionated bitch, clearly, so I launched into a tirade about how that was completely uncalled for, if they were assholes it had nothing to do with the fact that they were Pakistani etc. and then he actually tried to save it, by apologising, thanking me for calling him out on it and saying that everyone had to be so P.C. nowadays (CRINGE). So not only was he a racist but he had no backbone to even stand up for his backwards beliefs! In the words of Ned Flanders, “We’re done for, we’re done-diddly done for, we’re done-diddly-doodily, done diddly-doodily, done diddly-doodly, done diddly-doodily!” So it was back to Tinder, to search for the good D.

Mulder knows

Types of men you meet on Tinder vary massively, you may even come across an old school mate and discover that they now have a child, (holla @ you P.D.) while you debate with your best friend over who the Mother could be and the logistics of HOW that could have happened. Then and again you will notice a pattern in the men, I have named them Tindertypes, like archetypes, but Tinderised. Some of my favourite Tindertypes are…

Tinder Daddy (as in, ew that is definitely your child, not the cool sugar daddy I was expecting to meet on here)

Gap Yah lad (wants you to know he’s very cultured, in fact, he’s travelling all the way over to the left side of my screen)

Emotional Blackmail (aka If You Have A Dog I Will Swipe Right Every Time)

Sweet Tribal Beauties (Have you fools never even watched Jonah from Tonga?!)

Husband Material (twats like me)

Jailbait (the ones who should be thumbing pages of their GCSE revision instead of Tinder, Facebook age liars, “It says I’m 23 but really I’m 16.” Ew.)

And, of course, Friend’s/Your Ex’s (who you are revolted to find. Immediate left swipe. BLEUGH.)

There are some definite mysterious goings on with this app, especially now you can send “moments” which just opens up a whole new can of dick pics in the 21st century, better than Snapchat ever could, (sorry buddy, I still love ya.) Someone once said to me that Tinder was one step away from actually admitting you’re lonely and trying online dating, and they were spot on. People you meet on Tinder either want to fuck you or marry you, and almost all of them are Grade A creepy cunts. Be really careful if you even consider meeting up with them and don’t feel like you can’t block or report someone who is being a total dickhead.

As I progress through the world of Tinder I will, no doubt, have more Tantalising Tinder Tales for you, but until then, I’ll leave you with a poignant but relevant quote from Fox Mulder:

“Sometimes the only sane answer to an insane world is insanity.”

Fox Mulder

Night of The Living EX

One of the worst things about working in a bar is that people can come in and chat shit to me while they take advantage of the fact that I cant leave and I have to serve them. This annoyance is further amplified by the fact that I met most of the people I have recently slept with in this bar, and that they still frequent it often. I need a new man-pool and I first realised this when I was working one night, at said bar, and one person in a friendship group asked if I was, at one time, with boy A or boy B from the group, and I had to honestly answer with, “Both.” And not to forget the classic, “Hey I don’t know you but apparently we shared a sex partner, let’s be friends?!” Err no. Time to move!

BYE BOYS!

To me, the fact that these men keep coming to this bar, when they know full well that I work there, is rude. I myself have already crossed off a fair few destinations on the map of the city I live in so I can avoid any awkward encounters, for instance the other day someone came into the bar, (awkward, wish I wasn’t here) ordered a drink (try not to throw it on him accidentally on purpose) and then, had the audacity to look at me and patronisingly ask, “How’ve you been?” I mean, what the fuck is that. Do you really think you had that much of an effect on me that I am now devastated after our temporary tryst and can no longer function or leave the house, let alone GO TO WORK AND SERVE PEOPLE LIKE I AM NOW. Soon I will be forced to make like Mrs. Flax, get drunk in a bubble bath and blindly choose where to live next over a giant map of England.

It’s partly my own naive fault, I thought it was just dating etiquette, you just can’t go to certain places anymore – you cross them off the map. But sadly my home isn’t as big as the entire USA and some situations cannot be avoided, I do understand that. However, if I have to sacrifice several bars, certain floors of my own university and central coffee shops then maybe you can miss out on that signature pint of ours.

All my dates seem to be more and more interlinked and messy the longer I live here; a day after things ended with a guy I’d been seeing for 4 months, I went on a date with a guy called Steve, we went to get a coffee and was served by a man, let’s call him Pete. Me and Steve didn’t last, but then Pete and I started dating for a while, (we met later on, I’m not that shameless to pick up another guy while I’m on a date!) I originally moved away from my small hometown because I was sick of everyone knowing your business and the busy, anonymous metropolis appealed to me, but now that I’ve lived here for a while I seem to know more and more friends of friends, and if I know them, that must mean they know all about me. I don’t really have anything in particular to hide, I just live in constant fear that one day a man will stop texting me back and when I ask why it will be, “I found out you were carnally involved with my friend at one point.” Because what am I meant to say to that other than, “Ah, which one was he?”

Ex’s are a tricky subject; you once shared all your intimate moments with them, you probably thought you were perfect for each other and you wanted them to like you so much and then all of a sudden the feelings just go or they break it off and you have to move on. In this digital age there are a lot of platforms that you can use to connect with someone, but disconnecting is hard, especially if you have mutual friends and you know they will feel a pang when they realise you’ve deleted them. But you do delete them off Facebook, you lose their number and don’t Snapchat them anymore in the hopes that will erase them, out of sight, out of mind. Until you bump into them, or you hear about them, and you are torn between wanting to hear about them to be nosy or because you still care and wanting to forget them forever. And then there’s THE COMPETITION. Like Britain’s Got Talent, but even more tragic, which person has won after the break up: who has lost weight, who got a new partner, who moved back in with their Mum. All these petty things can determine who is the strongest and who is the weakest, who is the person that can prove they cared less, because if that’s you, grab yourself a gold star, you are the winner. But why? It is a scary thing that pick up artists and all emotionally stunted “LADS” are now treating heartbreak as a disease that must be cured. See: oneitis.

On the one hand admitting you care is seen as weak, and falling in love makes you frail, but then as women all we are sold is romance, what are we meant to believe, no wonder we have been reduced to Facebook stalking and taking the long way home to avoid walking past anywhere your ex might be lurking. It’s always going to be uncomfortable staring into the same pair of eyes you’ve seen staring up at you from your crotch (also please never ever do the staring thing) but you’re going to have to fucking suck it up, just like they did at one point, because unless you keep moving house you’re going to see those peepers now and then.