lust

The 3 Ways In Which Tinder Is Reshaping Our Cultural, Romantic And Sexual Behavior

Painting by Anita Arbidane

The first time I went on a Tinder date, I ended up sleeping with him. I set wrong expectations and now, every time we would chat, he would ask me to come over. After the first two times, I wasn’t okay with that.

While I enjoyed the sex, I was looking for a little more. I was, in fact, looking for a connection. But I guess he was very clear about what he really wanted, but never told me about it. Now when I think about it, he never let me imagine it could have been anything more than a casual hook up.

In the days that followed, he started ignoring me. Even when I would pester him to meet me, it would only lead to an argument, with us not talking for days, week sometimes. And much to his relief, I ended it.

This is a first-hand account from someone who broke up with her Tinder date of four months recently. And she said, “It was a one-sided love affair.”

I asked her, “Was it really Love?” and she said, “She will never know for sure.”

Let me make one thing clear: I don’t have any concocted notions about love. In fact, it has been extremely hard every time I have tried to “fall in love” in the last few years. No prizes for guessing why. Tinder, as we know it, is a mean cupid and it knows only about fulfilling Lust, which is a very dangerous addiction.

According to statistics, Tinder has over 30 million subscribers.

Now if you do the math, that’s a little over 4 percent of world population. Even if you discount a million who are really serious about finding love on this dating app, that leaves the rest who are just using or dare I say, abusing Tinder, to hook up.

Don’t you think that’s culture changing? Okay, if it’s not culture changing, it’s certainly more than a drop in the ocean – lethal even to trigger a mini Tsunami. You may say, I’m exaggerating, but there are consequences that we can’t even fathom yet.

So what are the odds? Let’s see.

1) The Death of Chivalry: Imagine a world without gentlemen and gentle-ladies. While women may have taken Chivalry granted for many years or ignored it at the cost of trying to be an equal, believe me, nothing is worse than a lack of grace in any relationship between a man and a woman.

Let me give you an example from a friend.

“We met a couple of times in restaurants before having sex,” she said. “The third time, he invited me over. After the sex was over I had to leave, he didn’t even bother to come see me off while I searched for an auto in the middle of the night.”

“It was as good as saying, thank you for the sex. Now, fuck off.” And then she added, “I should have asked to be paid.”

2) Lack of Responsibility and Care: The Shins wrote a song titled “Caring is Creeping” where singer-songwriter James Mercer sings, “It’s a luscious mix of words and tricks that let us bet when you know we should fold, on rocks I dreamt of where we’d stepped and the whole mess of roads we’re now on.”

Is caring a luscious mix of words and tricks in the times of Tinder? Yes, yes and, yes!

“I met this guy a few times and he would call me home every weekend,” another friend told me. “I really enjoyed spending time (and having sex) with him. One weekend, I refused saying that I would like to meet him someplace else. I said that I didn’t want to have a casual affair anymore. And he said, come home, let’s talk. So I went. Talk, we didn’t. Instead, he wanted to have sex again. And guess what, he didn’t have a condom and he was too lazy to go get one.

I had to finally put my foot down and walked away. On another occasion, despite my complete reluctance, he had inserted his penis into my vagina and ejaculated. While he was certainly embarrassed, he didn’t manage to form an apology.”

3) No Need to Impress Anymore: Well, what’s the need, right? We just want to have sex. So why pretend to sound intellectual about it. And Tinder does the hard work for you! It matches your preferences and likes. So you’re already a pseudo-intellectual in the eyes of your Tinder match. So why waste time getting to know each other?

“I liked this girl a lot. We had a lot in common: books, music and food,” a guy-friend told me. “So the second time I met her, I decided to give her a small book and a hand-written letter. She took it and jokingly said, ‘you’re not getting serious, are you?’ And I said, ‘No, I just thought of giving you something.’

And the next day I receive a text from her that said, ‘I’m not a nice girl. So please don’t fall for me, okay?’”

“Don’t show affection or try to impress Tinder dates,” he says.

And I say, please don’t try to find a potential marriage partner on Tinder.

It is predicted that the dating app will add 60 million users this year. Sounds like good news for Tinder. But for people seeking love, I would appeal that you stay away.

Maybe you have a tendency to easily fall in and out of love or “getting hurt” is your thing or maybe like me, you haven’t fallen in love and have given Tinder a try, only to fail, I would suggest you try the conventional methods. Meet people in flesh and blood, not virtually through an app. Give yourself a chance to impress; be chivalrous, be graceful; care and be responsible; show affection; make mistakes and get hurt; stalk them and tell them so.

But most of all, stop pretending.

Who are we fooling anyway, right?

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Written by Shubhra Rishi

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