Dating 1: Tinder, again.

Looking for Romance among the Ruins.

I installed Tinder again, platinum subscription, 20 Euros per month. I have to manually subscribe every 30 days. It would be significantly cheaper if I subbed for six months at once but it’s more optimistic like this. Found my last two girlfriends on this app. Didn’t go so well, didn’t last very long. Look, don’t judge me, OK? I have some spare income and I want results. I pay the algorithm to favor me and it does. It’s lindy. The Romans made offerings to the God of love, I pay too much money to swipe my screen. I do get matches. A decent amount that just barely keeps my self-confidence alive.

Two months ago, I met with a girl from Tinder and we were making out by the end of the date. She couldn’t stay very long and had to work the next day. So did I but whatever. We started dating, everything was going well, then she broke up with me. Why? She hadn’t “developed feelings”. Almost exactly one month after meeting her, it was over. Alright, no problem. I’m back using Tinder.

I use the same opening line every time. “Would you rather travel for free or go to restaurants for free, forever?”. Nine times out of ten they pick travel. Next, I say “I can’t give you that but a free meal is doable”. It sounds better in German. I add the emoji that’s smiling and showing it’s teeth. This has been working reasonably well to get my foot in the door, and then? It feels like you make one mistake and you’re getting ghosted. You don’t even have a bio, just a picture eating cake and one on a mountain. I’m just trying to get to know a little bit about you, is that too boring?

We had a good time together. During our short relationship (I asked her if she wanted to be my girlfriend on the third date) we didn’t really do much. We were hanging out at her place or mine, a couple hours, one or two times per week. Never spending the night. That was it. I saw her maybe seven times. Of course she wasn’t going to “develop feelings” for me. I did like her. I didn’t really feel anything when she sent me a huge wall of text explaining how great I am but we still have to break up. I hadn’t developed feelings either. I didn’t have enough time.

Topics I avoid to not get ghosted are: Current state of being (“How are you?”), state of employment, origin and why she’s here now, hobbies, places of interest (local) and places of interest (international). Probably a few more but I don’t remember right now. I saw a meme where someone wrote “fuck me or I will kill myself” and I tried that. Turns out that worked pretty well. I feel like I should write more deranged messages. I look normal in my pictures. I’m wearing a shirt and I wear glasses. I look like Prada L’Homme smells. It’s a bit of a disconnect but maybe that’s alright. I need to upload a picture of myself doing heroin.

I’m going to try my luck offline soon. All my friends in relationships tell me it’s tough to find one on Tinder but they all got their girlfriends on Tinder. “I just got lucky”. You and everybody else. It’s alright, I’ll go to bars and clubs. I’ll gamify it. Like those old PUA tactics, make it like quests from World of Warcraft: Talk to ten women in one night; Get a number; ‘Kissclose’; After twenty sentences exchanged go for a kiss; ‘Neg’ her five times in five minutes. Anyone remember this stuff? I think they made PUA cringe to hide this knowledge. I’m turning into an unfavorable meme as I’m typing “top PUA game 2021” into the YouTube searchbar to watch videos by guys who look like they still play Fortnite. Or Neil Strauss. Anyone remember him? At least he’s bald, that gives me hope for the future.