Modern Dating
The hair below my chin has 8 more strands of whiteness or as my dermatologist calls it dandruff. I have a huge forehead which is my dermatologist termed it as Male Pattern Balding. I also have a molehill sorta growth on my cheek which again my dermatologist informed me, was a pimple. But having a single pimple is better than having two I guess ! (Squishes the second one to death). But enough about my derma issues, wait till I start on the mental bit. But again we don’t have enough time do we ? So for now, on this beautiful January morning I’ll attempt to tell you my experience on a dating app. Yes, you guessed it right it’s going to be a short blog !
Being in your mid 30s and watching couples on Pornhub can make you feel lonely. Why can’t I put myself out there, meet new people and later have a third base encounter with a ventilator. Fuck Covid! Either ways I hopped on a famous dating app sometime during the first week on December and updated myself on acronyms to sound all cool, like did u you know LOL stands for Laugh out Laudu !
SCAM
A few hours and a few swipes later I get a message from the app that 54 people have swiped on you, and for a mere sum of “10,000 tears” I could get to see the profiles of those who have bad taste. I resisted for like the whole of 15 seconds before I took out my card and gave in somewhere around “1000 tears”.
Now for the crucial part to my fellow old people reading this, do not fall for this trap because little did I know those 54 people would be all men. Yup, 54 men who got a hard on after reading entrepreneur on my bio and wanted to set up a business connect to discuss how investing in a kirana store is the next big bet. So unless that’s your cup of tea, feel free to watch your excitement die an instant death.
Super Like
Along with the ability to scan through all male profiles, the premium package allots a certain number of “super like” options. These are super limited in number and meant to be used judiciously just like how our PM used PMCARES funds towards ventilators.
The concept of “super like” is, the other person gets notified that someone out there is super confident of winning you over, just like the Indian team in any cricket tournament. I got 6 in the package and felt just like the Indian cricket team after spending those 6.
Profiles
My favorite part of the app experience is reading bios of people. Now a bio is nothing but an Orkut testimonial which you wrote for yourself. After a few swipes you will get to see a common trend of words or phrases like “I AM SARCASTIC”, “not here for hook ups”, “here only for hook ups except for Satsang Wednesdays” etc.
But nothing comes close to the propaganda of vegans on these dating apps, they use PETA approved phrases like “Did you know tofu tastes as good as meat ?” OR “Ignore this profile if you have taste buds”. Later these are the folks who will complain that they have a lot of matches with only Jain brothers.
Photos
Now god forbid you have entered the photo sharing phase with the other person, let this be a lesson for fellow noobs on how this app can kill excitement faster than playing Highly Rated Gabru at a church wedding.
Like the first time I received an image, I went bonkers. I was like is it safe to open the image now, after all it could be explicit and maybe that’s why the app has flagged it. Thoughts run through like “Every ones eyes are shut anyways at the temple, but hey! god is watching me! But again It’s god who made this connect happen, so he won’t mind. No?”, and I click open the image only to find disappointment and couple of cats in it. I landed back on earth with a few bruises.
So let this be a warning my fellow male species, in this game of Modern Dating have no expectation but isn’t having no expectation also an expectation?
Overall I realise modern dating is complicated, it’s more tedious and effortful. So while I lap up the last few text messages on the app, I know I won’t be entering this domain again simply because I’ll be going old school and make passes on women at shopping complexes.
