Sunday, July 20, 2014

I Quit Tinder

I quit Tinder.

It sounds like the beginning of a sad love letter...

A friend had recently said she didn't think Tinder was right for me...and I had to agree. I was quickly losing momentum with the swiping right idea.

I had a few people I'd matched with and most wouldn't start the conversation. I mean, come on guys. Why did you join Tinder if you weren't actually going to contact any girls?

Their lack of gumption also started to annoy me and not in a good way. Sure, I turned to online dating to find a boyfriend but I am a traditional girl at heart and think the guy should make the first move.

But I was getting older by the day as I waited for a guy to message.

But this wasn't happening on Tinder. I would wait a few days, then a week and still no message. I got sick of sending the first message and keeping the chat alive continually asking questions.

Let's face it. If you can't be bothered to message ME or ask ME about myself in an effort to get to know me, then I don't want to waste anymore time on you.

I was sick of seeing the bathroom selfies, I'm beyond annoyed reading about how much they frequent the gym - perhaps they should be dating the gym??

One thing I was surprised with was the number of guys who had children. Now if you've read my previous posts you will know I'm not interested in dating someone with children but this also seemed like a contradiction when everyone says Tinder is for hook ups.

These guys with kids in their profile pics weren't contacting me for that. They weren't contacting me full stop.

I imagined Tinder would be full of young guys looking for a bit of somethin' somethin' but instead I was seeing guys who'd done the whole marriage/kid thing and were onto round two.

During the three-odd months I was on Tinder I had three dates. Not a particularly good strike rate so I thought I'd give another dating site a go.

I've always said this online dating thing was a numbers game. The more guys you chat to and go on dates with, the more likely you're going to find a nice guy.

Well, that's what I'm hoping for.

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Calling Him Out

After first complimenting a guy on his cool profile pic (he's in the foreground and there is a motorbike in the background and the clouds look all grey and mysterious), I soon find out we both loved Instagram.

We exchanged meaningful messages (more than 'how was your day?') for about a week before I took the leap of faith and sent him my phone number.

Might be easier to text, I say. Use it as you wish I say.

As the hours passed I wondered what exactly he was going to do with my number? Seven hours later I get a message through Tinder from the guy and he gives me his number.....

Ummm, dude, when a girl gives you her number you're supposed to text her!

So I mulled over this for a few minutes. I had hoped he'd message me but I thought seeing he'd only been on Tinder a couple of weeks, he probably didn't know how things worked.

But hang on a minute, common sense says text the girl! So I message him and we text back and forth for a couple of days.

I find out he's quite interested to know I write a blog about online dating (and even asked for the address). Almost daily he'd ask if I'd written about him yet? I replied that I would, but depending on how things panned out between us would determine how I would write it.

I'd felt comfortable enough with this guy so I mention a possible catch up on the weekend and he was interested. I suggest Friday night but he's busy with end of financial year functions. Same goes with Saturday night.

But he doesn't offer an alternative. He's not giving off the best of signals right now. Does he or does he not want to meet me?

I put it out there - how about Sunday afternoon? A day goes by, no response. Two days, then before I know it, four days.

He'd still been online on Tinder at all hours of the night. My overactive mind goes into overdrive and I decide the guy had met someone else on Tinder and had changed his mind about meeting up with me.

That's fair enough. But what I didn't like was the not knowing.

So I called him out on it. I sent a text Sunday morning saying by the lack of response from him it seemed he didn't want to catch up with me anymore. That's fine if he's met someone else but he could have had the decency to let me know we weren't going to catch up.

I didn't expect a reply. I'd said my peace.

But he did! Twenty minutes later he said sorry he hadn't made any plans with me and no he hadn't met someone else.

I nearly fell off the bed. I asked if he still wanted to meet me? Yes, but not today as he was busy. I said so was I, I was on the Gold Coast.

That was two days ago and still nothing. I honestly don't think this guy will actually grow any balls and organise a catch up with me but that's okay because I let him know you just can't forget about a girl like that. If you're not interested - let her know.

Plus I had a date with a sweet, cute, Spanish guy who has shown more interest in me than he has.

You snooze, you lose.