The shallow man, experienced in the field of dating as he is, has as well as good old fashioned offline dating, tried out the online variety. Recently, it came to my attention, that there is now an entire new form of dating, using a Phone app called Tinder. This works solely by reviewing and rating members of the opposite or same sex solely based on their appearance, as provided in profile photos. In other words the ultimate in shallow apps.

If you see an antelope that you’d like to share some grass with (not that kind of grass) then you can swipe to right to indicate your approval.  If on the other hand, you see a Lion that may not be to your liking, simply swipe to left, to leave him alone in his lair. If the Lion or Antelope, whom you’ve indicated you are interested in, feels the same, then you can chat and move on to arranging a date.

Shallow as I am, even I can’t see the point of meeting potential partners this way, but then perhaps, that’s just a generational thing. So in this case it’s the things I won’t do for my readers!

But fear not, my shallow congregation,  I’ve decided to hand over the reigns of this post, to an up and coming, young blogger, Roxy Scheepbouwer of Roxy’s Amsterdamse Avonturen, who belongs to the age group that uses this app and has many a tale to tell about her adventures on the Tinder hunting grounds. Over to the lovely Roxy.

 

Real life experience of a Tinder Huntress and Prey

I was having dinner with my family, and being the open and honest person that I am (some might also say shameless) I told them about my experiences with Tinder. Curious, my mother asked my brother (18 years old) if he’d ever been on a Tinder date. Full of disgust he shouted “ECHT NIET!! Dat is voor LOSERS!!” So I guess I belong to the losers group. Perhaps I ought to even be elected President of this group, as most people who’ve had such dates, have only done so one time. I on the other hand, being a natural optimist and incredibly resilient under pressure, have had three Tinder dates. This is my story.

Tinder pic

Roxy’s Tinder photo

 

My first Tinder date

While swiping my way through the various Lions on Tinder, I saw one who I thought looked ok, so I swiped him to the right. Naturally, the feeling was mutual and following the traditions of classic romantic literature we started this incredibly romantic conversation.

Him: Hoi

Me: Hee!

Him: Alles goed (no question mark provided)

Me: Ja, met jou? (notice that I used a question mark)

Him: Ja gaat lekker

Of course, being a writer myself, I was impressed by his beautiful romantic prose, so had to continue. Following a couple of days of such wonderful, revealing and intimate conversations, which included revealing insights into his job such as “Ik heb het heel druk” (I’m really busy) I realised that we have lots in common. I’d been complaining to a friend of mine that men never really seem to make a big effort on securing a date with me, so was pleasantly surprised when this young man from Tinder, kept asking me for a date. One evening, or I should say very late at night at 3am he got in touch with me and asked to meet up. I initially said yes, but then good sense intervened and I messaged him to say that it’s way too late and we should leave it another time. Like Spartacus in the arena he fought for my company with a moving, “Kom op Rox, fuck it, let’s just meet for a drink.” So on a saturday night at three thirty am, there I was on my way to meet my first ever date from Tinder.

Now this may sound dangerous, which it probably was, but I wasn’t worried, I was in a kind of go with the flow frame of mind. We went to a late night bar where his brother worked, and he was well known there. In fact, he was so well known there, that every five minutes, various members of staff kept cheering him on to go for gold and kiss me, which eventually he did, much to the joy of his friends. Following that he must have asked me at least thirty times, are we going to your place or mine? It became a little tiring when in response to this, I told him, just as many times “I’m going to my place and you’re going to yours.” This smooth talking young man, responded, “Rox, it’s only a matter of time.” The shallow man says that the world loves an optimist, well, not in this case.

Tinder date number two

The shallow man informs me that in British English a number two refers to going to the toilet. Well I did end up flushing away my second date. I was contacted by date number two, an attractive looking guy from Zurich, after we came up as a match on Tinder. The world is small, and getting even smaller as far as things like Tinder are concerned, as it turned out that this guy also knew a girlfriend of mine in New York. He even suggested that I talk to my friend for a second opinion to prove that he was date worthy. My friend was very excited about the idea of me dating this guy, even though he lived in Zurich and was only in Amsterdam for three weeks. At this point I’ll say ladies, never trust the second opinion of your friends when it comes to men to date.

The Roxy alarm bells had already started ringing when my “friend” described him as being very sweet. When I hear a man being described as sweet, my mind immediately shows me images of kittens, fluffy jumpers, pyjamas and hot chocolate. Nevertheless, being the spontaneous and sometimes too trusting girl that I am, I went ahead and agreed on a date.

 

The day the world stood still

So we met at that popular Amsterdam local in the Pijp, Het Paardje, which normally is packed full of people with lots of noise and loud music. We met on a Sunday evening when it was so quiet that you could here the mice sneezing. The most exciting thing about the date was them mixing up our order of drinks and bringing me beer when I ordered wine, as for the rest……

As described, he was sweet, but “sweet” turned out to be code for “boring”. I felt as if the whole evening was going in slow motion, which was odd as he was attempting to move very fast. He told me repeatedly that he was only in Amsterdam for three weeks, and wanted to move things along quickly. Normally, this means that a guy wants to get me into bed, or at least do something in that area, but not in this case. There was no kissing attempted from his side (nor mine) leaving me confused as to his intentions. The entire evening felt like a business meeting: he was the perfect gentleman, but our conversation never went beyond forced small talk.  I only laughed once during the entire evening, at a story he told me, however, when I started laughing I was interrupted, and told “Ja, maar, dat is echt zo hoor”.In others words it’s a true story, so don’t laugh. Sigh.

 

Tinder date number three

Date number three had an accent from the east of the country that made him sound like a farmer. He’d only lived in Amsterdam for two months and really hadn’t a clue about the layout of the city and had never been to AIR, Paradiso, the Melkweg or even Bubbles. Actually, in two months he’d been nowhere. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he proudly told me that he walked out of a cafe without paying, and that he enjoys nothing more on a fine evening than to vandalize things with his friends.

I’m a girl that works in the gastronomy branch, and do not find it “leuk” when people walk out without paying. But the worst was yet to come. My date spoke the following, charming, words: “I don’t mean anything by it, but here in Amsterdam, there are a hell of a lot of negroes”. Well obviously, he did mean something by it. I was disgusted and knew that there was no way of saving this date.

What I did realize is that, while cycling to meet my third Tinder date, I wasn’t in the least bit nervous! Even better, after all these dates, I came to the conclusion that I am in the position to set my standards a little higher, which I found to be a great outcome of my Tinder debacle. So yes, Tinder dating probably IS something a little for losers. And I turn out not to be that big of a loser.

The Shallow man thanks

The lovely Roxy, for sharing her experiences of the Tinder dating safari. For more tales from the life of Roxy, including the original version of this post in Dutch, please click here.

Several Tinder daters were hurt during the writing of this article.

Buy the Amsterdam Confessions of a Shallow Man from Amazon and just to prove that the shallow man is integrated into Dutch society it’s also available from BOL.com