Tinder shamed.

I’m a relationship virgin. God, it feels weird admitting that. Even though it’s a truth which probably a lot 20 somethings can relate to, I feel strangely ashamed of not having been in a serious relationship before. It’s like I’ve missed something intrinsically important about adult life. As if I don’t understand how the parliament…

Dora Tolstoy Avatar

I’m a relationship virgin. God, it feels weird admitting that. Even though it’s a truth which probably a lot 20 somethings can relate to, I feel strangely ashamed of not having been in a serious relationship before. It’s like I’ve missed something intrinsically important about adult life. As if I don’t understand how the parliament works or that you can’t mix white with black when doing laundry. (I still don’t understand how the parliament works)

Being surrounded by a bunch of couples 24/7 does not make the whole situation any easier either. Couples are omnipresent in my life, being all couply, saying stuff like “What should we eat tonight?” or “Did you do that thing I asked you to do?”. Even when the two soulmates are not physically together, their presence will be felt. You can be sitting with your girlfriends and they’ll be talking about the problems arising when spooning with their boyfriends. Can you imagine complaining about something so wholesome? They’d say something like “Omg Ben’s arm always falls asleep and then he gets annoyed and takes the covers. Ha-ha, oh my silly Ben.” You laugh of course, even though the only arms you’ve made fall asleep are your own piece of shit worthless arms that feel like they’ve been cut off in the middle of the night because you’ve been laying on them.

You might ask yourself how I cope with these distressing issues? Not well. My friends ask me “Hey Dora, any guy that has been on your radar?” And you feel that knot in your stomach because you do not want to say, that there’s absolutely nothing going on. Zilch. Zero. You don’t even want to admit that 14-year-old you had more game than you have right now. So being the defense mechanism queen you are, you hit them up with something like “Yes, but he’s in prison for market manipulation and unpaid parking tickets. I’m just saving up to bail him out.” They’d look at me confused, laugh nervously but with their new cocaine substituted love infused brains, they’ll answer you “Aw, you’ll find someone”. Thank you, my horoscope said that too. Apparently, the month of March would have the love planets aligned in my favor. Even though I do appreciate Jeff Bezos sending me messages of hope through Alexa, as a near-adult, you learn that people tell you what you want to hear. Even your horoscope, even Jeff.

So, you tell yourself, you got to take responsibility, this is the 21st century, it’s time for you to redownload tinder for the 5th time again. You go ahead and make a new profile, trying casually to demonstrate that your face is symmetrical and that you have a sense of humor. You match with a couple of weirdos and don’t respond to their messages. At the same time, you feel heartbroken by being swiped left on by complete strangers that you thought for a second would be your lobsters. Of course, you hide the tinder app in some obscure place in your phone, because walking around with tinder openly on your phone is like walking around with Gonorrhoea medicine all over town.

Never tell couples that you have Tinder. It’s like telling rich people that vacation in Bora Bora that you are going to Mallorca for the summer. They’ll hit you back with a “Aw, that’s cute, good for you!… I heard a girl got murdered there once though… But I’m sure that won’t happen to you!”. I know what you’re thinking, I still have my single friends right, they know what I’m going through. Yes, some are amazing, but some are what I call Romcom prude. They honestly believe that they will bump into a guy and that he will woo them until they fall in love. They are the same people that will push you down the tinder shame dwell. They would say “Aw yeah that’s great that you have tinder, you go girl! I mean I would never download it; I just wouldn’t want to sink that low. I don’t know, it just feels desperate and sad. But you do you!”  

Don’t even think about telling the baby boomers about tinder. They are the queen shamers when it comes to that app. They’ll all say in a choir “In my time you met people naturally, you sat in a coffee shop and a guy would walk up to you. You would fall in love with his aura but reject him constantly until he made a plot to finally get you to date him. The guy might seem like a massive creep because he never took your no seriously, but no! He was just a gentleman, with a 5-year engineering degree, home insurance and a great relationship with his grandmother. Oh, and people were also skinnier back then, look at you now! Pathetic.” When you feel properly tinder shamed by the whole world you delete the bloody app and tell yourself. “Hey, I’m going to meet somebody naturally!” (To be fair, the baby boomers shame online dating until they get divorced and find the new love of their life on christianconnection.com)

I get the feeling that everybody who actually meets someone through tinder also prefer to give a prettier and more natural story to how they met. But are relationships really that pretty and natural? If you look back in history, women and men have kind of always been set up with someone against their will. Largely due to convenience, for example, marrying the only non-family member in your little village, or maybe due to political reasons (My historical accuracy comes from Game of Thrones) Suddenly, after the second world war, the United States started bombarding us with motion pictures that made us believe that we had to stumble upon the love of our lives in a super quirky and awkward manner. And if we didn’t, well then it wasn’t our true love.

The truth is, I don’t know if I’ll meet Mark Darcy tomorrow, or become a 70-year-old spinster watching Sex and The City marathons with my cats. But until that day comes, I’m going to continue to live life and appreciate the days that I can poop in peace without wondering if I look sexy while doing it. If you don’t have a partner to come home to after a night out, prepare a bag of crisps, pre-load an episode of The Office and spoon your laptop the whole night. Do that until you find someone who makes you laugh like Michael Scott does. Otherwise, swallow your pride and redownload tinder for the 6th time.

About Nådiga Lundtan

Founded in 1948 and has since been an important part of student life in the economics program at Lund University. Nådiga Lundtan covers a wide range of topics related to economics, society, and politics, as well as careers, entrepreneurship, and innovation. It is a platform for students to share their ideas and opinions on economics and related fields.

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