I laughed. “If that quote appeared ten years ago, people would say, ‘These selfish bitches, that’s why they’re not with a man.’”
“But she is with a man,” Elisa pointed out.
Aha, I thought. Here was a very good sign that some things had changed for the better. Women could speak their minds freely and men would still be happy to match with them.
But had Emma met her husband on Tinder?
No, she had not. And as more champagne was poured, everyone began dissing Tinder.
“Finding a guy on Tinder is about as much fun as trying to find an apartment,” Gena said. “It’s boring.”
“All the guys on it in their twenties take prescription drugs and have been diagnosed by a shrink.”
“They’re like: ‘The reason I can’t text you back is because of ADD.’”
“Texting chemistry is huge because it’s so rare,” Corina said. “Texting with someone who’s good at texting is hot. I love the slow burn.”
“That would annoy the shit out of me,” Gena interjected. “Someone matches with me and I say when can you meet in person? I’m not going to text forever. I think it’s a young person thing.”
“Like reaction gifs,” Elisa said.
“Oh no. I like reaction gifs,” said Corina, who was twenty-two.
“Gifs are a generational thing,” Emma explained. “It’s the same as when your grandmother doesn’t know what an emoji is. I’m like: I don’t understand a reaction gif.”
But all this must lead to something good at the end, yes? Like a date?
“Dates?” Marion scoffed.
“I’ve had men take me to the ATM. That’s an ‘outing’ to me,” Corina said. “I’ll tag along while they’re running errands. I’ll tag along while they’re picking up dry cleaning.”
“A guy once messaged me to meet him at a restaurant at eight p.m. I was excited. I thought, Here’s a guy who actually can make a plan. But it turned out he only wanted to meet at the restaurant to pee, and then we went to a Starbucks where we didn’t even get a coffee. And then we got kicked out,” Hannah said.
Gena rolled her eyes. “The guy was probably crashing at his mom’s house.”
Being one of the olds, I had to ask the inevitable question: If dating is work and the guys are no good, why not try to meet people the old-fashioned way? In a bar?
Can We Talk?
“The problem with going to a bar is that you’re not necessarily going to meet someone. I went to bars for years and I only met two guys that I’ve gone home with and slept with. Okay, maybe four,” Gena said.
On the other hand, trying to find someone on a dating app has plenty of hurdles as well, especially when it comes to chemistry irl.
“There are so many guys I see online that I think: No, not cute enough, I’m not attracted, but if I met them in real life I would be attracted,” Hannah said. “If you meet someone in real life you have a sense of their humanity. And online you don’t have that.”
The atmosphere suddenly became strangely tense, as if someone had said something politically incorrect.
There was a pause. “So you would prefer to meet people irl? If you could, that’s how you would meet everybody?” Emma asked, as if such a thing were not possible.
“It’s not that I feel online is bad,” Hannah insisted. “It’s just that the lack of context usually leads to disappointment. You can look at six good pictures of a boy and have no idea if you’ll have any chemistry in person.”
Or feelings.
“If you go into Tinder thinking, I just want to have sex, then you’re fine. You feel like you’re in control. But the second you have feelings it’s a free-for-all,” Corina said.
“‘Catch feelings,’ as the teens say,” Emma added. “If you catch feelings for someone, you’re done. It’s the generation below us. It’s getting worse for them.”
“But I like having sex with someone and having feelings,” Marion said.