So, Christmas came and went, children returned to uni, I returned to work and Tinder mysteriously appeared, downloaded, on my iPad.
Well! After a spell on Tinder, I told so many people that I could write a book about it, that the least I could do was write a blog about it, so here goes . . .
I waited until January 11th. Hubby had announced his unexpected departure on November 11th and I promised myself that I would give him 2 months to change his mind, after which time I would draw a metaphorical line under our relationship and move on. He had said, too, that maybe he just needed ‘a break of a couple of months’.
Anyway, back to the slightly sinister world of internet dating!
I started ‘liking’ random faces of random men on my iPad, not once considering that they were anything more than 2D images on my tablet. The 2D images started ‘liking’ back and I started getting cheesy rewards of wobbly hearts with announcements that I had matches. It still seemed like a game . . . which is what Tinder wants, I believe, on the grounds that once you get a match, it asks you if you want to ‘continue playing’. Then the 2D images started to message me and I found myself having conversations with them . . . I wondered if they, too, considered me to be nothing more than a 2D image and how many females they were chatting to, besides me.
After some interesting conversations, such as whether or not I had the physique for nude hiking in Southern France (that conversation was wiped and the match unmatched), I had my first Tinder date with Wimbledon Man. The following is entirely true; I could not improve upon this account if I tried.
We met in town and he seemed nice enough. We’d chatted a lot on Tinder and become friends on Facebook and a concerned friend had insisted that I inform her of my whereabouts for the duration of the date. So, after careful consideration I came to the conclusion that I could invite him back to my place for dinner.
It was an unusually warm evening and as Dorothea (my newly acquired chicken – long story involving my daughter, her housemate, his friends and a farm) hadn’t been out of her run all day, I suggested we sat in the garden, sipping red wine, watching my big, fat, white chicken frolic.
So there was Wimbledon Man, sitting in my garden, sipping red wine, looking rather dashing in his light cotton trousers . . . There was Dorothea, boc-boccing around at his feet and there was me, walking over to join them. Wimbledon Man smiled and nodded in the direction of the hen house, on top of which my glass of Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon sat, looking ready to round off a lovely first date. I approached the hen house, stretched my arm to collect my glass and heard the most terrible sound I have ever heard. I spun round to the source of the noise and like a scene from The Birds, there was my beautiful chicken, levitating near Wimbledon Man’s shoulder, emitting a noise that a chicken could surely not emit. His arms were curved around his head, in a protective position, as she was managing to attempt an attack on him whilst making the terrible, alien sound.
I leapt forward to help, glass in hand, but unfortunately, wine did not stay in glass and within seconds of the ambush by Dorothea, poor Wimbledon Man’s light cotton trousers bore the stain of a whole glass of red wine. Dorothea was returned to her run, to have a good, long, hard think about her behaviour and we went inside. After I attempted to mop up the stain, Wimbledon Man sat down, finally, to enjoy his wine. I put some music on and went to join him on the sofa, only to be greeted with the scene of the dog humping Wimbledon Man’s leg . . .
So that was Wimbledon Man. Rusty’s penchant for sex with random strangers’ legs knows no bounds so his opinion is not to be trusted (and I’d hazard a guess he rather liked him, based on that) but Dorothea became my judge and jury from that moment on. If she didn’t like him, neither did I . . .
Lisa Workman 