Tinder Experiment 1. Subject Ian, 40

I decided to do an experiment. Men do it all the time. Cast the net WIDE. I closed my eyes and swiped right to every single profile.
Boom the matches popped up one after another.
So now it was time to see what happens next. Could any of them actually have potential? Who would message me first?
Subject #1: Joe, 38. I decided to tell him that I do not have sex on the first date. He agreed it would be strange to have sex on the first date. Then promptly deleted me. Okay whatever.
Subject #2: Ian, 40. How come he's 11,000 kms away now? We get to chatting. This goes on for days and days.
Turns out he was in town on a layover then back home to The British Virgin Islands where his family owns a resort!! Invite graciously accepted and my single girlfriends are welcome too.
I excitedly tell my friends to pack their bags. Ian is not exactly my type, he's a little heavy but in a cute teddy bear sort of way. One of my friends says "you know you have to take one for the team, right?"
No!! He's a nice man. He won't expect anything...will he??
The daily chats get a little desperate, a little too much. He finally sends me a current photo.
His profile said he was 40. By the looks of it, I am not sure if 40 was 10 years ago or older! Let's just say he looked like Santa on holiday 😔
It took me 10 minutes of 'take care, okay bye, thanks, you too, best of luck, bye" to get rid of him on whatsapp. I didn't plan on blocking him. But his last message to me was "I will miss you". BLOCK

#DearTinderDiary it took me a while to shake the thought of taking one for the team with Bahama Santa. Blegh. No more experiments!

xo,
mh

Chaddly, Miles, Kurt - (dis)honorable mentions

#DearTinderDiary:
I don't think these three deserve their own separate posts.
First: I matched with them, but we didn't meet.

Second: I have all their phone numbers and chatted a lot, but we didn't meet.

Third: My friend met two of them on other dating apps. She reports that they are not much to write home about. So I definitely didn't want to meet them now.

But just a brief description of each of them from what I remember:

Chaddly ghosted me after I asked whether he'd be interested in meeting.
Who in their 40s refers to himself as 'Chaddly' anyway?

Miles: told me all about where he works and his whole life story and part way through my trip to NY last Fall, he stopped messaging. I see him on Tinder still. I should just swipe right to stop seeing his profile pop up. Same with Chaddly.

Kurt: apparently is really only into Asian women and when my friend met him she knew it. (She's not Asian). What a douche.

So I would like to take this opportunity to thank Chaddly, Miles and Kurt for being pussies, flakes and/or douches and NOT pursuing me further. And my apologies to my friend. She took one for the team and meet a guy with an Asian fetish when she's not Asian. 😞

Still alive after Darryl and dodging bullets one swipe at a time!

xx,
mh

Darryl, 41

#DearTinderDiary
Okay maybe it's time to meet someone my own age. My batting average, points on net, shots on goal or whatever you call it isn't very good with younger men so far.

Let's try a different approach. Doing the same thing over and over expecting different results is the sign of insanity.

Coffee meet during lunch. No phone numbers exchanged. Guy will come to me. He's actually older than me! Here goes nothing.

You know how some people can be completely different when you meet them in person? Meet Darryl.

He could easily have been a serial killing psychopath, or grew up in a cult, or was locked in a cage with no socialization as a child. Hard to tell.

Very strange man. I tried my best to make conversation but he kind of freaked me out. So I politely said goodbye to him and promptly deleted our match. Good fucking thing we didn't exchange numbers.

Well, that didn't work. But as the saying goes "if your Tinder date doesn't kill you, it just makes you stronger", right? Right?!

xx,
mh

Tom, 29

#DearTinderDiary:
Tom is Irish and new in town. I am such a cliche since any Irish, Scottish, English accent will most likely make my panties drop.  Panties. What a gross word. I digress.
All I remember about Tom was that he mumbled every word and being terribly North American I couldn't understand a word he said.  Underpants still ended up coming off. I probably misunderstood.
Oh well.
He was nice enough but there wasn't really much chemistry probably since I didn't really understand a word he said.

Moral of the story - I am not really sure since I barely understood a word he said!

xx,
mh

Chris, 27? Ah who cares

Chris a very cute blonde with blue eyes. Mining engineer or something. He's from out of town, visiting his sister, bored of sitting on the couch, staring at her and her husband. So we meet late at a bar in his sister's neighbourhood.
I don't really remember what happened but he ended up at my place and had to do the walk of shame in the morning. Across a bridge in a town he's not familiar with. Meh, I wasn't gonna drive him home. He kept wanted to breathe in my mouth, it was fucking annoying.
#DearTinderDiary: I think for guys sex is like pizza. For me, quit breathing in my fucking mouth bye.

xx,
mh

Joseph 29, now 30

Dear Tinder Diary:
Joe is bored on a Saturday night when we matched. I guess I was bored too. I basically had 2hrs of sexting with someone I just matched with. I am glad I start messaging right away now. Haha.

He just moved back home a week ago from work/school abroad. He's back at his parents' and doesn't have a car. I double check that he's 29 and not 16. Shit, I really don't want to go to jail.

Fast forward to weeks of random messaging. I finally meet him on his 30th birthday. Cute in person for certain, shame he's terribly boring. I gave him a handy for his birthday just to see what I would be getting myself into.

I heard from him from time to time but I wasn't dying to see him again like I have been with other guys.
Fast forward (there's been a lot of that lately) to New Year's Eve 2015. I was with neighbours celebrating and we were well into the Veuve by now. Good ol' Joe messages me. I slept with him despite the fact he was still boring as ever but the champagne made him extra cute. He lasted about as long as the countdown 😕.

#DearTinderDiary: My one New Year's Resolution - don't have sex with boring guys no matter how cute. Lesson learned, sexting is easier to be good at than the real thing.

xx,
mh

Seth and Summer are on a break

It was a completely unplanned night at The Senate with Pippa. I am usually the one who wants to go, and she's the voice of reason that tells me to make the boys wait!
Tonight Pippa's buzz was gone early and SHE suggested we go. It was quiet, not a lot of patrons. I scan the room as we take our seats at the bar. Of all the bars in town, of all the random nights, who do I see on a DATE with someone else?

Adam! What is MY Seth Cohen doing with a different Summer Roberts! (Google The OC).
It was super awkward even though we aren't in any sort of relationship. He never saw me, but Pippa and I spied on  the whole date. 😟 It was surreal.

I randomly messaged him during the night.  He did tell me that he was in my 'hood, but out 'with friends'. Hmm...I shouldn't even care. But of course I did, just a little.

I never brought it up. We still see each other from time to time actually. It was our 1 year anniversary from the day we met recently, haha. He'll always be my Seth Cohen 😊.

#DearTinderDiary, I have learned to not hate the player but hate the game. Besides, I would be a hypocrite if I made it a big deal.

xx,
mh

Rob, 42

Finally a man closer to my age! Full head of hair, looks younger than his age, never married, no kids. We're both Cancers! Birthdays are only 1 day apart.

I broke my rule about going to a date's apartment upon first meeting. It never seems safe. He assured me he wasn't going to kill me, just wanted to listen to 80s music together. And that's all we did, continued our drinks, chatted lots and listened to whatever we could think of on YouTube. He walked me out, got me a cab and paid for it. It was a really nice date and we didn't even...

He's fun, we have lots to talk about, he's new in town having just relocated for his job. As we continue to see each other, I broke another rule - don't introduce Tinder dates to friends and/or mix the two worlds. But I did and he seemed to get along great with everyone. By this time we still had not slept together which was perfectly fine (I still have Walker Wednesdays 😉).
This is the anti-Tinder via Tinder! Of course eventually we find ourselves there...he stops, says we shouldn't do this and maybe we should wait. Aw how sweet! 😍 I have a list of questions I usually ask when I first match and message someone. It generally gives me all I need to know to decide if I want to still meet this person. I guess I had forgotten one question before now being in bed together, P almost in the V...
Me: When was the last time you were in a long term relationship? He hesitated, looked at me as though he was hoping I would never ask. Rob: Well I kind of still am. Me: Are you fuckin MARRIED? I asked if you were single before we met!

Turns out he's been engaged for years, they own a house together back home, he relocates for work, but she has no intentions of following him. WTF.
I break another rule of mine - I continue to see him despite technically not being single.

It's Halloween 2015 by now, we hadn't seen each other in a month. but were both dying to. I go over to his place for drinks. He doesn't live in the best neighbourhood but it's one of up and coming places with nice apartments but not so nice at night.
He's had this fascination with knowing my last name. Another rule of mine, I don't reveal my last name to Tinder dates. The one rule I didn't break with him. He said tell me what your last name is or get out. So I got dressed and left. He didn't walk me to the door, didn't get me a cab. I could barely utter a bye when I left. I had to WALK home because it was so late and no cabs in sight. Never heard from him afterwards. I thought perhaps it was the booze talking and I would at least get a text the next day.

Fast-forward to January 2016. Random text from Rob, to get my attention. I was slightly enraged, more intrigued. I lasted a day without replying. I asked him what he wanted, reminded him how he KICKED ME OUT never to be heard from again. He apologized, I told him it was too little too late.

I made a new rule - not to get sucked back in by bad experiences and giving them a second chance. I deserve better that. #DearTinderDiary: I broke some rules, I made some new ones.

xx,
mh

Walker, 28

Dear Tinder Diary: This is a first for me. Match, chat, meet all on the same day.
We were quite clear of our intentions before we met so it seemed pretty natural to meet in person and just figure out if there was actual chemistry. He was very fresh out of a long term relationship and was looking to rebalance his life. He was interested in 'parallel readjustment' and I couldn't have agreed more.
I had said that if we met and things worked out well, he could walk me home after drinks.
This was last July and it was nice out so we met on a patio. I have to say I wasn't sure at first. Our conversation wasn't as dynamic or exciting as I had hoped. By now I think I had met enough guys to sort of gauge very quickly which direction things would go.
But then we started talking food and when he said loved Dave Chang, that was the game changer. Then we both got really excited and couldn't stop talking.
He walked me home.
After he left, I casually suggested we make this a regular thing. He messaged me the next day to set a day. Walker Wednesdays was so much fun for weeks. I messaged when I returned from a trip NY in September. I brought back a treat from our beloved Dave Chang's Milk Bar. He gently broke it to me that he had met another girl and there would be no more Walker Wednesdays.
Admittedly I was slightly heartbroken and turned Tinder off immediately. Okay I may have burst into tears in the office. I am such a sap. Thinking that a Tinder date/weekly rendezvous would become anything more than a few Wednesdays. I decided to take a break from meeting new men and if any current ones were interested, then I would see if I felt like it. It was a good time to slow down.

#DearTinderDiary: I admit I am a hopeless romantic sometimes. AND it's all fun and games until maybe you have to see the doctor about your lady business. #dontask 😞

xx (with a clean bill of health),
mh

James, 30

Dear Tinder Diary: That stupid 50 Shades of Grey has changed the game completely. Probably even before the book and the movie. I realize I have vanilla sex. Pippa told me I have vanilla sex.  There is a new sex generation that surprises me.
Case in point, I match with James. I was very drunk when I initially matched with him and opened with 'Is that an umbrella or are you just happy to see me?'
Terrible at best. But it worked.
He gave me his number almost instantly. He texted admitting he was looking for casual fun. Noted. He asked me to send him sexy photos of myself. No. He asked if I like rough sex and was trying to convince me that cum on my face is good for the skin. Hot damn. This is not the flirting I am used to. Admittedly it didn't offend, I was enjoying it.
I wonder how successful these men are though. I messaged him the next day never to hear from again. Fucking guy - you really think you're that good that I would just sleep with someone after a few text exchanges? Please. I bet it was just an umbrella in his pocket.

xx,
mh