i suck at tinder: a true story

I wake up after another night out.

            I feel a tad worse for wear. I try to figure out what I actually got up to.

            I lean over and grab my phone from near my lamp. There are no messages or alerts or anything to give me some notion of the last evening’s activities. I keep scrolling across.

            And there it is. The little red flame, like a distorted upside down heart.

            Tinder.

            Dammit, Dave. Not again.

            Oh well, now it’s there, might as well give it another crack. I open it up and begin the soul-sapping process of judging women based on a handful of photos (mostly selfies, pics with cats/dogs, picturesque poses in front of international tropical/cultural/desert settings, or partying group shots), some Facebook affiliated ‘Shared Interests’ (a lot of ladies, it seems, like Seriously Chuffed Goats), and a brief ‘About’ description, which can be boiled down to statements like: ‘I live to travel,’ ‘I live for the gym,’ ‘I live for funny guys,’ ‘Intelligence is sexy,’ ‘Extra points for beards and/or tattoos,’ ‘I’m not DTF,’ ‘Creeps need not apply’ (as if that will stop them), ‘Not interested in your gym selfies, your abs, or pictures of you with a comatose tiger’ (guys actually do that?), ‘New to Melbs, just wanna make some friends to show me around,’ and ‘[insert inspirational/ reflective/political/Anchorman quote].’

            Let the swiping begin. Let the initially careful analysis and consideration of each profile slowly descend into the furious action of just swiping right to a) see if it’s working, or b) see if there is anyone out there at all who has judged me worthy. Let another round of few, to absolutely no, matches follow in its wake.

Well, ‘real’ matches. I don’t count it when that curiously joyous moment of physical validation which accompanies a Tinder match is immediately undercut by a message that offers the ‘full GF experience’ at reasonable rates.

Yeah, thanks, but I can do my whoring on my own time. Without an app.

            See, every time I embark on this shallow quest of left-for-no, right-for-yes, I realise that although I’m good, even excellent, at a great many things, Tinder is most certainly not one of them.

            I know this from addict-like practice instinctively and rationally. Yet, there is still some part of me that will seek out the app store when I’m not really paying attention and then, bang, its back for another round.

            It’s probably a mix of interrelated things that keeps allowing it to catch me unawares. Sudden surges in confidence (my ego is a wondrously fluctuating beast) leads me to mistakenly think, ‘ah hell, I’d be stupid not to in my current form!’ Tinder then presents itself as a really easy and impersonal option to play the numbers game: you get to faux-approach a lot of women without the rigmarole of having to, you know, ‘approach’ them. Finally, it is the perpetual inquiry from people around me when they find out I’m single: ‘you on Tinder?’ To which I usually reply, ‘nah, I’m shit at it.’ The seed, though, is again planted.

Later, despite my proclamations of being done with it, I’ll download Tinder, because it seems like my confidence, alongside an ease of access and this random assortment (of usually committed) people give me some kind of permission, bypassing both the awkwardness of being on it in the first place and the simple knowledge that, for me, it doesn’t work.

I ask myself then: why not? What is it about me that makes me so terrible at Tinder? Or at least so unattractive a prospect?

Besides the fact that I cannot grow a beard and refuse to scar my porcelain skin with tattoos—both of which are apparently mighty attractive in our day and age—I take awful photos, which is of course not ideal for a dating app designed for immediate aesthetic, skin-deep gratification, where coupling success is achieved, and measured, by means of appreciating how good someone looks in a few pics.

For me, who has always struggled when stared down by a camera, this is both a conscious and unconscious problem.

Consciously, I will often make stupid faces. Contorting my mighty large head into a variety of rubber expressions designed to shock and awe. My mouth will usually be wide open, my double-chin out and about with full bravado, one eye slightly closed, and my nostrils flared. Impressive though these photos may be on some level, I wouldn’t say that they are attractive. And there are a disturbingly high number of them. I've mastered the art of the dumb face when someone catches me unaware with a camera.

Unconsciously, my go to smile for pictures is kind of vanilla and a little bit disconcerting in its rigidness. In these, I poke my head slightly forward, rip my mouth open into a grinning rictus to expose my clenched teeth, and then freeze. It’s still and slightly unnatural, and my eyes are never quite focused. There is such an underlying intensity and concentration to look natural, that naturalness has packed its bags and said, 'fuck this, good luck buddy.' Turning around, the naturalness then says, with sincere pity, 'sorry, but without me mate, you look like a lot like a slightly unhinged manikin. Like a ventriloquist doll.'

Even then, with all my flaws at the end of the lens, I would think that some lady out there would be able to look past a couple of odd photos and mutter to themselves, ‘actually, not too bad.’

But, no.

This leaves me with only one possible option for my failures at Tinder: I’m too attractive. So good looking that it’s actually intimidating. Even in my awful photos does this sheer, sun-blinding hotness reach out and, alas, transpire against me. For who could be self-assured enough to swipe right to this?

It is my blessing. And curse.

Anyway, I’m going to delete it again.

I’ll be back in a fortnight.

Some True Facts About Quail

Over the last couple of weeks I have been lucky enough to eat some particularly fine quail. Although small, quail packs quite the flavour punch, like there are a bunch of people engaged in a lively, albeit humorous, debate in your mouth, which rapidly descends into a friendly, almost sexual, play fight that features the gratuitous use of pillows and, eventually, pies … probably made from quail. Who would have known that this small flightless bird could attain such rarefied airs of sublime deliciousness? Well I didn’t. Indeed, I realised I know very little about quail, which is clearly a failure of Australian educational practices. I had to remedy this absence of knowledge. Thus, after some exhaustive research this morning, I present Some True Facts About Quails to educate us all about this delicacy that we like in and around our mouths.

·       The word ‘quail’ is often thought to be derived from the latin, quaipollus, which essentially means ‘tiny poultry.’ However, its etymological roots lie in the French word, quaileux, which translates roughly to ‘flightless morsel.’

·       The quail can be genetically traced back to the velociraptor of the Cretaceous Period.

·       The quail’s flightlessness belies its surprizing agility and uncanny ability to locate rabbit burrows for safety.

·       Like the duck, the noise of the quail is a robust ‘quack.’ Unlike the duck, however, the quail’s quack is capable of echoing.

·       It was the spirit animal of the Mongolian conqueror, Genghis Khan, who learnt his exquisite horseback bow skills chasing them around the steppes of Asia. He ate no less than five whole quails before engaging in any battle, displays of (unspecified) might, or romps of virile fornication.

·       The quail is the unofficial bird of Scotland. They believe it espouses values of rugged freedom underneath an exterior too small to actually do much about it.

·       Although it has fallen out of use, to be called a ‘quail’ in the Elizabethan era was quite the complement. By way of analogy, to be dubbed a ‘quail’ then, is to be named a ‘total babe’ now. ‘That Queen Elizabeth is a quail, sir.’ ‘Yes, quite a quail.’

·       The first documented recipe for quail is attributed to the 16^th century German alchemist, Günter Gertler. Believing the flesh of the quail—which he held sacred—to be the key in turning base metals into gold, Günter slow-cooked it in a sauce of goat’s milk, magnesium and sodium, with a dash of chlorine. Unfortunately, the concoction failed to convert iron to gold, but, curious at the robust scent of his work, upon taking a nibble of quail, Günter was astounded to discover it was delicious to the palate. For a brief period, before the schnitzel assumed prominence and people realised it was causing them all severe heartburn, goat’s milk chlorinated quail was the dish of Germany.

·       Although the main dietary source of the quail is small nuts, they have also been known to devour insects and hunt down field mice (true to their velociraptor heritage).

·       The collective noun for a group of quail is ‘a grounded.’

·       They make terrific pets for young children as they are prolific at games of fetch, although it is recommended that twigs, as opposed to smaller marbles, are used.

·       The quail will viciously defend its eggs in March, thus the notable of absence of steak tartare with quail egg from menus during this period.

·       In BMX parlance, a ‘quail’ is the manoeuvre when a rider goes over a jump and doesn’t get any air.

·       The source of its deliciousness has been the frequent study of many fine food-science minds. Theories range from their diet of field mice, to more theological notions of their apparent godliness embodied in the universality of quail appreciation. The only common hypothesis, however, seems to revolve around the flimsy bones of the quail, which most agree imparts some measure of its deliciousness. For some excellent elucidation on the mystery of quail flesh see: White, The Bird That Wasn’t, But Was (2000), Grey, On Matters of the Tiny Poultry (1967), and Hammersmith, Quizzically Questioning Quail’s Piquant (1876).