Once upon a time in a land far far away, sat a princess in her castle, carefully setting up the timer app on her iPhone camera. Once considered the fairest in all the land, long ago a fairy, fed up with the princess’ new-age vanity, cursed her with the inability to take a good selfie.

Banished to the land of poor lighting and double chin angles, only by finding true love (despite many an #instagramfail) could the curse be broken.

And so she sat, in the highest tower, of the tallest castle, on the largest hill in all the land, methodically swiping right on Tinder, hoping and wishing that her Prince Charming would see through her crossed eyes and duck face, and that he too, would swipe right….

…Ok, so a little dramatic sure, but tell me that isn’t a little bit more relatable than leaving behind a glass slipper or having to let down your long golden hair?

Dating in 2015 is a strange little monster isn’t it? In my last post I covered how I think the dating scene changes as you move from your 20s to 30s. But regardless of age, technology has entirely changed the way in which we find, forge and maintain relationships.

For obvious reasons I’m not on Tinder myself, nor have I ever been; I imagine my relationship would be a little less stable if I were constantly on my phone perusing half-naked bathroom mirror selfies of bachelors within a 2km radius of me.

Ok, part of that was a lie.

I was on Tinder once.

For 20 minutes.

And it scarred me emotionally.

It was two years ago, when Tinder was but a wee babe fresh out of the Silicon Valley womb. It was one of those, “let’s go out for one drink” kind-of evenings with a girlfriend that had quickly morphed into 3 hours and 2.5 bottles of wine.

Following numerous in-depth conversations on world news, Canadian politics and the state of Syria, our conversation pivoted to men.

Translation: we had been talking about men since glass one.

After a lengthy summary of her most recent escapades and a synopsis of my at-the-time battle with deciding whether to opt for monogamy or singlehood, she starts telling me about this hilarious new dating application that is, in her words, “Essentially a combination of Hot or Not, but with a location based component.”

I mean, how could I not be curious enough to check it out?

So I download Tinder, and her and I sat beside each other shadowing each others right and left swipes, until we ended up in a conversation with the same two guys, laughing as they fed us both the exact same cheesy pick-up lines.

For those who don’t know, part of the joy of Tinder is depending on how close a location parameter you set, you know if who you’re talking to is within a 10km radius of you, a 5km, a 2km, etc. It took about 6 minutes for both guys to begin vying for an in-person meet and greet with both of us, having no idea we knew each other.

That was about the time that the red wine buzz started to wear off, I became acutely aware that I was speaking to real humans somewhere within a 2km radius of me, both of whom I had mutual friends with on Facebook. I immediately deleted the application, curiosity satisfied and only mildly creeped out by the entire system.

Fast forward a mere TWO DAYS after said interaction, and I am with one of my best guy friends, watching a concert at the Rivoli. I turn and look at the door, and Tinder Guy #1 walks through…

…Followed directly by Tinder Guy #2.

Let me repeat, the only two people I have ever spoken to on Tinder, walk into the incredibly small, packed bar TOGETHER.

Now, despite only having had engaged in a 10-minute discourse with both of them, and having none of these messages include even the mildest undertones of the sexting or inappropriateness, I FREAKED OUT.

Looking back, I assume anyone who saw my next movements must have assumed I had lost complete control of my limbs, or was suffering an epileptic seizure.

Upon seeing both these men, I hurled my entire body down under the crowd, and crouched on the floor with my hands over my head mumbling various obscenities and threats to God.

My friend, standing beside me, was of course generally confused by my insane person behavior. I barely had time to hear him say, “What the balls are you doing?” because I was too busy forward crab walking, still below the crowd, to the bar’s washroom.

There I sat alone in a stall for 10 minutes, texting the friend who introduced me to Tinder various overly dramatic rants about how I will never EVER drink red wine again, how I plan on lighting my phone on fire and how I can now understand the plight of people who live in war-torn countries because isn’t this basically the same thing?

Her supportive reaction of course, “This is the best story ever, I want to marry your current situation and have its babies” and an equally supportive, “Well good luck, let me know how it works out. I remember the brunette being hotter if that helps.”

Some would call my frantic ground crawl and bathroom stall stay an irrational overreaction; others would call it a ridiculously irrational overreaction.

In retrospect, of course I realize it all sounds very illogical and over-the-top; like someone caught me white girl dancing to Alanis Morissette so I threw myself in front of a car. But as I said, I grew up in this city. My world already feels so exponentially small and I do everything I can to not to make it feel smaller.

And this made it so small I felt like I was wearing a parka in a phone booth.

I felt like I had just rolled over first thing in the morning, faced not with just one but two bad decisions from the night before lying beside me, and I wanted to chew my arm off rather than wake the beasts.

In short, Tinder made me feel like I had been part of a threesome gone wrong and I was traumatized.

Let’s also remember that Tinder was still so new at this point. There was no cushion of, “Well everyone’s doing it.” Walking back through that crowd, forced to make eye contact with my two Tinder BFs, I could only assume they were thinking, “Oh, how nice of her to leave the comfort of her home, her collection of stamps and 42 cats to come out for an evening.”

It didn’t matter that to know I was on Tinder they had to also be on Tinder. My brain at the time was not processing basic reason and deduction.

In short, I am chalk full of vanity and was just hugely embarrassed.

As it turns out, I think way too highly of myself, or the memorability of said 20-minute interaction because when I walked through the crowd- in what I imagined to be slow motion- the theme song to The Walking Dead playing on loop in my brain, they looked up, took me in, paused for about three-tenths of a second, and then turned back to each other and continued their conversation with ZERO semblance of recognition.

That’s right… I was the member of the threesome that no one even remembered being in the room.

It looks like they weren’t on Tinder some good banter and solid use of puns. Colour me shocked.

And although I was momentarily so outraged at my text game not making a lasting impact that I thought about walking up, licking both their faces and saying “How’s THAT for a right swipe?!” I realized the value of anonymity was too good and rare to pass up.

APOCALYPSE AVOIDED.

I know this is a relatively PG story. I’m sure reading the title you thought you were going to get a way more risqué tale, like, I don’t know, an actual threesome.

But I never really got to delve into the full gamut of what I hear Tinder has to offer. No one has ever offered to drink my bath water, told me about the toy hat that fits on his penis, or inquired about my desire to have them sit on my face. I’ve never gone on a Tinder “date” at 3am or had to stumble across the profiles of all of my exes on a particularly lonely night at home.

But for one brief moment in time, I got to be Tinderella in a not-so-Prince Charming sandwich.

To those still fighting the good fight, swiping right in the hopes of finding someone you’d gladly have sit on your face, I wish you a most sincere Appily Ever After.

The End

E.