I’m done with Tinder. Yup, it’s over. Consider me retired. Someone take my phone and drag the Tinder icon to the ‘uninstall’ icon. Let’s be clear what my grouch is not about. It’s not about the one Tinder incident which everyone in college loves to exaggerate and joke about (screw you Bunty, I did not ask you what you were wearing). It’s also not some regurgitated crap about how vain Tinder makes us, because I’m the last person who’ll give you that perspective.

It’s been a good run but I’m just sore. It’s tough to keep up any longer. There is literally a mark on my phone the size of my thumb which stretches to the right. My touch screen has eroded in the right-swipe portion of the screen. I’m done with swiping right to women who I wouldn’t ever want to meet. I’ve had enough anxiety from accidentally swiping left on gorgeous women. I’ve had enough self-hate from accidentally swiping right to women who you unmatch immediately. I’ve had enough shame from the few times I tapped the super like button and no one responded (I was professing my love, you heartless fool). Tinder is a young man’s game, and if I’m being perfectly honest, it should be no man’s game. Maybe the internet is too vast. Maybe there are way too many stunning women out there that I can view four photos and a bio of but never be able to meet. These are women who offer me a glimpse into their world, only to disappear forever. I feel like I’m stranded in the middle of the ocean without any navigation tools, with a photo book of beautiful islands, and my boat looks really ugly. (Most women have stopped reading, most guys nod depressingly)

Tinder has left me full and starving all at once. I believe it’s time to go back to a simpler time. Remember that old school method of chasing women? Forming a ‘crush’ on someone, lingering in the Acad talking to them even when you’re done with your consult, hanging around at Chetta at 12.20 till Chetta cock blocks you by pulling down his shutters, attempting to volunteer for events in the same stream as them so you get to hang out. Having conversations over text that steer wildly from mundane chatter to intense flirting till you back off because you may as well have been typing with your dick, back to mundane chatter. Figuring out which party they’re going to and figuring out excuses to talk to them at said party.

At the time all of this felt like too much work. But now? I miss it. I miss the old school experience of chasing after only one woman because it made me want the relationship even more. It made me shy when discussing my top 5s. It made the experience of the real thing something my mind couldn’t quite fathom, and made me look forward to it. Tinder is a lot like ordering from Foodpanda in Nagarbhavi. There are way too many options and you finally decide on something and they don’t deliver to your area. I have a feeling I just want to stick to eating at Rohini.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this meme I see on my news feed frequently (this is also how I start conversations with women on tinder). It has this Asian girl who in response to a dichotomy says, “Why not both”. I feel like tinder is the manifestation of that meme, where you can be talking to 4 women all at once with the sole intent of inviting them to your Bone Zone. More than that, your success or failure depends on how good your “text game” is, and not the person you are. There are texting rules that govern how you should talk to these women, and if something goes wrong, it’s because you didn’t follow that rule. We put so much stock into our texts so that at the end, we can look back at it and say, “Oh he didn’t text back enough” or “I texted this girl too much” like we broke a rule that gets us disqualified. That’s a lot easier than looking back and saying, “I tried, and the girl didn’t like me, and that’s something I can’t change”.

My point isn’t that Tinder isn’t great. The point is that maybe we were better off not knowing. That’s why I’m going back. I’m going to a top 5 world. I’m choosing volunteer streams after I talk to the woman. I’m staying at Chetta till 12.20. I’m hanging around in the Acad even when I’m done with my consult. I think it will help my taste for the real thing. I think it will help you, too.

I’m lying back on my couch, making love while the nation burns

In a pixelated fire, conjured daily in news studios and fuelled by

The words of errant anchors; words that the nation doesn’t want to know

And would be better off silencing, really.

I shift beneath him and sigh, arch my back, my eyes shut:

While a woman loses face to blackness and pain

I voluntarily embrace the blindness that pleasure brings.

I listen not for the sounds of dissent, or the sounds of hatred and jingoism

Echoing down my street

But for the sounds of interruptions – was that a key rustling in my lock?

Are my roommates back? No, thank God –

Never mind that the water has been mostly cut off

And they could be in danger somewhere in this city

I wet my lips with desire.

He breathes down my neck, and his stubble prickles deliciously.

I believe the sweet nothings he whispers in my ear in the heat of the moment

It’s a collective disease of the nation, isn’t it? Believing too soon, I mean

But I pay no attention except to the slow-building ecstasy

And the release doesn’t clear my mind, but makes me want to

Snuggle closer into the web of lies that comforts me, stroking my hair.

As if I were a child and not an adult capable of political expression

Whose death could be of consequence, worthy of consideration.

He falls asleep on my arm, oblivious to my pain

Snoring while I struggle to extricate myself from under him

I finally feel his weight, pinning me down, rendering me unable to breathe

Yet I hesitate to wake him – I love him, after all

And he needs the rest, as all protectors do.

And so I suffer in silence for him.

Because the alternative would be waking him up.

The alternative would be watching his fair and handsome features

Arrange themselves into a disapproving frown

Or worse, a look of pain – ‘I thought you loved me.

Look at my mother, my sister – they laid down their lives so I could live

And you would not tolerate even a bit of pain for my comfort?’

I don’t want that conversation.

And to love him is my duty, regardless of whether he loves me back.

So I tire not of mindlessly repeating the words to old songs

Proclaiming undying love, and thinking of his mother and his sister

And their selfless love

And like a good girlfriend

And a good nationalist

I slather on the makeup to hide my bruises.