Tinderness
We’ve had a good run, Tinder. It’s officially farewell.
Happy Valentine’s Day! I read this piece live yesterday evening at my dear friend Shy’s “Holiday” reading party at The Earl. Thank you to everyone who came out and made my night <3 This version is meant for the web, and is slightly longer and more detailed. Enjoy!
As I typed away on my laptop giving my hot takes on Asian fetishists and incestuous dating pools, puffing on my Juul, I couldn’t help but wonder: was I a modern-day L.A. Carrie Bradshaw, or a total shill for Tinder? The answer is, I was both. From 2018 to 2020, I was an in-app copywriter and a preeminent contributor for Tinder’s now-defunct lifestyle blog, Swipe Life, created to enhance the notorious dating app’s brand — to help guide hopeful daters everywhere.
In my 15 minutes of fame, The New York Times summarized an excerpt of my writing in their 2018 article, “Tinder and Bumble Are Hungry for Your Love.” Subhead: “The big online dating rebrand means the apps want you to fall in love with them now.”
It read: “When Swipe Life began this fall, its articles sang of the exciting spontaneity of singledom. For example: ‘I Moved to L.A. for a Tinder Relationship That Lasted Two Weeks, But I Don’t Regret It — Here’s Why.’
The author, Belinda Cai, wrote that she visited Los Angeles in the summer of 2017, met a guy through the app, hung out with him twice, and then stayed in touch by phone. They bonded over their childhoods and ‘leftist ideologies.’ Soon, she had moved from Ohio to live with him in California, but quickly found his apartment too messy, his ‘affinity for drinking’ too gross and his ‘large hair-shedding dog’ too destructive. As for their shared ideology? In the end, she wrote, he turned out to be ‘a total brocialist.’”
The article continues: “Still, she praised Tinder for spurring her cross-country move, even though the relationship was a bust. ‘Little did I know, when I used the app last summer, I wasn’t swiping for love or anything crazy like that — I was swiping for change,’ she wrote.
‘GET ON TINDER,’ reads the large, hyperlinked button at the end of the piece.”
***
Getting paid to combine my extensively messy and sometimes fun dating experiences with my love for writing was a dream come true at the time. And before The NYT was outed as a zionist-backed, biased news source for which I have less and less respect, seeing my name and writing in one of their articles was an unexpected but very welcome surprise.
From the archives, here a few of my Swipe Life headlines:
We Both Have Mental Illness: Do We Get Each Other Or Are We Doomed for Disaster?
We Talked To People With Unusual Fetishes And Kinks About Their Dating And Love Lives
What It’s Like Dating When You’re Living — Yes, Living — With Your Ex
What You Should Know When Dating Someone With Bipolar Disorder
I’m An Asian Woman And I Refuse To Be Fetishized
How To Tell If You Are In A Codependent Relationship
And even: “I Messaged Guys On Tinder Using Exclusively Parks And Rec Quotes And Documented The Results,” an experiment I conducted at Tinder’s request. One of my interactions lasted for days, the innocent, unknowing subject simply believing that I spoke in mysterious riddles as my natural way of communication, and that I was in love with him. I was not.
All in all, I wrote 23 articles — from personal essays to reported stories with verified sources to fluff pieces — about the ins and outs and ups and downs of the dating world. I was doing a public service, sharing my love life and dating insight with the masses, and for only $400 an article.
***
Looking back, I realize how sanitized my stories and pitches were. As someone who’s been in the trenches with these apps and has met some highly questionable characters through them, I should’ve pitched stories like these instead.
Example A:
Why The Guy Who Was Previously In a Polycule And Only Into Freaky Sex Not Boyfriend Material
I’m seeing someone who has never been in a monogamous relationship. He’s only been with, like, three or more people at once. He claims everyone in the New York City art scene, of which he was previously a part, is poly. “I swear, it’s like everyone,” he insisted. When it came to sex, he told me he was into some intense shit, like fisting vaginas and using his belt as a leash on women. He recalled how once, at Jumbo’s Clown Room, he allowed a strange man to blow him in the bathroom so that he could procure coke from him. “Pleasure and drugs,” he said. “A win-win.” Okay, yeah, this guy is never going to be my husband. He’s like Patrick Bateman-lite.
Example B:
Kittenfishing And Negging: A Nasty Combo
When I met my date for a drink, he didn’t look like his photos. About five years and perhaps 70 pounds later, he misled me from the moment we digitally met by sharing outdated pictures. What’s worse is that he wouldn’t stop bragging about his burgeoning screenwriting career, and his love for David Foster Wallace and Shakespeare. He kept quoting both. Did he think he was smart or something? Even though the date didn’t go well, I agreed to a second one to prove myself as the intellectual writer I am. Turns out, he was a pathological liar (not just a kittenfisher) with BPD, and I didn’t need to prove anything.
Also, without too much elaboration:
Why You Shouldn’t Date Someone Fresh Out of Rehab
Stay Away From Dudes Who Punch Walls Instead Of Communicating
40-Year-Old Daddy’s Boys: Walking Red Flags
Crypto Bros Will Not Make You Happy
Don’t Give That Creep Who Lived Abroad In Asia A Chance
Gooners Will Goon
Ladies, Don’t Exclusively Date Men — You’re Probably Bi And Missing Out. Don’t Make The Same Mistake I Did
***
I thought I was done with Tinder, but it somehow found me again. I had finished working for the company and after a toxic four-year on-and-off-again relationship and a crazy six-month fling afterwards, I was over dating and had zero expectations. I downloaded Tinder out of sheer boredom (maybe habit), matched with a few people, and then deleted the app — also out of sheer boredom. When I got back on (because Tinder had some kind of hold on me, apparently), I re-matched with someone who caught my eye.
He was an artist located two miles away from me. Okay, I tell myself. A creative (the type I go for) located close to me (very important in L.A.) So far so good. He also had a sense of humor that was only mildly self-deprecating.
Well, he did have nice hair. And solid music taste. If you know me at all, you know I’m an Alex G stan. This was, naturally, the first topic we talked about when he messaged me. We immediately discussed seeing Alex G perform in L.A. during the God Save the Animals tour the year prior, both unknowingly in the same crowd. Following that, there was no small talk, never any games; we dove into long, vulnerable texts and voice messages before meeting.
More than three years later, I realize I couldn’t have asked for a better partner. Eric’s my perfect, sensitive lesbian boyfriend. The harmonious Libra to my fiery Aries. Our song is now “Immunity” by our guy, Alex G, but we’ve reinterpreted the song’s meaning to be about love rather than getting high off of cocaine. Minor adjustment.
***
I don’t usually know how to write about my happiness. I have an urge to release my demons onto paper or muse about all of the fucked up things I’ve lived through. But this piece is different. It goes out to the optimists — the Charlotte Yorks — and those who love love.
When I met Eric, my entire world changed. Right off the bat, he showed a sincere kindness I’d rarely seen in another person, let alone a Tinder match. He was a one-off, a rare breed: emotionally intelligent, talented, funny, bright, gentle, and deeply thoughtful.
Eric’s shown me what true love means — from physically carrying me home on a night I passed out from period cramps (and hitting a weed pen too hard, oops) to sprinting after an Uber in Rio de Janeiro because I accidentally left my phone in it (and later rescuing it the next day through a series of convoluted events) to straight up cooking and cleaning for me because he enjoys making my life easier. I’ve struck jackpot with my Sweet Babyfaced Libra.
It’s come full circle. I’ve found tenderness through Tinder — through an app that had previously only brought me misery, STDs, offbeat funny stories, traumatic experiences, and misadventures. An app that interestingly gave me a chance to flex my inner Carrie Bradshaw and share these misadventures with fellow daters and the world at large.
How did it work out? I got lucky. Simple as that. There’s no science behind these apps. Just luck. It’s rough out there. I acknowledge that. There are lots of fuckboys and fuckgirls and fuckthems, but there are also some gems. I know they’re rare, but please try to not lose hope.
Eric and I were both in the right digital place at the right time. Eric had never used any of the more involved dating apps (i.e. Hinge, Bumble), so Tinder was his go-to — and it was also a last-ditch effort for him. If I hadn’t re-downloaded the app and he hadn’t messaged me, we probably wouldn’t be together. But I did, and he did, and we are. <3
I’m going to email The NYT and ask them to do a follow-up piece, more than seven years after the initial article, in which they can quote me saying: I wasn’t swiping for love or anything crazy like that — but, in the end, love somehow found me.
Apparently I’m still a shill for Tinder and, this time, it’s for free.
So you’re welcome, Tinder, and also, thank you. We’ve had our run — it was a long, sometimes spicy, but mostly chaotic one — and now it’s officially goodbye.