It can be harder to walk away when you’ve met through Tinder
You’re trusting people you barely know. After a few dates with “Manchester”, I agreed to visit his hotel room next time he was in London. I’d always been diligent about practising safe sex, but he had trouble getting in the mood with the condoms and went against my wishes at the last moment. The next morning I wrote him an angry text. He replied that he would wire me ?40 for the morning-after pill. I’ve never felt so violated.
Of the 57 men I met in a year, I probably had sex with about 10%-15%. I generally left home open to the possibility but found, when my date showed up, that I didn’t want to see him again, let alone see him naked. There was no spark, or he was dull or gross or just too pushy. One date chased me to the tube trying to shove his tongue down my throat. Another – who started promisingly – changed after his second drink, spilling a glass of wine on me without apologising, and cutting me off each time I spoke. When you’re matched, you can spend days – in some cases, weeks, months – exchanging messages, texting and working yourselves up, filling in the gaps with your imagination. By the time you meet, you’ve both invested so much, you’ve raised your hopes and his.
I met one guy who was a likely contender for a boyfriend. “Eton” was hot, hilarious, he spoke five languages – everything on my wish list. Our dates weren’t fancy – we probably spent ?10 between the two of us – but each time I met him, my cheeks would literally hurt from so much smiling.
In some ways Tinder can even work against you finding a partner
We went on five dates without sex, just a kiss and a hug. Then one night, he arrived at my place stinking of booze and likely high on something. The sex was over in seconds – a massive anticlimax after such a build-up. Continue reading “Most often, though, I didn’t have sex at all”