First Time Using Tinder as a Hook-Up App

That’s right, Tinder. The Craigslist of dating apps. Oh, and I actually used it as a hook-up app. That was one of the steps from my last post on Moving on the Unhealthy Way, and I planned on following through with it!

I had kind of half-hooked up with Keith (Related Post: My Long Term Casual Hook-Up), but I was trying to get laid. After being separated from my ex and fighting for the past couple months, I was starting to feel the thirst.

What?! Women have needs too. This is what happens when I don’t have a vibrator, and I’m living at home!

Anyways, after a couple weeks of swiping through the uglies and weirdos on Tinder, I finally matched with a guy I thought was sexy as hell. From his pictures, he was cute, lean, 6’0″, heavily tatted. His name was Dan, but I’m just going to call him Tinder guy. We chatted, and it was actually the first time I felt like I connected to one of these online dudes (on a very shallow level). Of course, I wasn’t looking for anything serious with him, but I wanted to at least get along with him.

The conversation started off friendly enough, but then it turned sexual.. which was what I was going for. This was my sexual adventure! I asked him what his shoe size was, and he said 13, and so I put his contact on my phone as “Dan Size 13”. Since we had good chemistry, we decided to meet before I moved back to SF. By “meet” I mean, him coming to my place to pick me up so I could stay over at his place. Something like that.

After reading all these horror stories about Tinder, I decided to take some precautions. I wasn’t planning on getting kidnapped or killed, so I told my overprotective little sister about my conversations with him. Well.. she kind of found out when she saw me texting on my phone. She looked over when she saw me smirking and read the contact name. “WHAT THE FUCK, WHY IS HIS NAME ‘DAN SIZE 13’? GROSS!!!!” Lol.

When he arrived, my beautiful and lovely little sister followed me out of our apartment in her sweats. She goes up to Tinder guy’s window and says, “I took a picture of your license plate and inspection sticker, so if anything happens to my sister, I’m watching you.” It was really sweet that she did that, but homeboy was also blasting Michael Buble from his car. He was NOT going to do anything to me.

I was actually pretty nervous meeting him since we had been chatting online and through text for a couple days already. I told him that I wanted “the boyfriend experience” hahahahahahahahahahahaha. I realize how weird that is right now, but whatever. I did not give a fuck.

He actually made my first and only Tinder experience pretty nice. I think we would have been good friends in another life. We were supposed to go to a bar or restaurant to grab some beer or something to drink/eat, but it was getting late so I just suggested his place and delivery. Keeps it simple bro. We hung out with his roommate, watched some TV, went upstairs to his room to watch some Netflix, and he gave me a toothbrush because I didn’t have one. Tinder guy was seriously a gentleman outside, but once the doors closed, he ended up being a beast in bed. BEAST. The only bad thing was that there was no kissing.. and I really love my cuddles and kissing. It was purely sex, and I got what I needed and had a good time.

The next morning, Tinder guy even made me coffee, and we watched Forrest Gump before he drove me back. I ended up coming back home with some delicious leftover buffalo wings and a new toothbrush! Is this how Tinder usually works?! Hmm.

To this day, Tinder guy still checks in on me (even though I live 3000 miles away).

All in all, I’m describing this as if this was really “good” treatment. It’s not. If you’re looking for something healthy, definitely don’t follow my example. I’m the wrong person for that. A real stand-up guy would not discuss sex until way later on, they would go out of their way to treat you with respect, and they would be honest, patient and kind. Quality guys want to get to know you as a person, while sharing things about themselves too. From life experience.. these guys are not on Tinder. These male unicorns are self-assured, confident, and don’t need to be on Tinder. I’ll save that topic for another post.

So if you’re looking for love, don’t go on fucking Tinder. Even if you match with someone, it doesn’t matter if you’re actually an amazing person, they’re going to have a different perception of you. Well, I don’t know — I’m sure there are exceptions. But personally, I wasn’t looking to impress anyone really. I knew what I was getting into when I started trolling Tinder for sex. I was looking for something exciting, which in my book meant being shady AF with a stranger.

By the way, I’m not trying to hate on anyone using Tinder. Practically all my friends are on it, and I just shared this ratchet story of mine. It was a fun experience, just not the first place I’d go if I was looking for love.

(If you want to read more, check out my first post: Moving Back Home)

My Long Term Casual Hook-Up

I’m going to talk about a long-time hook up of mine, Keith. I’ve been chatting with him regularly again ever since I moved back home, and it’s been interesting. We have the type of relationship where we are friends, we can talk about anything, we find each other somewhat attractive, and we are honest with each other. But there is absolutely zero romantic chemistry or future between us.

There are only a handful of guys in my life who have stuck around and maintained contact with me throughout the years, and Keith was one of them. It’s interesting to see how our relationship has changed (is still changing) over the past 7 years. Damn it’s been awhile.

In my last post, I talked about Moving on the Unhealthy Way. One of my strategies included hanging out with an old hook up. I didn’t go looking for Keith, he just happened to be free, and I decided to hang out with him when he asked. I needed a distraction from my mess of life.

For years already, Keith and I have had awkward sexual encounters. I’m talking awkward AF. They’ve always been terrible. We first met in college when I went out with a bunch of friends to celebrate a birthday. Keith was the manager at that particular bar back then, and we ended up chatting at my table while my buddies were busy alcohol poisoning the birthday boy. We didn’t really hit it off, but I thought he was cute so we became Facebook friends. Since I was in the middle of moving apartments, I sent out a story blast the next day, “Any strong men willing to help me move? I’ll buy you lunch.” Not sure if Keith had other intentions (let’s be real now, he probably did), but he volunteered to help. Yay, strong men. Anyways, he spent the whole weekend helping me move my shit, and I guess the sexual tension between us was so impalpable that we ended up hooking up. Kind of.

The first time we hooked up, we were both sexually frustrated 21-year-olds who were going out with other people. He was with a girl he had been dating for 4 years, and I was in a new relationship with a playboy. Yes, it’s already been established that I have questionable morals. Anyways, even though we were both trying to control ourselves, we actually ended up in awkward half sex. Basically, we started kind of making out…not even.. more like lips hovering near each other’s faces.. Hmm. I guess it was more like intense touching and lips brushing, while our pants came off and his penis went inside.. ONE STROKE. Then we both snapped to our senses, we immediately stopped, and he rushed back home to his girlfriend. End of story one.

Our second encounter was over a year later, after I had already moved across the country. I was newly single this time, and so was he. The timing was right, so we tried giving it a shot and started flirting again. Kind of. He wasn’t very good at it. Anyways, we chatted for a few weeks up until I went back home to visit my family for a few days. I decided to stay the night at Keith’s since we wanted to actually hook up this time. We didn’t have any boyfriends or girlfriends making us feel bad. It was cold and snowing in Connecticut at the time, and we walked to the gas station to buy condoms.

Homeboy had amazing foresight and only bought one condom (sarcasm). When we got back to his place, I realized he had a cat. Dun, dun, dun. I’m very allergic to cats. Long story short.. he didn’t last that long, and it was too cold to go out to buy more condoms, so I just laid there.. in frustration.. AND THEN THE CAT ALLERGIES KICKED IN and I turned into a sniveling mess. Luckily I had some Benedryl, so I could sleep that night, blue tubes and all.

The next morning, we both woke up at fucking 6AM because…dun dun dun. The building next door was literally ON FIRE. That shit was burning down. I remember running down the stairs, past Keith’s hallway window that caught a bit of the flame. What?! We ended up standing on the sidewalk in front of his house while the fire trucks came. At least he held me to keep me warm. I guess that was cool. But bizarre as fuck. Sign from God that we just weren’t meant to be.

We met a few times a couple years afterwards as friends. We didn’t do anything because I was seeing someone, and he was too.

But recently was our third time meeting as singles (I was already single in my head since my ex and I had broken up terribly). It was supposed to be a quick friends writing session and some bubble tea, but my self control went out the window, and I went back to his place. I tried inviting my sister, but she was like, “Oh HAILLLL no. Sounds awkward AF. See you at home.” I have a great sister.

Keith ordered some Chinese food, I said hello to his dog (cat was gone), and we watched old episodes of Friends. It wasn’t until we started playing a new show on Netflix when we moved things over to the bed. He didn’t pressure me at all, since we’re friends and all.. but I guess I missed being held. Things escalated, and we ended up hooking up. Kind of. No condoms and we didn’t plan on it!

Funny story though, I mentioned something about a vibrator as a joke, and he suggested using his electric toothbrush. Little did I know.. he was serious. I was shouting, “GET THAT THING AWAY FROM ME!!!” But I let him try it anyways.. and I’m ashamed to say that it was the most intense and orgasmic 20 minutes of my life. It was so fucking weird though because I wasn’t even turned on by him. It felt really clinical. I don’t know man, but it was time for me to skedaddle. I was not trying to stay over.

As we were leaving, I asked Keith, “Is it true that guys can be intimate with someone and not get attached emotionally?” He answered yes. Then I hit him with, “OK. Do that with me.” I hope I didn’t hurt his feelings. But seriously. Something had snapped in me. I felt a bit of guilt because I was technically still married. Even though it was a shitty, abusive, manipulative marriage, it was still a marriage. At the same time, I also felt liberated. Like I couldn’t go back now.

There was hope for me to move on. Just not with Keith, because he was my friend. The PERFECT friends with benefits. We cared about each other with no emotional attachment. We did what we had to do to get each other off. Friends do that for each other. Where’s my crying face laughing emoji?

When I got back to my apartment, I felt a little bit of sadness, but the moment was fleeting. For the first time since I moved back home from San Francisco though, I didn’t bother to check my spam messages, and I slept fucking well that night. Zzzzzzzz.