Page 8 of Tinder B@ng

Instead, I am faced with a screen full of Tinder notifications. I turn my phone face down and stare out at the city skyline while I try to ignore the temptation to open them.

Curiosity — we all know how that story ends. This is a terrible idea, absolutely, completely stupid. It would however be nice to show up to their party with a plus one and surprise the little shits.

IT’S A MATCH

It’s about sixty of them, fucking hell. Am I supposed to talk to all of them? By the looks of it ‘I’ have already chatted to a few. I’m not very charming when my idiot kids are impersonating me — I’ll probably not hear from them again. So I start with the new ones.

UNMATCH

UNMATCH

UNMATCH

FUCKING HELLL UNMATCH

By the time I have unmatched the crazies, the DTF’s and FWB’s and any other acronym I have to google, the list is way shorter, so I message a lame ‘Hi’ to one or two ladies. The ones that have bios, pictures I can search, and a blue tick next to whatever name they gave themselves. Over thirty-fives, with all their teeth, that live within a twenty mile radius. With traffic in the city, any further and we might as well have a long distance relationship. This is fucking weird.

Only two of my messages get replies at first, and one of the ladies already asked me if I’m rich, so un-match that. The other asked me nicely not to send her dick-pics, she’s seen enough dicks. It was a very awkward way to start a conversation. After the basic small talk, what do you do? She asked if we could meet in person or exchange numbers.

Tala’s words come back.

“Only lunch dates or they’ll expect sex,” she said. “And always have a condom in your wallet in case they do. You need to be safe even if you’re old, Dad. STDs are real.” Jesus — how the tables have turned.

I’m not sure if that’s a sexy wink or a friendly wink. I don’t talk emoji. How do you know what face means what?

What the fuck? I close the chat because I don’t quite know what to say in response to that. This is not exactly what dating looked like in my head. Once or twice over the years I imagined finding someone to share this all with, then I’d see how my kids treated their step-dads, and it just felt wrong. The time was never right, but maybe if they’re pushing me to do this, then now is the time. This just might not be the way.

I go to the flame thingy where you can see people and swipe on them. It’s a rabbit hole — and I willingly fall right in and keep on going. And going, and going. It’s rather alarming how many of my friends wives are on here! They even openly say ‘married but looking’ – what the hell are they looking for? I ’nope’ about a hundred profiles one after the other, and yes maybe one or two. I accidentally super-like an old client's wife while trying to read her bio and decide it’s probably time to quit. The clock behind my desk says it's after one in the morning. I have been doing this for hours, I need to go to bed. I put my phone on charge in the study, like I do every night. I don’t need or want microwaves cooking my brain while I sleep. Also, no one needs to talk to me outside of business hours; nowadays no one needs to talk to me at all.

“Night, kids,” I call down the hall. I can still hear the laughter and chatter coming from the other side of my home.

“Night, Dad,” a chorus comes back.