My Tinder Boyfriend: Dating & The Flight Attendant Life

I’m dating someone! Oh wait…wrong tense.  I dated someone.  Last week.  Yeah!?  I know, right?!  Biggest surprise of my life and yours:  SHE’S NOT SINGLE ANYMORE!

Hoooray!!! But, something must not be right in the universe…

HA! Ok, I lie.  I don’t have a boyfriend and I AM STILL SINGLE.  (I’m realizing that this post could backfire and make that one hottie think that I’m unavailable.  So, Hottie?  If you are listening, I’m still available.  Call Me, Maybe?

Emily.  Photo taken Sept 2012 during Oktoberfest.

Back to where I was…

It might be wise for me to be concerned over my current state of singledom, but honestly, even though it’s a constant topic between the girlfriends and I, I enjoy my life.  I can’t care too much about him, whoever he is, when my life blurs and whirls to a crazy tune of 5 states in 5 days.  Or countries.  Or moving.  Dizzy, much?  Yeah. Me too.

But my boyfriend of last week?  We never actually ‘dated,’ and he was never ‘actually’ my ‘boyfriend’.  (If I was talking right now, I’d be throwing my arms around obnoxiously, my fingers waving quotation marks around every other word.  Annoying.  I’ve never understood why people do that).  This BF isn’t someone that I am stalking, who doesn’t know that I exist.  Colin and I actually went on a real date.  A mutual friend introduced us, and by friend, this is where it does get a little weird.  Our friend Tinder (Elijah is laughing at me right now).  Right now you are saying, “WTF?!?”, “Who is Elijah, who is Tinder, and who is this ‘boyfriend’?”  Appropriate reactions, and I am here to answer all inquires, Monday-Friday, 9a to 5p.  Ha!

Here we go…

First:  Elijah is the one to blame for the discovery of Tinder,  as it was he, that while visiting him at his home in San Diego, downloaded the app on my phone.   He said it was fun and that I needed to catch up to the times.  Whatever Elijah.  I’m hip.  Really.

Meet Tinder

Second:  Tinder, as already stated, is a phone app, and the purpose is to “discover those around you, find out who likes you nearby, and connect you if you are both interested.”  The shorter definition; a hookup app all based on looks.  How shallow can we get?  The problem with a hookup app and the gypsy dating life, is that even though they actually go really well together, hooking-up and I, don’t. I don’t hook-up (side-note:  It is problematic how ambiguous that term is).  Those who know me, know this, and those that I think that don’t know me, have surprised me by knowing this.

Window shopping.  Cute enough for a ‘Like?’

Post college dating has been an adventure in itself for me; the private Christian schooled and sheltered child, thrown into a culture that takes marriage, and commitment, and sex so lightly.  In college, I didn’t always date the goody-goody guys, but I was always the one that set the boundaries.  It was sweet and innocent love.  Cute and fun, like going to the park and swinging on the swings adorableness.  Boyfriends rotated through my life during college, but there was that college love, the one that eventually broke my heart.  At the time, I took J and our relationship for granted.  I was young and didn’t realize how special and sweet he was.  I didn’t know the fun that we had together was unique, that one doesn’t find that combo of serious and silly every day.  And I bring this up, because it does relate to my Tinder Boyfriend experience.  The date was fun and fantastic, not because Colin and I are now in love, but because it took me back to college.  Literally.

Colin and I spent the afternoon of our date in Bellingham, walking around the college campus, making up stories about what our majors were, and in what class we met.  We told each other about our summer vacation plans, kissed and cuddled in a treehouse like we were both 19 years old again.  It was fun.  It was fun pretending.  It was nice knowing that he wasn’t going to fall in love with me, and I wasn’t going to fall in love with him.  It was just innocently sweet.  Handholding is sweet.  Tree houses are fun.  Kissing is cute.  Rushing relationships is not any of those attributes.

Our impending goodbye, which happened the same afternoon of the first date was dubbed a break up.  I asked him if this was the type of break-up where texts and phone calls and flirting continues or the all-communication-severed scenario.  He said we could still talk every once and awhile.  I asked him if he didn’t live in Utah and if I didn’t live nowhere, would he ask me on another date.  He said he would.  He told me that it was the perfect date.  Our goodbye was sealed by a mini make-out session in his parent’s car, oh so teenager style (his parent’s weren’t present.  This wasn’t a chaperoned date).  Nothing about the day was serious, and after a very stressful and emotionally exhausting last week in Washington, I needed not serious.

Tinder is designed for the not serious.  The app has its weaknesses and has a hard time keeping up with the flight attendant life, but don’t we all?  It’s supposed to find those closest to me, decreasing the chances of long-distance introductions, but it falls short.  Oh well.  I don’t spend that many hours crying over this because I  don’t expect this app to find me a real boyfriend.  It’s more for entertainment value, taking dating to a whole new level of gaming, allowing me to approve or disapprove of someone just by the swipe of my thumb on a touchscreen device (which alone is all reasons of wrong, but we won’t go into that today).

I do need to say a thank you to Elijah for introducing me to Tinder, and give credit to Tinder for finding Colin.  If not for some silly app, I wouldn’t have met the laid-back, well-traveled, Spanish speaking, white-water rafting guide.  I’m not going to discriminate on how I meet someone, because that doesn’t necessarily hold weight in determining who they are.  They might just be another player looking to play, or they may just be bored at an airport.  I don’t know, but I can at least give them a chance, for I would hope that someone give me the same chance, and not stereotype me as a flight attendant, as a prude, or a religious fanatic.  Being a flight attendant has taught me that I never know when I will meet someone that can enrich, influence, and add color to my life.  I’ve met people in the most random, and unexpected ways; at bus stops, airports, airplanes, brief moments at cafes, through my blog, and now Tinder.  Colin and I aren’t dating, and I don’t have plans to start dating him, but I’m glad we met, and I love the story of it all.