Just about the Tie-ta-dater

Elke was talking about Ancient Rome today. Well, my dating time feels so far back. I have been off the market for eight and a half years now, (my dear ones, almost nine after a thorough calculation) and you miss things. Things like online dating via an app, I was still just doing that on MSN. Or I would occasionally meet a candidate on Hyves and then I would send a dancing banana to quasi-nonchalantly express my mutual interest. Actually, the dancing banana was just a lure. In all cases, I knew the person on the digital platform also in physical form. Maybe from across the street or at a safe, teenage distance, but still. Tinder, Happn (am I writing this like this) or whatever? Never, but not ever done. I once saw my brother swipe girls from left to right, but that felt a bit ‘thumbs-up-thumbs-down’ to me.

In the beginning of our digital Ancient Rome, you were already happy if your person of interest had a flip phone. A Swing was really not done with boys, you should know. With my first holiday boyfriend, I would talk for hours on the phone line and had to dial in to chat with him on messenger (mind you: the MSN variant). Dialing in yes, that went with a crackling line and beeps. Then my brother would be rattling at my chair because he also had contacts of vital importance that needed to be maintained. And with girlfriends, I wrote under math notebooks full of those MSN conversations and that notebook went from hand to hand in the hallway between classes. By the way, I still have that notebook. No mention here that the memory of the paper is overloaded. Since the arrival of WhatsApp in 2009, I haven’t had a conversation in writing, just my brain farts to you.

But now you can see how many meters away a ‘match’ is. Just a situation. Not even ten years ago, you would run like crazy into a police station if a stranger sent you that he was a hundred meters away and you looked so hmmm and yummy. And now? Tail up if it’s a hottie and nice flirting with each other. You get it: I don’t understand a thing about it.

I am thirty, I’m getting wrinkles, I’ve never had an app like Tinder or Happn on my phone. We stuck to MSN-ing via the phone line, flirting in the pub, and then kissing around the corner. In the worst case, someone would ask if you wanted to ‘go away’ with that and that boy. Think of it as a kind of carrier pigeon in the form of his best friend. Going away meant making out in an alley. The older you get, the crazier it gets, so around your eighteenth you arranged your romantic affairs yourself. By the way, when I started dating my boyfriend, WhatsApp didn’t exist yet. You had to text and call (yes, really). I’ve also lingered a bit because I prefer to convey my digital messages in typographic form. But it was all just stomach-turningly fun and godforsaken exciting back then. Therefore, I wish everyone a Tinder-free and Happn-less date once. Okay, lots of <3s and xxxs and ;-) from grandma in cyberspace. Meanwhile, I’m enjoying watching Simoon see who she bonjours off her screen. With one swipe, just like that, hopla.