Let me start by saying that my boyfriend Andrew and I have been together for almost two years, we live together, and we recently bought a puppy. All in all, we have a successful adult relationship. But one thing nags at me — we met unconventionally.
Okay, so maybe “nags” is the wrong word; I only ever think about how we met when someone asks, which, after two years, isn’t that common anymore. Except that this weekend I was visiting family that I hadn’t seen in a while. So long, actually, that they haven’t met Andrew. And the questions began.
“How long have you been together?” — Almost two years.
“Was he from downstate originally?” — Yes, Birmingham.
“How did you meet?” — …
The last question always makes me feel like a deer in the headlights. Probably I look like one, too, thanks to my inability to hide any emotion or facial expression. I always end up unsurely whispering the answer, “Tinder…”
This is not how I expected to meet anyone. I had these daydreams about looking across a crowded room and seeing him or striking up a conversation with him in a coffee shop. My best friend met her fiance in her high school woodshop class — I always thought maybe that would happen to me, too (even though I never took woodshop). Instead, I swiped right. How romantic.
When I tell most people about how we met, they reassure me, “A lot of people meet online nowadays.” Which isn’t untrue. PEW Research Center says that one out of five adults has used an online dating site. This statistic is comforting; there are other people like me who had a little help from the internet to meet “the one.”
The question for me, though, is whether or not Tinder is an online dating site. I don’t know about anyone else, but when I think of a dating site, I think of a comprehensive profile of likes, dislikes, occupation, pets, etc., etc. Tinder, on the other hand, is more of a user-proclaimed hook-up app and is very lust-oriented. I don’t like to admit that, but let’s face it, I chose to be “matched” with Andrew based on four pictures and one sentence.
I couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome with our relationship, and I’m very glad that I am with him, but I still can’t shake the feeling of being judged when I have to explain what Tinder is. Sometimes, we make up a story, just for fun: “Oh, Andrew was vacationing up north and we just bumped into each other one day.” Obviously, we aren’t very creative, but people seem to buy that explanation.
Some people think that, because Andrew and I starting dating thanks to Tinder, there is hope for them using the app. And sure, there probably is. But I thought that because my best friend met the love of her life in high school that I would, too. The truth of the matter is that the universe has something in store for all of us, and we aren’t going to have the same story as everyone else.
Honestly, I laugh when I think about Tinder. I’m grateful for it, of course, but it seems like I have known Andrew forever; there doesn’t seem to be a time in my life when I didn’t have him there. My story is full of risk taking (please don’t ask about the night Andrew and I first met face-to-face), jumping in head first, and more luck than I probably deserved. But when you know, you know.
