Tinder has been a revolution in flirting, dating, and anonymous passionless hook-ups.
Even the most charmless and charismatically challenged of us can get a date, all it takes is a few half decent photos and a copy-pasted icebreaker you found on Google.
Unfortunately, Tinder doesn't remove risk completely from your romantic conquests, there are still many ways to capsize at date.
1. A monetary disaster strikes
You meet up, greet each other in that endearingly awkward way and walk up to the bar to grab a drink. You order something that makes you look faintly cultured (now is not the time for vodka and Red Bull ), and hand your card across the bar.
Then it happens.
The bartender locks eyes with you, his gaze half amused, half impatient, 'Sorry, card's not working,' he intones.
With these words the blood drains from your face, wide-eyed, you look over at your date. They look back at you with apparent sympathy, but you see it for what it is; pity, tinged with mild contempt.
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They reach into their pocket pull out some cash and pay for your drink for you.
2. You get ID'd
It's often easier to meet at a familiar landmark and then decide on a place to go.
This can also be a calculated attempt to appear spontaneous and clued-in to all the good bars about (everyone is a manipulative sociopath when it comes to first dates).
Just as you approach the door of your chosen establishment, the sasquatch of a bouncer raises his hand to you, 'ID, please,' he intones with australopithican insistence.
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You laugh self-consciously, and reach into your pocket for your ID.
It isn't there.
You check every pocket on your coat, patting yourself down frantically as though your coat is smouldering, all to no avail.
Your date looks at you, 'We can go somewhere else,' they say.
A place where foetus-faced mutants like you would be welcome, like a creche.
3. You mix them up with a different match
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Chatting on Tinder isn't always a sure thing, one minute you could be having a sparkling conversation, and suddenly blanked the next.
It's good to hedge your bets, talk to as many people as you can, and ask the top one or two out.
Playing the numbers game can easily backfire, you can forget which of the several dozen matches you were chatting up you agreed to meet.
You reference a message you never sent them, you ask about a job they don't have.
They of course notice.
You'll see the realisation dawning on them before it slowly curdles into open disgust.
4. They don't match their pictures
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There's tricky camera angles, there's obfuscating filters, and there's selective curation of photos from several years ago, what ever it is, you're meeting up with a complete stranger.
They don't even have the backbone to be properly ashamed of themselves.
They have made the term 'Catfish' frighteningly appropriate with their glistening, clammy skin, sparse whiskers, and cavernous maw.
5. You don't match your pictures
You've put on a few pounds, gotten a regrettable haircut, maybe broken out in a few spots.
Sure, since your main photo was taken the joy and hope for the future has left your eyes. You're a shell of your former self, a hollow-eyed lizard thing starved of affection and warmth.
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They can see that, you know it by the smell of disappointment coming off of them. It's best if you leave now, slink, Gollum-like, back to the dank hovel you crawled out of, you catfish.
6. Your mates decide to show up
You know what they're like, you shouldn't have told them where you're going, you have no-one to blame but yourself. Now you have to try to ignore them tittering in the corner like caffeinated gibbons whilst you do your best to focus on your date.
7. Their mates decide to show up
They don't look happy, she seems relived that they've turned up. Oh no, are they a rescue party? What did you do? Why are there so many of them? Why do they look mad?
8. You become a post-relationship grief councillor
Tight-lipped and straight-backed you listen to the 21 volume tale of love and loss. 'There, there,' you say comfortingly as they hover on the verge of tears.
Congratulations you are now a grief councillor who works for the occasional free drink.
