Tinder goth vibes TMI

Tinder goth vibes TMI

I messaged her on a Sunday morning. We’d matched the previous day, and I was curious to get a chat going — I actually felt motivated to try and physically meet someone off Tinder. She wrote back, addressing me by my first name instead of a more generic “girl” or “lady.” Veronique was her name. I swiped yes to her because she seemed to have goth vibes but not actually be a goth. So, she was a little dark, but not creepily so. I liked that. Based on her photos, I liked her.

We messaged back and forth for a bit on a Sunday morning. I had a feeling that Veronique knew what she was doing — like she’d done a lot of online dating. I had not. Our chats circled around, from music to movies, eventually leading to the suggestion that we meet-up. I was feeling it. I invited her to come to the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, meeting me at a dive-bar-turned-vintage-feeling-hipster-paradise called Hermasillo on York Avenue. Its luscious patent red leather booths would make for a perfect cozy place for us to chill and talk deep thoughts, like all about her poetry — she told me that she was a poet — and our shared interest in the weirdness that is the internet because it is 2015, and we did meet on Tinder.

Our Tuesday evening meet-up arrived. I was in the mindset that I may as well just meet people quickly rather than drag out a potentially awesome connection. Plus I was busy and didn’t really want to chat with strangers on the Internet. I would rather chat with strangers in retail outlets, half-improvising half-flirting as I ordered a coffee and asked them their name and did not hit on them but instead acted in a way that I hoped would be an exchange that they would remember. It was more fun that way, I felt. But on Tinder, everything just felt awkward, forced, without a clear context.

Read the full story at CRAVE Online:  http://www.craveonline.com/art/columns/880549-tinder-tales-veronique-goth