Being short isn’t exactly a revelation to me since I haven’t grown vertically since I was 12, but as every short person would know, the short jokes get better every time.

Generally speaking, out of all the misfortune in this world, I would take being short over being obnoxious, ignorant or stupid. Like when people tell a short person that they’re “in proportion” in order to soften the blow. As if the person they’re talking to hasn’t realised short they are.

Aside from the short jokes,  frequent references to being short and the occasional struggle with people who are 5ft 7 gloating about how tall they are in comparison, life down under hasn’t been so bad. You just pretend that you’ve never been told that it’s okay to be short because it doesn’t matter when you’re horizontal, or that you could give  a guy a blow job standing up with the weird, sick dwarf fantasy that person clearly has. You just remember that the bigger they are, the harder they fall, into hell.

Now that we’ve clarified how short I am, let’s get on to the very real date I went on.

Date #26 was …. a bit odd. He commented about my sloth picture (as most matches did) and asked about my time overseas. He then said something about getting back from the Manawatu and the flooding that had happened there over the weekend. As I was driving back from Tauranga, I said “Wow, likewise!” as I clearly had a lot to say about flooding in the Manawatu.

This led to a series of relatively bizarre Tinder comments that even a Tinder veteran like myself found strange.

I found it weird that someone would say, after a day of us matching, that he didn’t realise I was in a relationship, and then admit that he had facebook stalked me.

Usually stuff like this would have resulted in an unmatch, but I only had a few dates left (I had already put in a tiny bit of ground work by responding with more than three words) so I didn’t want to abort mission. Date #26 then suggested, within hours of admitting he had facebook stalked me, that we should exchange slightly risqué pictures on snapchat after I posted a fairly innocent picture of me in a bubble bath with another girl as my ‘story’.

So after asking if my ex boyfriend and I were still together, admitting that he facebook stalked me, and then asking if I approved of sharing slightly risqué pics all within a 48 hour period, I agreed to meet him for a drink. More specifically a coffee during the day, because after his tomfoolery there was no way I was meeting him outside of work hours, or in a dimly lit environment.

We agreed to meet at Nikau, at 12pm the following day. I pushed it out from 11am to 12pm because I am a spiteful bitch had some things to do that morning.

At 12.05pm, I stumbled slightly late into Nikau, horrified at the prospect of being the first one there. Date #26 was already sitting down. I could tell he was tall, but this wasn’t exactly at the front of my mind. He was friendly and perfectly polite, I’ll give him that. It was like he  immediately set out to find common ground and from the get go, started talking about travelling as though it was his classic go-to date topic. He said, word for word…

“I consider myself a bit of a travel buff”.

I had to suppress my laughter into my coffee, because it was one of those phrases that sounds perfectly reasonable when it’s written, but strange when someone says it out loud. It’s like saying “Yours sincerely” or Kind regards”  out loud instead of saying goodbye. I found it on brand with the entire situation I was in as I continued to listen to him talk about how buff he was at travelling.

Admittedly, I was already pissed off with him after suggesting we exchange slightly risqué photos before we had even met and just wanted to meet him to make sure he wasn’t as weird as I thought he was. In hindsight, as I write this, I don’t think I would have met him, but a part of me wanted to make sure he wasn’t actually a creep in real life (which I can confirm – he   was just a travel buff with weird tinder chat).

After 20 minutes of D-Grade chat from my end – coffee couldn’t heighten my spirits, I made some excuse about having a busy day (which was genuinely true) and said that I had to go back to work.

That’s when he stood up.

I’m not often caught off-guard by people’s height when there are people in this world who are 5ft4 and tower over me (they gloat about it too), but the travel buff got me hella shook. I remember my jaw actually dropping, being suddenly overwhelmed and feeling slightly sick with vertigo. This guy was so tall, he didn’t just tower over me, he was a skyscraper and I was an igloo.

I obviously didn’t read the part in his bio that mentioned he was 2 metres tall. Or read it at all.

I think Date #26 got the jist that I was possibly overwhlemed by how much he physically escalated, and offered to pay for coffee as I crawled back to work. Maybe he was just being a perfect gentleman while I was crawling into a hole, aware of how weird this would have looked to onlookers.

I got back to work and told my co-worker about my brief encounter with the tallest person I had ever seen in my entire life. To which she said – “Oh you mean *insert Date#26’s real name*? Yeah, he was an extra on *one of the blockbuster’s filmed in Wellington* because of how how tall he is”.

A day after our date, I got a message from Date #26 reminding me how short I am. Because I was unaware and had forgotten how tall I was.

I did think he was huge, but I never told him that (or anything else ever again). I didn’t want him to think that his height scared me off. The travel buff comment still has me shook to this day though.

I have enough struggles in my life, like my legs never touching the ground when I sit on a regular chair. The nighmare of climbing onto a bar stool. Never being able to get anything of the top shelf without parental assistance or not knowing how bad my regrowth actually is.

Being called cute, as a result of being short is just frustratingly cliche, and never gets you anywhere. At least not a second date.

Eu nao esperava isso para alcançar os media

Obrigado pela visita.

Desculpe eu não falo português

Vamos ser amigas

O meu instagram é aqui https://www.instagram.com/melissabrenzinger

Meu facebook é aqui  https://www.facebook.com/30daysoftinder/

Obrigado por ler o blog

Sorry for my absence, I have been really busy. By that I mean I got Netflix, Neon and Lightbox, ate a lot of food and have all of these extra curricular activities like ‘dog agility’, ‘pilates’ and ‘belly dancing. I’m so sorry  that it’s been six months since I’ve posted. I…just…struggle with the concept of asking people to read what I write, when I get around to writing it. This draft has just been loitering for the last six months like a frequent flier on Tinder (like Geoff – ladies in Wellington, if ya feel me).

The options were very limited, but I was determined/slightly desperate with five final dates to go before I put it to bed (with every single Tinder date in it  – boom). Before I rustled up my date with the Paraplegic Philosophical Sailor, I also hustled this country boy in Mount Maunganui for a back to back date, something I had not undertaken since  Date #12 and #13. Unless I planned to make various stops in Putararu, Levin or Foxton the following day, I would be unable to date on the drive back down to Wellington.

Date #25 had a big bushy ginger beard and he seemed like a genuinely nice guy. On Tinder, he wrote in perfect English, was pleasant and didn’t ask me to have sex with him within two minutes. Naturally he surpassed all expectations. He also reminded me of Lionel off Shortland Street, or Sparky off Outrageous Fortune, with his impressive ginger beard that covered almost half his face.

During my date with the philosophical sailor, I was desperately not trying to be rude and text another guy during our time together – an all-time low. I made an excuse that I was off to meet some friends (given I know no one in the area who isn’t a blood relation) before driving to my next date. It was impossible to be organised so I drip-fed short messages to him during the date with the sailor before inundating him afterwards insisting that I’ll pick him up in 15 minutes and drop him off later. In hindsight, I must have seemed like a massive creep and he should never have agreed to meet me.

He was at his house with his flatmates, having drinks on a Saturday night when I picked him up. This was the second time I had arranged for a guy to meet me whilst I was sitting in the driver’s seat of my Holden Barina.

I am really uneducated when it comes to dating in Mount Maunganui so was unsure how I felt about Date #25’s choice of attire to go to a cocktail bar: a brown Grandpa jersey that was well-loved and pants that weren’t from Area 51. He had the hipster beard to go with his authentic hipster outfit but as opposed to hipsters in Wellington with their beard-oil and Ralph Lauren Polo to mask the smell of their damp flat in Aro Valley, this guy smelt like cooking and homeliness (not to be confused with homelessness).

Date #25 was genuine, seemed a little introverted and suspicious of my intermittent Tindering. I talked incredibly fast,  explained my challenge and zoomed to get to the ‘town’ area of the Mount from his residence (which took like 3 and half minutes going 50km an hour… provinces!). I parallel parked the Barina like a boss before my Date suggested we go to the only date-like place in the Mount that didn’t have a Hamilton bar vibe.

We ended up at this place called Vaudeville. If you’re ever in the area – I would recommend it. I had a great drink and they had some swagger Jazz music. This is where the non-existent hipsters of Tauranga would go, if they had any in the first place. On that note, I hope they haven’t gone out of business…

Because I am a strong independent woman, I paid for the drinks. It was clear this date was a one-time thing and I’m not one to lead any one on*. Date #25 nice to a fault, which led to very little material for this blog. My favourite thing he said about himself, was that he was ugly underneath the beard. I wanted to reassure him that I’m sure he looked great underneath all that stubble, but all I could do was remember Lionel from Shortland Street.

After about 20 minutes of conversation I found out what people in provincial areas (read: not a city) do for a living (he works for a Greenhouse company doing technical stuff that my basic bitch mind could not comprehend) and what people in provincial areas do on weekends – they go to one pub and spend all night there. Date #25 was super nice and invited me to meet his entire Facebook friend list at said one pub and I hung around for an extra five minutes with them to be polite but ultimately felt like it wasn’t a good use of my time given I had to drive down to Wellington the next day.

Date #25 gave me a bushy peck on the cheek and a hug with his grandpa jersey before I went home to google whether Tauranga was an actual city.

* lies

And so.. we continue!

The day after I met the lawyer, fate (by that I mean my mother’s predisposition for birthing small humans) saw my sister and I driving up to Papamoa for my little brother’s birthday. I was a week and a half away from finishing 30DaysofTinder when I had to interrupt my dating schedule of brunch, beards and hipsters to visit …the Bay of Plenty.

This was seen as labour intensive and a chore initially (Sorry Mum!). I had to make small talk after a seven hour drive with numerous guys by being adorable and flirty, all whilst securing a date or two within a 48 hour period. Believe me, the pool was extremely murky and it was a foreign land full of baggy pants, Waikato Draught and a lot of “hwa u”. I almost missed hipsters and ginger beards after three conversations with various Humans of Tauranga that went a little something like this.

Fun Tinder story: A year prior when I was in the Bay of Plenty, I was panicking and calling emergency medical clinics in Tauranga for an appointment after a Tinder boy in Wellington called to tell me that he thought that I had given him the clap, even though we had always used protection and hadn’t had sex in months.

Naturally, I confided in a doctor on Tinder (or at least, someone who claimed to be) who was rather relaxed about my possible diagnosis. After four days under some serious stress, sans clap, I was relieved of such accusations. Tinder-boy with assumed clap didn’t actually have the clap and we never slept together again. It killed the mood. Forever.

Anyway, flashback to me lying in bed at my parent’s house swiping right late in the evening due to my short time-frame and low-key desperation. Being the second-favourite sister meant that I had the privacy to get an actual bed in a room all by myself and not a bottom bunk in a room shared with an eight year old (Shame favourite sister!).

I had a birthday party to attend on the Saturday where I got told off by the supervisor for riding the children’s toy cars and zooming around on the toy motorcycle fit for four-year olds. During this, I was in two minds about the whole dating-lyf in The Bay of Plenty thing and struggled to explain the whole concept to my Mum who understood my pain of trying to meet someone up here.

I was unsure of coming off too forward to these Humans of Tauranga as I was only in the region for one night which could possibly lead to some assumptions.

I didn’t want to be a snobby hipster Wellingtonian but babes, believe me it was pretty fucking bleak when it came swiping in the Bay. So many unknown hand gesture signs in photos with confused (or perhaps constipated) facial expressions to score da babes.

I swiped across this guy who had written a paragraph to describe himself with some great, purposely chosen photos of various stages of life demonstrating travel, employment, friendship and random ‘questionable’ ones for enquiring about. I love it when people have photographic evidence of friendship on Tinder, it gives us hope.

Date #24 was a sailor, a writer and a philosopher. There was no way this guy was from Tauranga. I was almost questioning why anyone would be free to meet me on a Saturday night, as I’m never ultimately going to be a good choice for anyone wanting to meet or date me at short notice. I regularly get too drunk given the opportunity and never put out before drunkenly demanding Burger King and falling asleep immediately after eating said Creamy Mayo Cheeseburger and talking/slurring up a huge game of how I was going to rock your world.

Date #24 had a boat, that he sailed and lived on (in?). Because we were in Tauranga I was realistic about what kind of boat he probably had.

His boat was somewhere in between. Date #24 and I agreed to meet up at the dock at 8.30pm on a Saturday night. I decided to not take my guard dog Richie in case it scared my date and he was much happier snuggling up to my Mum who was at home watching/sleeping through Bridget Jones Edge of Reason.

As I was driving to the dock, I started to have very real fears about my safety despite telling my Mum where I was going (“Going to meet a stranger who owns a boat! BYE”) possibly because it was dark and I was heading towards a dock to my impending doom. I felt like I was really overcommitting myself this whole dating concept for my friends and families enjoyment.

Thankfully, Date #24 seemed relatively normal and wheeled towards me with long curly hair, the most impressive beard and ultimately looked like handsome Jesus in a wheelchair. So saintly. He also had an accent, this beautiful brazillian one where he said said ‘darling’ and ‘yes darling’ at the end of every sentence. If I wasn’t so overwhelmed with the situation, I would have been very taken, very quickly with his humble swag. I’ve never felt so basic after talking to someone after five minutes like I did with this guy. He was in his mid 30’s but you’d be forgiven for thinking he was mid 40’s due to how much life he had condensed into his. He was a trained sky diving instructor based in Queenstown for years before his accident. He switched himself and his passenger at the last second to ensure the safety of the other guy who had a young baby and his wife watching him. He broke his back, is now in a wheelchair and is the first paraplegic to sail across the Pacific Ocean. I think.

This guy had serious swagger and ultimate game. After about 20 minutes of our stroll across the dock, I felt like he was literally too old for me and was telling me the tales of his youth. I was almost disappointed in myself that I wasn’t the adorable girl he swiped right on. I mean, I’ve kinda travelled, I have a good job and a cute dog but after speaking to him I felt like I had the most sub-par life. He dated an FHM model back in the states for fucks sake.

It got to the point where I silently started to compare him to my Grandpa because he was worldly, wise and kinda starting to lecture me (he’s also writing a book on Philosophy amongst being super swag and sailing everywhere). I ultimately just couldn’t deal anymore. I adored talking to him but in the same way I liked talking to my Grandpa (in small doses, twice a year)

I made up some adorable excuse about meeting a friend (another Tinder date) in Mt Maunganui and we had this peck on the cheek where I had to bend down – stoked.

Edit: Usually, I don’t like to discuss the post-dates but in this case I met up with Date#24 again for a drink when he was down in Wellington. He kind of started to allude whether something more was going to happen (which I didn’t think we were ‘there’ yet/not at all) and said that girls who don’t put out after two dates are insecure with themselves.

Food for thought. I must be one insecure mess.

I wanted to write about this before I talk about the date with the guy in a wheelchair (also known as Date #24). The reason why is because no one explained to me what a “fuckboy” is and no one ever seems to want to talk about Girl Politics: How to deal with your ex’s ex unless you’re drunk and talking to your friends from high school about it. My Mum was relatively liberal about explaining safe sex, teenage drinking and talking me out of dating homeless guys (“Just remember , the guys you want to be with aren’t doing nothing and hanging on the streets, they’re out doing stuff… which is why you’re single. You haven’t met them yet!”) and never taught me how to deal with girls who have been out with your boyfriend in the past, online dating and this new term “fuckboys” which honestly, I still don’t understand the concept of.

The inspiration for this blog came from standing in line behind this girl at Farmers who was the ex-girlfriend of a guy I ‘kind of’ messed around with dated from over a year ago. Like the self-obsessed person I am, I wondered whether she knew who I was. I knew who she was courtesy of Facebook stalking and this guy was quite horrible about her when he reflected on their relationship (which is super crass). I remember I had to call him on this once for being so awful and derogatory about her. This didn’t affect my opinion of her because when you badmouth another person it says more about you than it does about them (Thanks for that one too Mum!). This guy didn’t exactly live up to the big expectation he unnecessarily created for himself during our brief, but relatively glorious fling and I was sure her and I could bond over this small fact we both knew about. (Sorry Mum!)

When it comes to relationships, flings and the things in between, there are pros and cons to being young and naive vs. being older and wiser.  It was literally the best time ever pashing guys when I was 16. I had this boyfriend who I had met on the train going to school who after 6 months cheated on me and pashed another girl, so I pashed another guy to even things out. I think we went to the movies once and we used to hang out at my Mum’s house two or three times a week for six months and he’d watch me eat my dinner. He made the crucial mistake of telling my Mum that he wasn’t a fan of avocado and needless to say, regardless of who cheated on who first – that’s the crux of the reason why it never worked out.

I mean, this story is of course unrelated to my entire blog,  I just wanted to share how life was glorious and innocent before I used the internet to source my love life and run the very real risk of becoming vag-in-laws with my friends unknowingly.

Like, case in point – a few weeks ago I was Facebook stalking an ex of mine that I had met on Tinder (way before 30DaysofTinder) and he had gone up and done the Tongariro Crossing with this girl. Naturally, I facebook stalked the shit out of her and found out that she had also done date-like adventures in Wellington with Date #2 and Date #3 and documented it on the internet. What are the odds of that? I mean, of course it’s entirely possible she didn’t have sex with any of them and it’s not like I’m commiserating when it’s clear it didn’t work out with any of them but ugh, small world.

I guess this is the part when I need to make it very clear that I’m not jealous of other girls or guys getting into people I have. With the natural exception of the six month – one year grace period you’re allowed to reserve for long term relationships and heartbreak, I’m blissfully under the impression that these girls who get with the same guys I have would actually make really good friends. We could laugh and joke about how awkward it is and I could give them actual useful advice other than “He’s a fuckboy, you deserve better” and it’s not like I’m going back there for more so I’m a better friend than anyone really!

When you’re young and I suppose, slightly more insecure about yourself it is easier to hate the ex’s of the people you date as opposed to understanding the very real possibility you’re not the first person in their life. Social Media has made us experts in stalking each other through so many platforms and the invention of selfies have allowed us to filter ourselves to portray us as the mini-Beyonce’s we all clearly are.

One time when I was going out with a guy at a party, his ex-girlfriend was there too since she was friends with his friends. Because I’m fairly easy going with a tendency to get inappropriately drunk and not understand the social situation I’m in, her and I ended up hanging out. After that I realised that she was extremely awesome, hilarious and just as pretty as my Facebook stalking had concluded. Her and the guy I was dating broke up about a year before we started going out, but they had been together for a long time. I came to the realisation that these girls who go out with the same guys as I have must have some sort of common ground with me. Well, in this case I hoped so because this girl was better than me in almost every single way.
Side note: I understand that people have crazy ex’s and I’ve probably been really lucky/unlucky  where I’m the crazy bitch ex that people refer too.

In relation to Tinder, dating becomes harder when you’re swiping a pool of people based on location and in some cases, the pool water becomes murky very quickly when you find your ex boyfriends, previous tinder conquests and Facebook acquaintances every ten or so swipes.

The term “fuckboy” was first introduced to me by my flatmate who used it to describe a guy she had sex with from Tinder who had this amazing body and clearly worked out all the time but lasted little over two minutes and even managed to slip off the condom during their brief encounter. Needless to say, she was massively disappointed.

This concept still confuses me because apparently it is used to describe a guy who is only good for a fuck and nothing else. Urban Dictionary have some more elaborate definitions probably written by some hella-scorned women but to sum it up – it’s used to describe the guys who don’t want relationships with you for whatever reason therefore: They’re “fuckboys.” Back in my day (last year) I just assumed they were babes when I was drunk and daworst when I was sober. Do people go back for more with these fuckboys?

To conclude this very unrelated blog post, I’m not trying to open myself up to friendship with every single girl that every single guy that I’ve been has also been with (but I want this to happen. I want a vag-in-law party and you’re all invited!!) I just wanted to share my theory about being best friends with your boyfriends ex’s and educate myself and my Mum (if she read this far) on what a fuckboy is.

Anyway, I’m back and I’m a little sassy. Just like when I met Date #23.

I was quite enthused about this guy. He was a lawyer visiting from Christchurch, (something I found out after a few on and off messages) and he had flown up here for a case. One out of two of his Tinder pictures was a head shot that he clearly took off his work’s website from a crappy phone because it was distinctly low-res. I feel like there is something concerning about anyone with two Tinder pictures. They’re either lazy, non photogenic, a scam, or they’re incapable of uploading pictures to Tinder. None of which are compelling or endearing.

I must admit, I was intrigued to meet him. He was staying in a fancy ass hotel (of which Wellington has like, two,) and working long hours that weren’t compatible with my schedule. I decided to put some effort in and work around him more than I had with previous dates because his chat was quick, to the point and interesting. We were having paragraph-long conversations with sly flirtatious banter which was enough to mask the whole him-being-a-lawyer-thing.

Let me clear this up really quickly: I am in no way against lawyers. I mean, good for them for loving da law and I’ll almost certainly need one in case I get sued, divorced or taken to court for indecent exposure (any of which might happen at some point). I think it’s because I’ve been to enough social events with law students with my best friend (who is now a lawyer) to collectively write them off as potential luvvers.

I would turn up to these events, relatively drunk and they would try and have serious conversations with me which would just force me to drink more as they asked questions about what I planned to do after graduating (with my Bachelor of Arts with a Major in getting hammered).

I mean, sorry to offend all the male lawyers that don’t read this blog, but when you were students, you guys were unnecessarily cocky. It was so unwarranted and I was just trying to have a good night at these events as a sassy gal in her early 20’s who liked tequila and table dancing. Young Professionals (Yo-Pros: “yah-prahs”) can be so obsessed with making sure that it sounds like they’re killing it in their early 20’s with their fabulous jobs, and hiding the fact that they’re barely over minimum wage.

Anyway, luckily for me – this lawyer was in his 30’s with great grammar, a full set of hair and hopefully spent his time doing grown up things that didn’t include getting drunk at Ponderosa with young pretty girls who are too drunk to see their bald spots.

He was at Court all day on the day we were supposed to meet and said he was going to let me know whether or not he could make it since it was possible it was going to run late. I had a back up plan in case I was ditched- go to after work drinks at an actual official Young Professional network where people drink and talk about how successful they are with their current ventures, while getting the House Red and adding it to their student loan debt.

Date #23 gave me about an hour to text my friends to tell them I wasn’t going to make it to the baby wanker Yo-Pro event so i suggested to Date #23 that we meet at Dockside, not Foxglove, where the baby Yo-Pro event was being held to avoid confrontation.

For fear of being the first one there, I timed my trip accordingly so that I was only five minutes late to meet the guy who probably earned my yearly wage in a month. From our brief but relatively captivating conversation, it didn’t seem like he was all that bothered to meet anyone off Tinder given his intense schedule and therefore he wouldn’t be too impressed if I was more than 15 minutes late. Also, maybe I was wanting to make a good impression! Maybe.

He told me he needed to go back to his hotel after Court to shower and change before we met.

I had not afforded him the same courtesy … I’d just finished work after eight, long, hard hours of sitting at my computer being young and professional.

This guy smelt great and looked great and the only effort I had made was putting on perfume and red lipstick.

He was sitting outside Dockside waiting for me where he had a drink (seriously, I was only five minutes late! Lawyers) and when I ordered my G&T, Date #23 waved away my wallet when I went to pay. Suave.

Conversation was as you would imagine it to be with someone who was clearly successful, but he gave off the impression that he was the type who never went to these Yo-Pro events; he spent his time at work not socializing with the outside world and working his butt off for seven years of minimum wage before BAM paying off his loan and buying an apartment.

His work was definitely his life but he had other redeeming qualities, like his family and sports that he played on the weekends and not watched on the TV .

Do all lawyers end up like this?

After about 15 minutes with Date #23 I started noticing all these Yo-Pros I knew by association filtering into Dockside. (What? I thought it was being held at Foxglove?). Too many people started saying ‘hi’ to me – and all five of those people remembered I’d worked at the trashiest bar in Wellington – leading my date to make a slightly awkward joke that I was famous.These kids were everywhere!!

The weather dropped and Date #23 suggested we go inside and have a second drink. The night was going well and he was still smelling good. We went inside where it was overly busy and the Yo-Pro event was being held out the back. A good friend came up (which I have to say, in case he reads this,) who knew about my excessive dating habits, and he introduced himself to my date like the good networker he is. I got the impression that Date #23 was trying to figure out whether I was good enough to go on a second date with, since he began asking me the most thought-provoking questions I’ve ever had to endure in my entire life – and I took a philosophy paper once in third year.

I failed it. I’m so basic.

For fear of this guy re-using these questions on every other girl he dates, (a likely case,) I won’t repeat them. Some of them were normal, like who would you invite to dinner out of anyone, living, famous or dead etc. I said my Opa, who I’d never met and my Dad, because I’ve never seen them together. I must have thrown in Britney Spears in there for good measure and to make the whole hypothetical dinner situation awkward if it was 2007 Britney. Regardless, it made me sound like I was super into my family, super humble and not too obsessed with celebrity. Date #23 then asked if I’d like another drink. It was like a prize for not sounding stupid.

We continued with the thought-provoking questions for another drink, but as it was nearing 8pm, it was getting late and I was getting hangry. Hanger isn’t something I ever try and show people I barely know, so I always just make up excuses to justify leaving that doesn’t end in: “this situation has outlived the are-we-getting-dinner question, so I’ve gotta go”.

Regardless, the night was kinda ending and I was too lazy to walk to my car in the rain “I wouldn’t get there in time!“(even though I paid for all-day at 8am in the morning) so I got an Uber 1km up the road. Best $5.30 of my life!

Date #23 walked me to my Uber, held the door and kissed my cheek before walking into the rain. He insisted he was going to walk back to his fancy ass hotel, in this ridiculous rain even though I offered to drop him off in my Uber.

Lawyers! Why so cheap? Did my three drinks reaaaaallly set you back?

As Date #23 lived in Christchurch and was leaving the next day, it was unlikely a second date was on the cards anytime soon. We continued to text and snapchat for a while until he started sending me half naked snapchats.

Then the day after the first story was released, it happened again but with a follow up story. I had an over the phone conversation with the journalist who was nice but I wasn’t really concentrating on what I was saying as it was 6pm on a Friday night. Remind me to be a bit clearer in the future, but what people probably don’t realise is that I am very well aware and I agree that my life, let alone my dating life isn’t ‘news’ but the story would have gotten enough clicks on the first day that the editor probably wanted to follow it up with a second story. I was just rolling with the punches at this point.

I got a private message from an Australian journalist who asked me a few questions for their website. I agreed since I thought it would be the same story and if I knew about it and was kind of interviewed, surely it would be okay? I actually really liked the article posted, but the comments blew up and people were so outraged by a social experiment “done for the lols of my friends and family” that you would have thought that I had committed a crime ( I did it seems, it was for being a talentless whore). That article is the one that went viral and I had even joked on the Friday to my colleagues that “You’re nobody until the Daily Mail covers it”.

People started accusing me of being self-obsessed and over the weekend I probably have been and that is a reaction to when your dating blog which remember, was initially written for friends and family goes kinda viral. If I injected a bit more insecurity in my posts or if my cleavage wasn’t as prominent in the pictures then perhaps people would have found something else to be mean about. Truth is, this wasn’t meant to be a ground-breaking blog. I said something about this in the beginning about not trying to invent the wheel, for those who bothered to read that far back. You’re damned if you don’t have self-esteem issues and you’re damned if you do.

My teeth are apparently too big for people’s liking, which was probably one of my favourite hate comments. I rung my Mother hungover on Sunday morning declaring that I spent 24 years being insecure about the wrong thing on my face!  It truly was a revelation. Thank you internet!

The internet also assumed that I slept with all 30 dates.

Not that everyone really needs to know this but I’ll put simply this into bullet points so that it’s clear cut for those who are deeply concerned that I gave out some STD’s during 30 days of Tinder.

• During 30 days of Tinder, I didn’t sleep with, or have sex with any of them… on the first date.
• During 30 days of Tinder, I went on second and third dates with some of the 30, which weren’t blogged about as I only wrote about the first date.
• I went on 44 dates in 28 days.
• I slept with one of the 30 dates, but it wasn’t on the first date.

Can a woman not have sex before she’s married still? Even though most of the 30 knew about the blog before it was posted and were fine with it as they weren’t having their identities revealed, I’m still the talentless irrelevant, self-obsessed nobody who was trying to get my 15 minutes of fame by going on 30 dates of Tinder in 30 days.

So anyway, this would have been a pleasant experience if I was getting paid for the hate and not my small, irrelevant blog on the internet to get cherry picked for someone to make ground-breaking conclusions about the ‘kind of girl I am’. The truth is that no one really cares, but they care enough to feel enraged about or comment about something like a dating blog but probably stay silent on the real issues that go on in the world.

Funny that.

Other than that, here’s the image I’ll leave with you with so that you can picture Date #22 as you read:

[Edit: I mean the blonde Tintin, not the ginger one as it seems like there are two.]

I swiped him knowing that I recognized him, but I decided to skip pretending like I actually knew him since we had never talked, I’d just Facebook stalked him (I do that quite a lot, actually – pretend I’ve only just met someone when really, I’ve Facebook stalked the shit out of them). I had seen him before, sitting down working hard at a co-working space where we were both based. From a distance he looked inoffensive, shy and the blonde beard gave him a bit of street cred. Yes, another bearded young professional in Wellington.

I believe he made the first move, I can’t actually recall, and since editing this blog he has deleted his Tinder profile and re-joined a few times. Typical bearded men who overthink their Tinder presence…

He had pretty good chat through Tinder, though I had built up this image in my head that he would be extremely awkward and shy in real life. His photos depicted a very blonde, very bearded big kid with blue eyes and a baby face. He wore a lot of checked shirts in various colours according to his Tinder profile. Another classic lumberjack look alike, AKA Date #13. So Hipster. So Wellington.

After some above average yet still mediocre chat, we agreed to meet for coffee at Stories on Cuba Street. I was running strangely early for my coffee with the blonde-bearded hipster and decided to go and check out more Coachella-themed stationary at Typo to kill some time. I spent about twelve minutes in a store that was hardly bigger than 3 meters wide on either side. I’m embarrassed at how often I’ve mentioned a shop that I haven’t actually spent money in. People must assume I just loiter in Typo in between all my Tinder dates. Which as it turns out isn’t far from the truth.

We arranged to meet during the morning coffee time frame and I made up some excuse at work about meeting a friend early for coffee as a way of taking an early lunch break. Although my dating exploits were hardly a secret to my colleagues (with my casual slutty work attire and the pash rash,) I didn’t want to admit every day that I was meeting a stranger for my caffeine fix.

On this particular occasion, it was a cold morning and my frequent Tinder dating meant that my care factor for how I looked was decreasing at a rapid pace. On this momentous occasion, I thought it was an excellent idea to wear black ponte pants courtesy of the Gla’sons with some brogues I had picked up from Hush Puppies. Not the sexy comfortable footwear that is made fashionable by Taylor Swift or the Kardashians, I’m talking about these bad boys with straight black pants:

It looked terrible, but I didn’t care, and it wasn’t like checked shirts were making me feel intimidated.

Date #22 was on time and weirdly enough, we were communicating solely through Tinder. Usually I try and upgrade to personal texting devices as soon as possible as a way of storing my conversations for dis blog, but I had clearly dropped the ball this time. He was waiting for me, on the street, in the cold, unaware that I was purposely avoiding him so that I wasn’t the one waiting on Cuba Street like a weirdo. He offered to get me a hot beverage before I had even got there. 10 points to Gryffindor! Take note, Date #7.

He was shorter in real life than I had anticipated. Maybe I imagined this blonde hair, blue eyed guy to be Nordic in all aspects, but he fell short of expectations. We had a few mutual friends according to my Facebook stalk. This stalk also revealed that this guy is/was/formerly engaged within the last six months.

Call me crazy, but this merely intrigued me. One of our mutual friends also told me that he was a left-wing self-righteous twat but this didn’t really set me back either, just made me more excited to meet him. As the icing on the cake, I later found out that a previous conquest of mine told Date #22 that he had dodged a bullet which I found a) so fucking rude and b) so fucking accurate.

Date #22/Tintin talked fast and immediately gave off this non-flirty vibe. I think that was his style. It was as though I was immediately friends zoned, or I was having sex with his brother and he was trying to suss me out to see if I was worthy of his bro while politely tolerating me at the same time.

I don’t expect my dates to be drool and crotch-grabbing, but I enjoy a false sense of security when I’m on a date and am constantly reassured every three or four seconds about how great I am.

During our caffeine fix I found out three things about him.

1. He was engaged VERY recently. I was totally a rebound Tinder date.
2. He was previously a journalist and worked in media. This pissed me off. He was definitely going to be a better writer than my uneducated, barely comprehensible self and he was going to judge anything I wrote.
3. He was smoother than I expected. By that, I mean he had a quick wit and talked fast. I liked that about him.

From first impressions, I thought Date #22 would be quiet and unassuming (read: boring loser) but he was a lot more put together than my Tindersumptions had led me to believe. I didn’t expect this and after 21 dates, you would think I’d have it sussed.

There wasn’t much disagreement between (from my perspective!) but I felt like his body-language and chat had friend-zoned me before I could even bring out my adorable-slutty charm on. That, or he took my previous conquest’s advice seriously. Regardless, I wasn’t too gutted.

My free coffee finished after we walked around Cuba Street making small talk about everything and nothing, therefore my time for him expired and I had to get back to work. He invited me later to attend a work event with him later on that night (my adorable slutty charm must have worked) but alas, I had another Tinder date lined up.

Edit: I had written this blog thinking I was so clever for referring to him as TinTin. Turns out, I wasn’t the only one who thought he looked like TinTin. Go figure.

1. Having a vagina
2. One of my images is a selfie with a sloth
3. Impressive cleavage
4. Plain ol’ determination

I don’t even think I’m selling myself short there.

I also don’t think that my dating experience could ever be of actual use to anyone. Therefore ‘Top Tips’ is a little misleading. When my friends tell me that they’ve broken up with their boyfriends, my only real advice for them is: “have sex with his best friend!”

I did this 30DaysofTinder experiment so everyone could laugh at my bad decisions, not to help anyone else with theirs.

Anyway, here it is. Top Tinder Tips from a Tinder Pro Hoe:

1.LOWER YOUR EXPECTATIONS

(This one is simply too easy).

This goes for both guys and girls. Realistically, you’re not going to find the most amazing person you have ever met after swiping them and then meeting them once. If you do, you’re the exception, not the rule (thanks “He’s Just Not That Into You”!). Whilst I believe that there are a number of reasons why one may be on Tinder (I read that 10% of New Zealand’s population uses it) you’re never going to know their reasons until you message or meet them.

And for those guys with the shirtless selfies, the girls (and guys!) with the pouted duck faces,  people who take multiple selfies in general for their Tinder, and those who are a huge fan of the mirror poses – you’re probably not as hot as your angle portrays.

Therefore you need to Lower your expectations!

Are you here for true love, aka a gentleman who’s going to buy you dinner and kiss you BEFORE he taps and gaps?

Lower your expectations!

Are you using Tinder for the best sex of your life? Then you need to really:

Lower your expectations!

2. Be wary of people’s photos, bios and grammar

There is no awesome way of depicting yourself flawlessly via an application unless you’re already an Instragram Model. You’re always going to be better in real life! At least, I hope so, for your sake and for your potential Tinder luver’s.

My favourite line I’ve ever used as my bio is: “What do classy bitches write here?” and the best line I’ve ever read on Tinder is: “It’s all fun and games til I fuck your Dad”. Brutal and crass; I appreciated it. I hope that girl got a lot of matches for that.

The moral of the story is, keep the bio simple. No one wants to read a novel before they’ve even made up their mind.

Now, profile pictures:

Has anyone else noticed that people are noticeably fatter IRL than in their Tinder pictures? No judgement here, the same hold true for me too. You bet I uploaded Tinder pictures of me post break-up in a sassy play suit with a 90 degree angle cleavage shot. I’ve since gained back that break-up weight I lost when I was too sad to eat.

The other Tinder picture cardinal sin that I suggest you think long and hard about is shirtless selfies. Does anyone really want to see shirtless selfies? Since I’m all for the Dad-Bod, I was pleasantly surprised/mildly disappointed that one of my 30 Tinder Dates had a six-pack since he wasn’t a body builder and he never mentioned going to the gym.

Here’s my small list of things your absolutely shouldn’t have in your Tinder pictures

• Sunglasses in every single photo. (Are you on the run from Police 10/7?)
• Friends in every single photo. (Are you the token ugly or the potential Instagram model? I can’t tell = no swipe.)
• Selfies in every single photo. (Do you ever leave the house?)
• Alcohol being consumed in every single photo. Same goes for illicit drugs. (What am I getting myself into here?)
• Pictures of things that aren’t you. (For example, famous people, dumb memes that no one gets, fancy cars that you could never afford and so on. Oh, and sports team flags! No one who doesn’t know you will care about a team they haven’t heard of, okay? Show me more pictures of yourself so that I can reassess this situation.)
• The Classic DP.
• Don’t crop your ex out of pictures. (It does not show that you’re a classy human being. And especially don’t crop them when they looked good that night! Just TAKE NEW PHOTOS. Shade thrown.)
• Photos with cats.(Note to Melissa: girl, this is totally your Dog bias talking. I would definitely swipe right on pictures of cats, as long as the person was actually in the photo with the cat, it wasn’t just a rouge kitty. Same with pictures of dogs! And pigs. And bunnies. And – okay, all of the animals! I want to see some Noah’s Ark shit on Tinder.)

My small list of things you should have in your Tinder pictures

• You having fun
• You how you actually look right now, not your profile picture from 2012.
• A few photos of you with friends so we know you have them.
• Good angles
• If you’ve travelled, prove it. With one or two photos. Be aware though that any more than a few seems as though you’re flighty and don’t stay in one place for long. That is, unless that’s true and you don’t. in which case you’re being appropriate with your messaging.
• A nice 85 degree phone angle of your face.
• Photos with dogs.

And remember that you don’t need to explain that the kid is your niece/nephew every time. We believe you.

3. To get a fuck, you need to give a fuck

Or in other words, put an effort into your dialogue.

If you settle for the first person that greets you on Tinder with a “Hey” and agree to meet up with them, you won’t be satisfied unless they are truly the exception to the rule. I’ve had some tragic Tinder encounters (pre-30 Days of Tinder!) where in some situations I settled for the sake of settling and others where I met up with them under false pretexts in the hope that it would lead to something more exciting, like an offer to ride his motorcycle (which never eventuated, we never got past the second date where he offered to pay for dinner under the condition that he could take the leftovers home. Sustainable yes, but embarrassingly cheap).

There’s something exciting about Tinder banter, which I never got to enjoy throughout my 30 Day Challenge with the exception of Date #12 and the Harry Potter chat guy. Flirty banter where you attempt to sass and outwit each other leads to an underwhelming real life meet-up where you find out that they are way funnier online than in real life.

Or it leads to something more.

4. No really, LOWER YOUR EXPECTATIONS

How pleasantly surprised would you be if you found out that they’re even taller than you imagined (A rare occurrence in my case, I find,) or that you were met with a screenshot of their DP before you ever met them? Yep, that’s happened to millions of girls (and guys) on Tinder.

Realistically, you’re going to run into 34 year old Geoff, or any of Tinder’s other frequent fliers, who think that deleting their Tinder every other day increases their chances of matching you, because you won’t remember the awkward, terrible conversation you had with them two days prior.

You’re also probably going to match some good-looking guy who tells you how much he likes choking. Aside from the fact he uses pictures of a German Instagram Model, no one should probably lead with the “Hi, How are you?” “Can I choke you?”

5. The rules are there are no rules

There are no rules on Tinder (apart from spamming, rudeness, illegal soliciting and being a douche bag) so it’s one of those things where you have to make your own rules for how you want to play the game. I made this rule where I wouldn’t put out for 10 Dates (sorry for telling the world, Mum!) I started this rule about a year and a half ago and shall we say that my total count for Tinder penetrations is more than the Virgin Mary’s and less than the dudes that Taylor Swift has written songs about. (I don’t know if this is true… I hope I’m not miscalculating Tay’s number in my head.)

I also had this rule about what constitutes a date: it had to be one where we go out and enjoy each other’s company, eat food and not just hang out in awkward ‘getting to know each other’ situations. This wasn’t because I was trying to restore any sort of dignity that I probably didn’t have in the first place, it was just that I’m not a fan of awkward, horrible naked encounters with someone I’m not even sure showers every day. I just need to be reassured, that they shower, y’know?

I have always been open-minded and if I could be satisfied that people weren’t going to misinterpret this, I’d leave it at that and keep writing. The thing is though, people are dicks and misread things. Even though I’m all about over sharing; it’s nice to be on a platform where it’s all on my terms.

So to clarify: I am probably straight. I can’t categorize my preferences any other way as I feel like it’s not fair to people who are genuinely bisexual or bi-curious if I claim to be something that I am probably not. Not that it matters, but can I sum up my sexual preferences with the analogy below (that I like to think I made up):

“I eat a lot of curry and sometimes, every once in a while I like to get a vegetarian curry. If I eat a vegetarian curry, it doesn’t mean I’m a vegetarian, it just means I like vegetarian curry.”

So that’s how I like to describe my sexual preferences. I’d also like to bring in a  quote from my favourite girl Mindy Kaling: “I hate it when people say ‘girl crush’. No one is going to think you’re a lesbian if you just say ‘crush’.”

So basically, I’m just normal, open minded person. Obviously I think that love is love and I change my Facebook picture to be colourful as a reflection of this (and as a token effort), but I don’t want use my sexuality as some sort of defining point. I’m a fun person to play ‘Never have I ever’ with, but otherwise I like to leave it at that.

I love swiping on girls on Tinder. Unlike guys, they’re so much better at uploading nice photos of themselves, with good angles and appropriate facial expressions (and the occasional duck face). Girls have this natural gift for being able to tell which photos best show off their derriere, whereas guys are mostly too stupid or lazy to change from their default profile pictures. Like, we know that you’re not Steve Hanson or Richie McCaw holding a World Cup or a weird meme that no one gets, so why you upload it as your profile picture on Facebook and Tinder? No one will swipe you and you will be forever alone. Some free advice.

Needless to say, Date #21 had the best Tinder profile that I have ever matched, and was the best looking date I have ever been out with. She had a sassy bio with six photos showing various hair colours, close ups, long angle shots displaying her nice figure and only one selfie. Perfecto.

There was a bit of back story with her as well. I don’t know if I explained this to her very well at the time since I was actually really nervous, but I recognized her from a few years back when we were both in a bar. I was with my boyfriend at the time and drunkenly told him how attractive I thought she was. He encouraged me to confront her (like the supportive boyfriend he was) and to invite her to back to ours (like the very supportive boyfriend he was) and I remember drunkenly slurring at the time that “I didn’t want to share!” and that was the end of that. Then we stopped going to that particular bar since I got elbowed in the nose after my nose was only recently broken. Woe is me.

I also didn’t admit this to her, but I had Facebook stalked the shit out of her after that night and there was something about her which was different than the crush I have on Taylor Swift. I found this girl really endearing.

Luckily for me and unlucky for my now ex-boyfriend, she recognized me from that bar, that night too. When we matched on Tinder and she talked to me first, I was totally stoked.

When she said that she remembered me, I admitted that when I’d first met her, I’d had this wild crush on her. She was so sassy and said: “What shall we do about this? I’d love to meet you”.

Oh yes.

We chatted a little bit and then she gave me her number without my prompting. She was so much better at this than me and – unlike the communication I was exchanging with useless dudes – I was interested in what she was saying.

I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I was so excited that when I sent her a text and she didn’t respond I messaged her on Tinder saying ,“Hey I texted you, I haven’t heard back?”. 

She definitely knew how to be cooler than me, that was for sure. Not that its hard to be cooler than me.

We agreed to meet for wines on Monday at 5.30pm and she suggested the General Practitioner, which was great since I hadn’t really been there much (and certainly not within the last 30 days) and it was within perfect walking distance for both of us.

Unlike the minimal effort I like to put in for my usual dates, I decided to actually be there on time. I even topped up my foundation and lipstick as girls tend notice these things, boys don’t. Whilst I was waiting for my ‘crush’, Date#18 happened to walk past. We hugged and he told me I looked great and I said I was meeting a ‘friend’ for a wine. Obviously he wouldn’t have assumed it was a date if he saw that I was with a girl, but he most certainly would have assumed it was one if I was having a wine with a guy. We lied to each other saying we should catch up soon, before he went the opposite way.

Then Date #21 showed up and she was adorably apologetic as she had just finished work. Man she was so much better than me at everything, including being late. She was as gorgeous as I drunkenly remembered just with darker features and we went off inside.

As it was my idea to meet up, I bought her a wine. I think we got chips too, I can’t remember. She nailed this wild and free vibe with this driven and determined attitude. We sort of got our sexuality out of the way and I fessed up that this was my first girl date. She defined herself more as bisexual but had recently got out of a relationship with a guy. Even though she was three or so years younger than me, she struck me as mature for her age. I was so intrigued by her background and was just so interested in whatever she was saying. It was bizarre. I never usually care that much but there was something about her, or the situation we were in where I seemed to hang onto her every word. It was getting cold and I had to cook dinner for my flatmates, but before we finished our second wine, she wanted to go out onto the balcony to have a smoke.

Even her smoking was attractive, despite the fact I find smoking rather repulsive. She looked like bad Sandy with her brows on fleek and giggling away.

It was so nice leaving that date, as we could finish the date like old gal pals whereas with some guys you don’t know there’s this element of awkwardness. You don’t know whether they’re going in for a kiss on the cheek, the pash, the handshake or the bump n grind. I could have had a ferocious pash like Date #10 or a crotch-grab like Date whichever that one was, I was just pleased to have finally met her.