[MF] Testing Out Tinder Pt. 1 – Back Story

I was traveling abroad after a recent breakup and figured it was the perfect opportunity to try out Tinder – a service not available the last time I was single. I put together my profile with the help of some close female friends and turned it on a few days after I landed. I had no concept of Tinder in the US, but where I was, very few profiles had info, and many of the photos were pretty bad. On top of that, I was dodging descriptions that included pricing. After some mindless swiping, I was matched with a cute woman a year older than me (30s). We started exchanging simple messages back and forth and I suggested drinks on a Tuesday night. She asked if I spoke Spanish – not really. I asked if she spoke English – very little. I suggested that we could use Google Translate (GT) on my phone to communicate and she thought it sounded like fun.

I had booked a hotel room in a nice area of town and suggested we meet at the bar. My reasoning to her was they had good wifi, but I liked the proximity to my room. Whether the night went well or not, I was close to my bed and I was trying to catch an early ferry in the morning. She asked me to meet her at her friend’s apartment close by, and then we could cab to the hotel together. My guard was still on high alert being in a foreign country, so I told her I wanted to meet her in a public place and offered to send her an Uber. She agreed, but between the communication breakdown, and Uber being brand new there, she didn’t find the car. She grabed a cab. Damn, I thought, there goes my smooth start to the evening.

She arrives, we kiss cheeks and I walk her to the lounge where we share a couch. She sits a decent distance from me with her purse between us. We trade the normal small talk – origin, jobs, family, etc.. I know a little bit of Spanish, but they speak so differently here that I have been struggling the whole trip to understand it. We use GT as best we can but I forgot to activate the Spanish keyboard so the autocorrect is making things frustrating for her. We try using the speech recognition, which works really well, but she is having trouble and gives up. I can tell she’s getting frustrated, her eyes are darting around a lot. I smile and tell her how patient she is, but she looks at me and says flat out, “no, I’m not.”

Shit, I think, I’m losing her.

She smirks and asks to get out of the hotel bar, so we leave and walk along the water. She’s not particularly warm or flirtatious, but she asks to take a picture together which I interpret as a good sign. We try to find a bar she heard about, but can’t remember exactly where it is. We end up at the fancy cocktail bar of an upscale hotel. I suggest it since I had been there, it was really interesting inside (something to talk about), and I knew they took credit cards. Not knowing who I was meeting and not expecting to leave the hotel bar, I purposefully left my passport and wallet in the hotel room, brining only my ID, one credit card, and limited cash. We sit at a couch, her keeping her distance again, and the server comes over. The server asks what we wanted and my date starts asking about the wine so the server sends over the sommelier. Shit, I think, that’s all I need. They talk for a long while and he turns to me and asks if the bottle she picked was fine. I casually confirm while thinking, “fuuuuccckkkk…. That was the most expensive bottle of wine I have every purchased (~$70).” It’s especially crazy since a good bottle of wine in that region would have cost less than $10. As the sommelier leaves, she tells me she doesn’t really know anything about wine…

We get odd glances from the staff (realizing we don’t really speak each others’ language), but I could care less. We continue talking about random things, drinking wine, getting drunk, and taking photos of the crazy decor. After a while, there’s a bit of a lull in the conversation and I’m trying to find something to talk about (not usually an issue in English). She smiles at me and says “chrome”. This means she wants to search for something on the internet. She pulls up a story about a Greek diplomat who was killed by his wife’s lover. I look at her confused – obviously. She asks for my phone back, types something into GT and hands it to me, “I’m a good lover”. My eyes raise, I look at her and say, as suave as I can (not very suave), “yo tambien”. She smirks, but quickly grabs the phone back and adds, “but not to married men.”. I smile, “si”, and put my hand on her thigh, just below her dress. She smiles and relaxes.

I settle the check and we walk out holding hands. She wants to go to more bars, but it’s Tuesday night and most of the places in the area are closing. We grab a beer to go, before the bars close, and I use up most of my cash. She hands me her purse to hold and then grabs my arm tight as we walk back along the water towards the hotel. She has definitely relaxed, both of our guards are down (the wonders of alcohol) and we walk down the empty boardwalk, stores closed and void of people. She asks to sit down at a bench and the moment we sit down, I dive right in for a kiss – hand on her neck, thumb on her cheek. She responds positively and we make out like messy high schoolers – not a rare sight for the city we’re in. Our hands explore each other over clothing. It was fun, it was long (many minutes rolled by, as did people – who didn’t pay us any mind), it was something I didn’t experience much in High School as an insecure nerd. It felt like I was making up for lost time.

We start walking back towards the hotel smiling, the lit hotel sign shines as a beacon of hope. It’s late now and I had planned for an early morning so I invite her back to the hotel. She tells me she wants to go dancing. I try and convince her otherwise but she is drunk and stubborn. She explains that her daughter is out of town and she doesn’t have work the next day so she wants to go dancing. I’m trying to figure out how to change her mind because on top of not wanting to go, I had not planned for this, I have almost no cash left and I am way overdressed for anywhere she might take me. Before I can figure it out, she hails a cab, hops in, and waves me over. “At least it will make a good story”, I think to myself.

I use the last of my cash to pay the cab driver, and as I step out of the can I can feel the trashy club music coming through the heavy stone building. She uses the only cash she has to buy VIP tickets (~$30 for both of us, not terrible, but I feel bad because I don’t know how expensive that is for her) and we walk into my nightmare – a packed sweaty club with terrible (in my opinion) music and epileptic light shows. We are both overdressed and at least 10 years above the average age. VIP tickets get us access to the less crowded upstairs section with its own bar, couches, and a bunch of study abroad kids who could afford it. The tickets also got us a bottle of cheap sparkling wine and 2 knockoff Red Bulls. We spend a few hours drinking “Champagne” and Red Bull mixed together (her thing), grinding on each other, and making out – her mixing in bites to my neck and shoulder, and getting red lipstick all over my white shirt. Again, I feel like I’m making up for experiences I never had in College with my nose in the books.

5 am rolls around, I am exhausted, my phone is almost dead, and I tell her I need to go. She smiles and drags me down to the main dance floor, pinning me against the wall and grinding away. I enjoy it for a little while and then translate on my phone, “I need to go, do you want to see what else these lips can do, or do you want to stay here?”. I tried to be cute, but I was exhausted, and that sentence was probably a little too complex for google translate at 5am in a crazy club. She smiles and keeps grinding. Finally I translate, “I have to go, you want to come or not?”. She’s trying to keep me there dancing, but I leave. I figure she had her fun and she got what she wanted, but she emerges from the club a few seconds after me. It’s 5:30 am and there are no Ubers, so we find a cab – neither of us with any cash.

When we arrive at the hotel, I hustle to my room to grab some cash – sweaty, white shirt a mess – lipstick all over the collar. The two people behind the desk follow me with their eyes as I cross the long lobby, go up to the top floor, come back down, and cross again to pay the cab driver. She tells me to get in, she wants food and the driver drops us by the nearby food stands. The sun is coming up and the vendors are looking at us crazy because they are opening for the day and have no food available. I give up, she is not making any sense and I don’t have the energy to use my phone to translate. She speaks to me in Spanish, I speak to her in English, Finally I say, “Voy al hotel” and walk back. She runs to catch up and grabs my arm. I’m half surprised and fully expecting her to pass out on the bed.

Source: reddit.com/r/gonewildstories/comments/6xsn4r/mf_testing_out_tinder_pt_1_back_story