This is a true story, and I hope that comes across.
I am in my early thirties, and recently my life changed dramatically. I’ve been with my partner for over ten years, but—suddenly, catastrophically—our relationship began to fall apart, until we decided to separate. Not completely done, we decided that, while separated, we should explore ourselves sexually. Well, not really we—this was her idea, not mine—but if she was going to fuck around, then I was going to as well. We were, officially, “separated, but in an open relationship.”
So, for the first time ever, I installed Tinder and got started. Luckily, I hadn’t slouched off too much, and I’m pretty fit. I’m muscular, of above-average height, and not bad looking. And it turned out, other people thought this too! I was getting matches, and dates! As depressed as I had been by the wreck that was my relationship, this cheap acknowledgement cheered me up.
However, my previous relationship wasn’t quite over yet, so I made it clear that I was not looking for anything serious on my profile. This key phrase, “Looking for casual dating,” did most of the heavy lifting, filtering out women looking for something serious. And once I matched, I would, after a bit of conversation, clarify my situation and what I was looking for. Sometimes they said “thanks, but no thanks,” but, often enough, they would say, “Great, that’s exactly what I’m looking for.”