Thanks to modern technology and decreasing interpersonal abilities in Gen Y, speed dating in 2016 looks like…well, kinda fun.
Meet 24-year-old New Zealand lass Melissa Brenzinger, author of ’30 Days of Tinder’.
Pretty much exactly as the title suggests, Melissa set herself the dubious task of going on 30 Tinder dates in 30 days, whilst blogging her results.
And she is one seriously funny lady.
From her date with a bearded hipster Tintin, to a refreshingly non-cringeworthy first date with another woman, Melissa manages to walk the line between being brutally honest yet youthfully nonchalant about the brutal rotating-door that is dating in your early 20s.
Her descriptions were hilarious – here’s what she had to say about Date #12, dubbed ‘Harry Potter’ for his witty Tinder banter:
“First impressions of Date #12 was that he was as tall as I expected (5ft 8ish) but more muscular than I expected.
None of his photos showed him smiling and one was even blurry. He was wearing the whitest t-shirt I’ve ever seen (“Sorry I’m five minutes late, was picking up a new white t-shirt from AS Colour”) with a Nike jacket and a snapback cap.
He dressed like a Caucasian Jay-Z, where he could afford to dress well but still wanted to look he had street-cred. His Country Road socks are testament to this.”
Snap!
Anyone who was unlucky lucky enough to fish the dating pond at the same age will remember many of the characters Melissa writes about – the Poetic Canadian, the Farm Boy, the Body Builder, and The Beard With A Dog. Some were awkward, some were manageable, some were luke-warm, but all were unsuccessful.
EXCEPT ONE.
Yep, Melissa’s social experiment has a happy ending, with one of her 30 dates (Is it the Canadian? Is it?) now officially her boyfriend.
“Like I said though, I didn’t go into this with expectations of finding ‘the one’ and I certainly didn’t see myself with a boyfriend at the end of it!” she said.
So there you go, people. Apparently the only way to use Tinder appropriately without completely tarnishing your sense of self worth is to crank it into overdrive until the stars align, and you meet someone who doesn’t make you want to look around to check if you’re being Punk’d.
Good luck.
Take a read of Melissa’s hilarious blog (that boasts an extremely strong meme game) here: http://30daysoftinder.com/