I Saw You’re On Tinder

My boyfriend is a bit of a Renaissance Man. In addition to being a trained artist, skilled musician, IT guy, biochem nerd, and forward-thinking visionary, he’s also something of a privacy guru. So, every few months he scans the internet for our old usernames. Last night, he informed me he had discovered about fifteen sites linked to me, most of which were to be expected. However, there was one anomaly.

He chuckled as he said, “I saw you’re on Tinder.”

Recognizing the look of bewilderment on my face, he quickly explained that it was likely a false positive. Half asleep, I assured him I had never been on Tinder. “Oh, I know,” he assured me, before bursting into laughter.

We often joke about how the stars must have aligned for us to have met. I was in the online dating game for a total of three days, which just so happened to coincide with my boyfriend’s time there. I am terrible with directions, but I found my way to a new location for our first date. I have always been farcically oblivious to romantic interest; if you approach me to ask about the book I’m reading, that’s exactly what you’re going to get.

Reflecting back on most of my life, it’s quite clear I have some form of high-functioning autism.

Social cues? What are those?

Anyways, the laughter, right? My boyfriend’s first thought when he saw one of my old usernames being used on Tinder was that I was looking for pictures of cute dogs, and perhaps the opportunity to befriend someone with an especially cute dog.

He kept going, describing the scenario. I message Joe Schmoe on Tinder who has a picture with his golden retriever, Sunny. He invites me to coffee and I respond that, if it’s not too forward, I’d like to meet at his house instead. He agrees, sets the mood with lights and music, and then I show up and spend three hours petting Sunny. Then, I get tired and go home, taking with me the chocolate bar on the counter. “See you tomorrow, Sunny!”

He’s not wrong.

We don’t really celebrate Female Love Reassurance and Gift Exchange Day, but discovering that your partner may have a Tinder account could really spoil the mood. So, that fact that my partner not only trusts me not to cheat, but understands my idiosyncrasies and can joke about what a spectacular failure any attempts would result in, makes me all the more certain that he is my person.

And, if we were to ever break up, I think I would probably be single forever.