The Introduction of the Tinder Ginger
I met him late September of 2014. You would have found out if I kept to the timeline, but things change, or really things happen. Sometimes you just have to let them. At the time, I was back to dating the Joker, and we had made some intense revelations, and somehow at the end of all that, I got the feeling that I needed to be dating more people. So I went on Tinder, OkCupid, Hinge, I met and dated a bunch of guys, four in one week even!, but the memorable one, the one we'll be talking about in today's post, is my very own Tinder Ginger. Quick history lesson number 1, I may have had recurring dreams about a ginger since I was a 7 yr old. I don't remember much except we drove a cadillac convertible around the countryside, overlooking cliffs and oceans, and we would laugh and laugh. And I would wake up from these dreams, undeniably happy, and practice kissing the palm of my hand. So... I'm a little ginger-obsessed. Quick history lesson number 2, before this, I went on another date with an artist from Tinder whose nickname shall be Quick & Painless, or Q&P. He seemed like he might be gingery, with a ski-jump nose (so perky!). When we met, he looked nothing like his one, shadowy image on Tinder, though he was cute. Anyway, nothing happened with that guy. Now, fast forward, and I start talking to another artist boy on Tinder, who also only has one or two pictures of himself, and the rest are of paintings. He has a mischievous grin in one pic, but the others are sort of hard to read (is he cute or not), but he seems so magnanimous. I decide to meet up with him. We meet for dumplings in Chinatown. He comes up on his bike, and woah, so much cuter than I would have ever expected. (Quick aside: I’m wondering if I should create an app that shows guys what pictures of themselves to put on dating profiles, because this is something ALL MEN ARE BAD AT). It also takes me a while to realize that when I met Q&P, I thought he would look like my Tinder Ginger (but he didn't). There is something so comforting about Tinder Ginger, I somehow feel right at home. We sit down, and he tells me about some nonfiction books, one in particular he's read about the nature of debt. He asks me if I have any dietary restrictions, and when I tell him, he orders a bunch of different dumplings for us to split. The food comes, and we are stuffing our faces, but also gabbing at each other about so many things. When we're done eating, I realize I don't want this to end. "Want to get a drink somewhere?" he asks. "Sure, how about in Park Slope?" I counter. He smiles and nods. We walk down busy Chinatown streets, and he moves instinctively with his bike through the crowd of people, pulling her up by the handlebars so she's just being wheeled along on the back wheel, or moving her out of the way of unruly kids. I tell him it makes him look like he would be great at leading someone around a dance floor. We end up in my neighborhood. At some point, probably during dumplings actually, I find out Tinder Ginger has a kid. Okay, not really a dealbreaker, but I feel myself get a little careful. Maybe without even realizing it, a tiny little wall gets built around my heart right then and there. We go back to my place, we smoke a bit. Tinder Ginger talks of a background so different from mine, he's a card-carrying atheist, but grew up in a really christian community, where he was abstinent and celibate. So he got married young, moved to NYC, had a baby, thought having the baby was hard, and in the midst of all that, lost his faith. It's all fascinating to me. And I get to tell him about my different religion, how I'm a believer as intellectual as I may be, how I thought my parents hated me just because I was fat. And I could see him trying to understand me, the same way I tried to understand him. So of course, we end up making out, undressing each other. He tells me his favorite feature is my ass, and I roll my eyes. We don't have sex the first night, though I do get an up-close-and-personal look at his penis, and I've never dated a ginger before, which might be why I'm surprised by how pink it is. Pleasantly pink. By the time he leaves, he's changed the favorite feature to my face, he just can't decide between my eyes and lips, and I decide he gets one more chance. The next time I see him, I've ended a week of going on dates with 4 guys. I only have dates with 3 this week, and he's one of them. We hang out and again end up back at my place, talking and talking and talking. We end up in bed, with our clothes off, and I tell him I'm unsure about having sex, and then he's going down on me and he's GREAT. So great, that I'm pulling his head up and practically begging him to fuck me. He's all prepared with condoms, which is a nice surprise, but he also has LUBE. Which is so crazy. I keep remembering my therapist, when I told him how sex always hurt a little at first, he had mentioned I should try lube. And I scoffed being like, but I'm young, I get WET. Be that as it may, the lube was great. He enters me and we gasp at each other, and then we fuck, and he's staring into my eyes. When he cums, he's just staring at me, his face screwed up with disbelief. Later, as we're cuddling, he tells me my eyes are his favorite feature, and I sigh and curl into his body more. He's all warm, hard lines, smatterings of freckles, and his pretty pink cock. During sex, we sometimes will crack jokes, start laughing, before the moaning takes over again. I imagine we must sound like best friends, or at least people who have known each other for much longer than two weeks. This is the point where I tell him about my date with Q&P, and how I expected to be dating someone that looked just like him, before we ever met. Also, this is the first time EVER that I'm having sex with someone on the second date. Usually, it takes me a lot longer. We continue dating, the 4-5 boys of the first week are now ghosts of memories. I'll tell you all about them later. The Crazy Crooner, the Moment Ruiner. But, it was really the Tinder Ginger that stayed on, that I wanted to keep hanging out with, having sex with (didn't have sex with the others). There's a lot of joy in someone who has been through a lot, and is at peace with the shore he ended up on. I tell N that sometimes Tinder Ginger seems like all play and no work, and that's precisely what's great about him. But we keep dating, and I keep liking him more and more. One night, I finally get to see his apartment. He orders Indian food, we color in his paintings, the canvas stretched out on the floor, the two of us lounging about in our underwear with paintbrushes in hand. Again that quick moment, of woah, I’m happy! In the midst of dinner, Tinder Ginger gets serious for a second. "I just wanted to let you know, that I'm a bit of a slut." he tells me, I'm sure that for a split second, my face falls, but I try and hide it. "It's just that I don't really believe in monogamy, and after repressing my sexuality for religious reasons for so long, I just want to be free to be with who I want to be with, and not hurt any feelings in the process," he explains. I nod, we gloss over it. After we have sex on the futon mattress pulled onto the floor, the baby grand piano looming over my head, I turn away from him and cry silently onto the pillow. Eventually, he gets up and straddles me, looking down at my face, asking me what I'm thinking of. "Oh, just thinking about my hair/parents/whatever thing you might find believable." I say, and distract us both with a story. Pretty soon after that, I'm taking a cab home and again just sort of sad. I can't say why, nothing about this is much of a surprise The next week, when I see Tinder Ginger, I take him to my favorite Vietnamese restaurant in Chinatown. We get dinner, and I say, "You might have noticed that I got a little quiet last week after you mentioned you're a bit of a slut?" He nods. "Well, it's not like it was a surprise," I continue, "and it's not like I haven't been doing the same thing. When I first met you, I was dating a lot of different people. But, if I like someone, I tend to focus on them, and not want to keep being with other people too. So, when we first met, I was dating all these guys, but by now, I'm really only dating you. I guess, what I'm trying to say is I want you to be happy, do the thing that brings you joy, but unfortunately we can't really keep dating, because then I'm not happy." He's understanding, though he argues some of my points on monogamy. And I get where he's coming from, but again, it's just what I want eventually, and not for him any more. We go to his bike, he asks if we'll be getting a drink in my neighborhood. "I'm sorry, I can't really keep having sex if it's casual..." "Oh! You meant right now, okay, well... I'll think about you a lot." he says plaintively. "No, I really really want us to be friends, let's just get a drink in this neighborhood." I tell him, and we move on to do that. We keep talking about our different relationship expectations and desires. When we go to leave, I'm hopping into a cab while he's unlocking his bike, Tinder Ginger says the sweetest things, the sex was amazing, he hopes he can see me again, if I ever do want to see him I just have to say so, which is nice. What really impresses me though, is he makes no false promises of changing and maybe wanting to be monogamous one day. He could have done that, and I would have had sex with him at least one more time. But he doesn't. And that's so fucking impressive. We text each other for a bit. I send him images of art that makes me think of him, or good titles for paintings, an activity he always delights in. And he lets me know that his son really liked one of the coloring books I got him, or that he thought of me when he saw my company name pop up somewhere. And then we drift apart as I go through the lonely winter months. Every now and then I talk about him, Tinder Ginger, and it's only fond memories of how great he was, how he could have used me, but he didn't. Why bring up Tinder Ginger now? Well, because, we've decided to give it another try. Some friends are convinced it's a disaster waiting to happen. But I'm tired of grabbing and holding onto misery, shouldn't I grab and hold on to some joy every once in a while?