I suppose I could have bought a guidebook from a gift shop. Maybe a dense historical reader, a fold-out map or, better yet, Bono’s autobiography. However, Tinder was already right there on my home screen, and I was desperate for human connection.
I’d spent my first week in Dublin with my parents, submurged in the modern-day torture chamber better known as “apartment hunting.” Now that the universe had finally eased up and granted me the favour of a roof and bed, it was time to let the acculturation begin. In other words, I had (optimistically) two and a half friends and had never had a sip of Guinness in my life. In my head, the cars still drove on the wrong side of the street, and “Hey, can I pleaseeee borrow a few dollars?” had not yet become “Hey, can I pleaseeee borrow a few euros?”
More importantly, my brain demanded distractions from the entropy of a move across the Atlantic, and if there’s one thing The Bachelor franchise has taught me, it’s that lustful longing and bottomless wine are the solution to any and every anxiety.
Enter Tinder. Back in America, it was my epipen of validation. Weird chin hair? Inject a match with Luke, 23, financial analyst whose bone structure cancels out his casual misogyny. Chunky thighs? Take a shot of Logan, 24, didn’t go to college but plays drums for a band that sold out that one bar that one time. Things were easy in this world of swiping, liking, and prematurely judging, but now I wanted to pull out the big guns: real, human connection – ideally, in restaurants with unpronounceable names and misleading price listings. It’s difficult to explain the novelty of these things to those lucky enough to have never used dating apps. Essentially, I’m saying that I decided to watch Netflix films instead of just their autoplay teaser trailers. I pulled the rusty bike out of the shed to actually ride it, not just ring the bell.
So, I started saying yes. A lot. Even when I was tired, even when I was bloated, even when the Dublin city bus system seemed more determined to keep me home than a helicopter mom. I did my best eyeliner job (which is still just a jagged smear of brown pencil), washed my hair, and let Google Maps guide me to random bars, coffee shops, and sit-and-chill-with-stoned-teens curbs around the city.
Typing in a new location, something that either my suitor suggested or I’d found on an outdated Dublin restaurant roundup, brought me a huge adrenaline rush each time I hit “Directions.” For the possibility of budding romance, sure, but more often for the excitement of new neighbourhoods and “spots;” new places to follow on Instagram and promise I’d be a regular at; new places to sit and read a book on sunny days or scribble bad poetry on stormy days; new places that had white wine I wouldn’t have to pretend to understand the flavour notes of (floral? oakey? thyme?!).
With each Tinder date, Dublin imprinted itself on me, though often in ways that weren’t obvious at first. One afternoon, I walked past the canalside docks in Portobello with a pang of homesickness. Only later did I remember that it was where I had sat with a date – a fellow American – and traded memories of East Coast autumns back home, lamenting that there’s rarely snow in Dublin.
Another time, strolling past a Lebanese restaurant, I felt the warm, flirty wine drunkenness I’d experienced there a week earlier, when my date and I had spent three hours discussing (shooting the shit) about Irish history. I’ll be honest: I’m still fuzzy on the details of Michael Collins, and I won’t pretend to have more than a layperson’s knowledge of the IRA. However, I do know that in those three hours of drunk history, I lay claim to the city in a way I hadn’t before.
What the history meant to Derek (not his real name, but he gave Derek vibes), myself, to any of the people sitting around us, became real to me in a way it hadn’t before. I left the restaurant that night with a stomach full of kebabs and a spring in my step – revelling in the idea of Dublin as a revolutionary site; a historical memento that now shimmered with street lights and the phone cameras of selfie-taking tweens.
I hesitate to recommend tipsiness as a coping mechanism, but walking the streets of my new home at night with a cool Irish guy not named Derek, priding myself for the fact that I could now remember some street names and recall notable landmarks (for example, that one really grimy Tesco on the corner) made me more hopeful about a life here than I had been in days. Not because it was especially romantic or because Derek was so charming (for reference, the first 30 seconds of our date consisted of me going in for a hug and then him looking surprised and awkwardly patting my back). No, the magic of the night and of all those that followed was in the spontaneity of it all. The sheer “why not meet up with a Marxist in a Victorian pub?” or the “why not wear my overalls to a trendy club?”
None of these first dates led to second dates. Not one. Zero. Zilch. But I’m glad for that. Knowing that each date was a one-off – random place, random stranger, random night – has made them all the more spectacular to me when I think of them as a whole. That I went on all these dates and have nothing to show for it would have infuriated the old me beyond belief; she’d spend days tweeting empty feminist mantras and buy a yoga class-pack only to cancel every single one of them.
New me is a bit more forgiving; a bit more chill and, dare I say, free. I’m only in Dublin for a short time, but in this finite period I’m essentially free to do whatever I’d like. I’m not saying I’m going to vandalise a church or drink till I miraculously know all the words to Danny Boy; it’s more a matter of recognizing that living in Dublin is a solitary year of my life, so why not fill it with as much spontaneity and adventure as I can?
Tinder, in its own addictive, algorithmic way, has helped me find this freedom. I remain reasonably sceptical about its ability to bestow me with fairytale love, but I’ll be damned if anyone argues it’s not a valid use of time. Dating in Dublin has turned me from tourist to the slightly cooler “girl who frequents a niche coffee/succulent shop.” I’m still waiting for my Dublin meet-cute spectacular, in which we both look wayyyy better than our profile photos and find out we have the same favourite German film (or something equally pretentious). But, I’m happy with what I do have: that warm, tingly feeling that, if I dare to identify it, could maybe be called belonging.
