Sex, Travel and The Pandemic

The Tinder Date, Studio Ghibli, And the Love Bubble

I was bored, lonely, and depressed. So, naturally, I installed Tinder.

I hadn’t used the mobile app in a while and was a bit rusty with my way around the interface. How do I change my profile picture? Oh right! Got it. It took me a second then I was back at it, swiping through potential matches.

One of my first matches was with a girl named Sue. We spoke for a little while, and as we learned a little more about each other, we discovered that we were neighbors. She lived in the apartment complex on the other side of the street.

It was a strangely exciting realization that we lived so close to each other, and we made a plan to have a movie night at my place the very next day.

She never came the next day.

Her excuse was that her lecturer gave them a huge project that she had to finish by the end of the month or something like that.

“It is what it is,” I said to myself.

After that day, I began to see her all the time when I left my house. She would often be sitting outside on the side of the building smoking a cigarette or chatting on the phone. I would say hey, but I never stopped to talk, simply walking away after the greeting.

Maybe it was because I was nervous or because she blew me off, and I was trying to protect my ego. I don’t know. What I do know is that nothing ever developed between the two of us.

I spent the movie night watching Studio Ghibli anime films, which for some reason, had eluded me all these years. It was a lonely movie night, with only the TV and my thoughts keeping me company. I watched the anime films all night until the hands of sleep took me away.

Tinder did not prove to be completely useless. I matched with another girl who lived on the other side of the city. Her name was Beth and after chatting a bit on Tinder, I invited her out on a date. There weren’t any restaurants or bars open, so I invited her to the next best thing, the park. Beth had suggested Endcliffe Park.

On the Sunday that we had scheduled to meet, I had a sudden urge to cancel the date and postpone it for another day. The excitement I had about meeting and conversing with another human being in person waned as the time grew closer. Everything I had to do in preparation for this date was stressing me out, and I was too uninspired to give in to that much effort. I had to take a shower, get dressed, brush my teeth, and fix my hair. I hadn’t gone to a barber in months, and my hair definitely looked it.

It was quite the challenge simply getting up from bed. I thought I’d be much more excited to be meeting with this girl. She was pretty cute.

I eventually pulled myself together and managed to get into the shower. There was a part of me that was hoping she would send me a message, calling off the date, making up some crazy excuse like she had gotten COVID-19 or something. But none came, and a few moments later, I was out the door and on my way to Endcliffe Park.

I got to Endcliffe Park a bit late. I misjudged the time that it would have taken to get there.

Beth greeted me with a warm smile when I finally got there, and then we proceeded to find a clear place to sit in the giant field.

The sun was bright and the chill that was in the air a few weeks ago was now going. Summer was on its way. The Park was filled with life and color, as most parks were, but today was exceptionally lively and colorful. It was a Sunday, after all. It was quite the feat to find an open space to sit on the field.

Beth and I hung out in the park for a few hours, discussing our hopes and dreams and thoughts on the current Pandemic. She had believed that Prime Minister Boris Johnson was an idiot and handled the situation poorly. She also shared a pretty negative outlook on post-pandemic England. Her mother was a nurse, and she knew all that was happening in the overcrowded wards. The NHS was being overworked and killed off as many of them got sick and died. Her mother, like Harry and Jenny, was a soldier in the forefront. They protected us, but who protected them?