Tinder Diaries

We at Canım Istanbul always bring you the best we’ve experienced, discovered, found out, ate, drank, danced to, and bought in the city. And for many young Istanbulites, dating is one of the biggest challenges of living in a city that lives in a cultural limbo with exact opposites coexisting in the same time and space dimension.

We’re well aware that dating in Istanbul can sometimes feel like astrophysics, so we’d like to bring your attention to an app that you all probably already know and some of you already use: Tinder. Some say that Tinder was created for ONS (for those who don’t know – that’s short for one night stand), but that’s not Tinder’s sole purpose in Istanbul to say the least. And we curious creatures are craving to know what people are experiencing on Tinder.

So we teamed up with an anonymous, single, 30-year-old, Istanbul-native woman who offered to bare her soul for Canım Istanbul readers in this Tinder Diaries series. 

We’re here to share her experiences with you. Enjoy the read.

Episode 1 – The Initiation (14/01/2016)

Tinder came to be when I was in a committed relationship with a man, who I came to accept after 3 years of to-ing and fro-ing that just wasn’t right for me. I remember seeing one of my best male friends swiping this way and that way on his phone long before I knew what Tinder really was, and thinking to myself that the world must be coming to an end, completely unaware that I, one day in the not so distant future, would be doing just that in the comfort of my own home, in my pajamas, lazing on the couch.

After the passionate yet way too arduous relationship finally came to an end, I gave myself a brief time for grieving and then, having spent the last years of my 20s in a relationship, decided to go full force into the wild (aka Tinder) without knowing what I’d find there.

For those who have yet to experience Tinder first-hand: it is a geo-localized dating application where people connect through their Facebook profiles, ensuring that everyone in the app is a real person. You select the gender, age range, and distance from which you want to scour for a match. Swiping left means you’re not interested, swiping right means you are. Tinder’s key feature (compared to other online dating services and apps) is that if both parties swipe right, which means you both like each other, you get to chat through the app. So don’t worry, you can’t get bothered by people you don’t like.

Soon after I downloaded the app, I realized that finding someone that I found attractive and could have a decent conversation with was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Imagine being on the Hacıosman-Yenikapı metro line and looking around for a man that you like. You might come across someone you find attractive at the Şişhane stop but only if you’re lucky. Tinder is pretty much that, so you can guess what the crowd is like. Yet I was determined. But more than that, now that I was single, I had lots of free time.

I spent the first month swiping ferociously, mostly left, but sometimes right, and I did get some good matches. Yet I was still in a dial-up state of mind when chat rooms first came to be as a replacement for pen pals, not yet realizing that I was dating the 21^st century, and that the whole point of using a dating app like this was to actually meet someone in person.

So once I managed to giddy up enough courage, I took Tinder from my screen to real life.

Have you tried Tinder? We want to hear it!
Tell us about your experience in the comments below.

Episode 2 – The First Date (22/01/2016)

XX profiles and XX matches later, I was yet to go on a date at the end of my first month on Tinder. Most of the men I had matched with were drowning in loneliness and living on the verge of depression. They never bothered to ask me out – all they seemed to want was someone to talk to. And it was then that I began realizing that I too was desperately trying to fill the void of my ex – the one whom I loved deeply and the one who broke me in such a way that I never imagined I could rebuild myself again.

Yet sitting on my couch and talking intimately with strangers got boring after a while. So when a 39-year-old decent-looking man asked for my number after a brief conversation, I gave it to him. He called right away and we talked for a little while. I found myself feeling shocked, and realized that deep down I expected men to act like complete assholes. He said he’d call the next day and he did so around 3pm. Nobody calls at 3pm for sex. Well, not many people do anyways. So this may actually be something good, I thought.

He invited me to dinner with his friends in Karaköy. Too good to be true, right? Yes. Well, here is what happened. I went to meet him post-dinner simply because I was too nervous to sit through an entire dinner with a stranger and his friends. One of them turned out to be a super rich macho guy who ordered one champagne bottle after another and a truly dumb yet totally good-hearted blonde girl who was convinced that we were headed for disaster because we were going to Taksim, which apparently for her was a very dangerous place.

My date, on the other hand, was a tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed, relatively good-looking man. But, God he was boring! I spent most of the night chatting to his macho friend who had great stories to tell, and we all went bar-hopping in Taksim, got drunk enough to be dancing with random people we met. At one point in the night, the kissing began. It kind of felt like the natural course of events. After all, we had met through Tinder. And I kissed him back not necessarily because I found him attractive but mostly because I wanted to erase the remnants of my ex, which I thought would happen when I kissed someone else. I know, it doesn’t make much sense, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

At the end of the night, he wanted to come over to my place but I said no – I might kiss a man to get over my ex but I won’t sleep with him. He texted me the next day, asked if I was okay, and we met up again a few days later. We were both sober, he was still boring, and I didn’t have the stomach for his detached conversation or sloppy kisses. And – he smelled! That night when we first met he was smelly as well but I gave him the benefit of the doubt, and hoped that it was because we had been dancing and sweating for a while. But if he still smelled after walking out of his office, it was a no go.

For some reason he couldn’t read my I-have-no-intention-of-kissing-you signs, and started accusing me of being “one of those girls”. I had no idea what he was talking about. Turns out  there is a tribe of women who think sex is immoral and he assumed that since I didn’t want to kiss him, I should be one of them. It couldn’t be further from the truth. That night I kindly told him via text (because I didn’t have the guts to look him in the eye and say it) that I wasn’t attracted to him and I wasn’t interested. Even though he was a disappointment, the date had been great fun. And if Tinder could deliver nice men who called when they said they will, then I was in.

Have you tried Tinder? We want to hear it!
Tell us about your experience in the comments below.

Episode 3 – Second Date: the Spanish Artist (29/01/2016)

Going on a date with the smelly guy I told you about last week gave me the encouragement I needed to go full force in Tinder. I was no longer wasting my time filling other people’s voids, but at the same time I was trying my best to sift through those who were simply looking for a one night stand.

I was doing pretty well by the way – no longer stalking my ex every five minutes on all social media platforms. I was smiling, feeling calm, and having fun with my new-found peace of mind. I still wasn’t sure exactly what I was looking for in Tinder – I had no intentions of getting emotionally involved with anyone and I had no desire to have sex with random men either. I decided to go with the flow, take each experience as it came, and decide what I wanted to do then.

A week or two after my first date, I matched with a 30-year-old Spanish artist who had made Istanbul his temporary home. We had an unlikely yet instant connection, and spent the entire night talking on the phone. And when I say the entire night, I mean until 6 am! I was shaken to my core because without having seen this man’s face my heart had moved in a way that I wasn’t prepared for.

Plus, he lived in my all-time favorite Istanbul neighborhood (Kuzguncuk), and we met up there two days later. He was taller than me, had the ideal hipster beard and a man bun, the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen, and an accent that was the icing on the cake. In a matter of a few hours, or maybe even minutes, I was captivated by his confidence and sincerity, and found myself wondering why he hadn’t kissed me yet. We were occupying an exclusive mental space that zones everything and everyone else out and only leaves two people in the world. Weird. Unexpected. Frightening.

We went to his apartment with a bottle of wine. His place was tiny and slightly disorganized, but it was cozy. We sat by the window, opened the bottle, and continued talking about life. I let him do most of the talking because I was slightly paralyzed with the emotions that were running through me and I just loved discovering his expressions, hearing his voice when he moved from one emotion to the next. We were two people opening up to each other – no judgments, no attachments, no baggage.

He wasn’t being flirtatious or making any moves so I began to think that maybe I was imagining this connection. But I couldn’t be because it was so obvious that I could almost touch the invisible cord between us. He said something about me being stressed and began to massage my hands. That was our first physical contact of the night. After my hands, it was my shoulders, then my back. He was very sensual and I was getting super aroused, but he was yet to kiss me.

He finished the massage and sat across from me. Why? Why wasn’t he kissing me? I think he was just being nice, making sure I had warmed up enough before he made his final move.

And he did, in due time. You can imagine how the night ended. 🙂

Throughout the night, I momentarily freaked out though. Because this was not senseless or emotionless. I was there, heart and soul, and I was petrified. I wasn’t supposed to feel anything for anyone for a very long time.  I was supposed to guard my heart like it was the most important treasure in the world. Yet I had no control over what it felt, and I kept myself calm as much as I could, allowing myself to enjoy the moment as much as possible because even though no words were spoken on the matter, I knew that the best that would come out of this was a friend with benefits.

Have you tried Tinder? We want to hear it!
Tell us about your experience in the comments below.

Episode 4 – Third Date: the Playboy (05/02/2016)

It had been a week since my date with the Spanish artist. We had talked once or twice, and had intentions of seeing each other soon, but my assumption that he was going to be a friend with benefits was spot on, which was completely fine with me.

Before I met him, I had been scared that it was going to take me a lifetime to feel anything for anyone because I had loved my ex for so long that it was as if I had never loved anyone else before and wouldn’t be capable of being remotely interested in anyone else for a very long time.

He proved me wrong and I was grateful for that.

And also a little freaked out.

I didn’t want my heart to devote itself to another man just yet, especially one who obviously had no interest in being exclusive. And I actually did not want to be in a relationship either. So I did what anyone would do and found someone else to distract me.

Here is the story.

He was one of the first men I matched with on Tinder. He was a super flirtatious, 40-year old creative director, divorced with no kids. And he looked a hell of a lot like my ex, which is why I liked him in the first place. He was not interested in chatting – he just wanted to have sex so he kept on inviting me to his apartment. I kept saying no. Not because I had no intentions of sleeping with him, but it didn’t feel right on any level to go straight to a man’s apartment without ever having met him. What if he was super weird in person? What if I wasn’t attracted to him? Don’t men think about this kind of stuff when they invite a woman over?

After weeks of him inviting me over and me saying no, I finally told him: I want to sleep with you but I won’t come to your house. You’ll need to take me out for a drink first.

He got the message loud and clear. The next day, we met up for a drink in Cihangir, very close to his house so it would be “easy for him to take me home afterwards”.

I was really nervous because this was going to be the first time in my life that I was knowingly heading towards a casual sex date. As I was getting ready (and making sure I was wearing my sexiest lingerie), I drank two tea glasses of rakı (the only alcohol available at home) as I desperately needed to calm myself down.

When we met at Firuzağa Meydanı, his reaction when he first saw me made it very clear that I exceed his expectations. Brownie points for me. He looked just like he did in his photos – bald, bearded, fit, and tall with a charming smile. Even better: He was wearing a black leather jacket that made him look even more attractive.

We found a bar nearby and had two bottles of beer each. He told me about himself and asked about me, with the occasional naughty joke here and there. And in those 60 minutes or so I decided that he was kind, trustworthy, respectful and certainly not a psycho killer.

We walked over to his apartment, which was spacious, well-organized, had large windows overlooking a park, and the entire living room was covered with artwork that he had done.

He opened two more bottles of beer.

We talked a bit more, and after a few sips from the beer, I was pretty tipsy. He noticed, and asked how it’s possible that I got drunk on beer so quickly. I told him that I had a little bit to drink before we met because I was nervous. He laughed. Then I told him I was a “one-night-stand virgin”, which may have put him off a bit but when the kissing began, the rest followed smoothly. I felt I was on familiar grounds because it wasn’t just his looks that were like my ex – although I have no idea how it’s possible, his skin kind of felt like him, too.

He had a little bit of a problem, the kind only men have, if you know what I mean. I didn’t really mind because my goal was not to have an orgasm. I felt like his shortcoming made me feel even more comfortable because he tried harder to make up for it.

I had every intention to leave afterwards but he insisted that I stay. So I did. We watched a rerun of a Turkish TV show in bed, and went to sleep soon after. It felt like we were a couple, which was kind of nice but totally weird at the same time. Who watches stuff in bed with someone they are only going to sleep with once?

But then again – this was not going to be a one night stand after all.

Have you tried Tinder? We want to hear it!
Tell us about your experience in the comments below.

Episode 5 – Why Playboys are Bad for the Soul (12/02/2016)

When the playboy texted me the day after we met and asked how I was, I thought that he probably wasn’t as much of a playboy as I thought he was. I was wrong. Big time.

I saw him again within a week or two, and a similar scenario unfolded: he texted, asking me to go to his place. I did, we had a few drinks, and we had sex. The difference was that now that he had warmed me up to the idea of hanging out with no strings attached, it seemed like he didn’t feel the need to talk much. Talking was very clearly his way of being polite and he couldn’t wait for it to be over. And when we were in the bedroom, I realized I couldn’t wait for it to be over. Right in front of me there was a man who was completely detached from me, and I’m guessing from himself as well. It dawned on me that it didn’t matter if it was me there with him or any other random girl from the street. He had one goal and one goal only, and I felt that I was his means to an end. And that made me feel utterly empty.

He asked me to stay the night again, which I still find absurd because how can a man bear the idea of sharing his bed with a woman when he can’t even acknowledge her being? I went home at 3 in the morning, and shocked myself by bursting into tears as I entered my apartment. Why in the world would I shed a tear because or for a man who didn’t mean anything to me either?

I realized that as much as I harbored no intimate feelings for him, I showed him respect, recognized him as an individual, and did my best to connect. Hitting a brick wall cracked something in me and I decided then and there that I’d rather spend my nights binging on whatever TV show I have yet to watch by myself than to let a man bypass my soul and use my body as a tool.

Have you tried Tinder? We want to hear it!
Tell us about your experience in the comments below.

Episode 6 – Back to Square One (19/02/2016)

Ending things with the playboy made me question my approach to sex. Did it make me a prude to want to have some sort of connection with the man whom I share all sorts of bodily fluids with?

No, because I didn’t expect love or commitment or exclusivity. Simplify has been my motto as of late so I took sex in its simplest from as an activity to be shared with another person, much like having dinner or drinking coffee or visiting a gallery. Would I enjoy having dinner with a man who had no interest in who I was, had no intention of getting to know me, and just wanted a body to sit across from him so that he wouldn’t have to eat alone? That’s an easy no. So why should it be any different when it came to sex?

Especially when there was the Spanish artist who I saw once a month or even less but who was there in his entirety, interested in getting to know me as a person. Or at least that’s what I thought. And, yes, I did harbor feelings for this man without knowing if he felt anything for me. And that was fine as well because I was still in safe waters. Seeing him so little may not have been what I wanted but it was how my feelings stayed in check and that apparently was my main goal: to stay safe.

And I trusted him, without knowing how or fully understanding what trust really means. I trusted that he was there when he was with me, I trusted that he wanted to know me, I trusted that he was honest with me. But I didn’t really know. I just trusted that it was so.

Yet as time went on, I saw him and talked to him less and less. One day he called me and said he wanted to see me. It turns out that he had a super early meeting close to my apartment and wanted to stay over. I said yes, but I was disappointed. It was obviously a two-birds-with-one-stone kind of situation.

I felt somewhat used. And this wasn’t the first time I felt that way with him. I looked back and realized that more often than not, he called me when he needed something. And that was not okay.

But I couldn’t trust the voices in my head because while one of them was dead sure that he was using me, the other was saying that I was just being really silly. I didn’t know which one to trust. So, I decided to let things take their course.

After that day, each time he contacted me, he asked for something. We decided to meet a few weeks later but I realized that something had shifted within me. I didn’t question, I didn’t probe, I didn’t demand to know or understand what was going on or what he really meant or felt. They were irrelevant.

Simplify darling, I said to myself. If he’s confusing you, then just let it go. The sex is great, yes, but there’ll sure be more to come. No pun intended.

Have you tried Tinder? We want to hear it!
Tell us about your experience in the comments below.

Episode 7 – The Disappointment Series (26/02/2016)

One smelly man, one questionable Spanish artist, and one super-detached creative director later, I was more into Tinder than I thought I would be. Other than spending a considerable amount of time swiping and trying to find a decent match and wasting my valuable time wondering what makes men think that taking half-naked photos in a public bathroom makes them look cool, I wasn’t losing anything else. I felt invincible like I did in my early 20s and ready to take on whatever experience was going to be thrown my way, trusting that I had filled my share of assholes already.

I went on two more dates – both so disappointing that they don’t even get their own posts. One of them was with a guy who was two years younger than me. I was excited because I had my fair share of older men and I wanted to rekindle with the younger crowd. But this 28-year-old architect’s palabıyık (much like all the other items on him – the huge Ottoman-style rings, the leather bracelets, the clown-like shoes, the brown leather jacket that was too big on him, and the whitewashed jeans that were just too 90s) seemed just like a brand identity that didn’t suit him. He talked too much, and as much as I was intrigued by his interesting stories (like the one about his great-grandmother who was stronger than all the men in her village and once beat up three men in the field), I wasn’t sure if they were real at all and I felt more like an audience at a one-man show than on a date. Not surprisingly, there was no chemistry between us but he still uttered the ultimate Tinder question at the end of the night: can I come over? I said no. He didn’t insist. But he spent the entire week texting me on a daily basis, literally asking for sex. I told him I wasn’t interested and I wasn’t attracted, but he, much like the smelly guy, didn’t want to accept it and thought I was being shy. Eventually though, he got the point.

Then there was the other guy who turned out to be the biggest disappointment of the year. After we matched, we spent the entire week whatsapping from morning till dawn. I loved the way he looked in his photos – slim but built, black hair, big brown eyes, long eyelashes, genuine smile, and a perfect moustache. Plus, he looked oh-so manly. I thought we had clicked perfectly, and our conversations were deep and intimate without being too flirty. We decided not to talk on the phone until we met to allow each other to experience the element of surprise when we heard each other’s voices. Big mistake. If I had heard his tone of voice, I could have easily told that this guy was on the opposite end of the manly spectrum. He was either gay or just way too feminine for my taste. So that was that. Oh wait, you want to know what the worst part was? While I was drinking beer with him and barely holding myself from banging my head on the wall, I looked down from the bar and saw my favorite match from Tinder with whom I’d been dying to go a date with. I’m not making this up, seriously. I wanted to get up and leave and say hi to the other guy but I didn’t for propriety’s sake. Another big mistake.

Then there were the men who I didn’t even bother meeting in real life. Like the pseudo intellectual who gave me crap for nearly an hour because I refused to indulge him in cybersex. And then there was this other guy, with whom I talked on the phone, and he openly told me that he was a player, that he dated and slept with several women at the same time, and that he had a love for women that just could not be tamed. I said thanks but no thanks. And of course, I was lucky enough to come across a stalker who didn’t accept the word no and tirelessly texted me day after day to “make me love him.” I seriously can’t tell you what’s wrong with that one. It’s beyond me. I thought he would eventually stop but he didn’t because apparently that’s what stalkers do. They don’t stop until you block them. So blocked he was.

Have you tried Tinder? We want to hear it!
Tell us about your experience in the comments below.

Episode 8 – The End (05/03/2016)

Having spent nearly five months on Tinder, I was ready to call it quits. In the best way possible.

The first three months had been very active but it was as if I had gone through all the decent guys on the app (if you count any of the men I told you about as decent). I was tired of swiping and trying to find something real in a place that was meant for something completely superficial.

During my last month on the app, I matched with tens of men, talked to none and met none. I was finally happy being completely single, unattached, and alone.

But, as they say, you get what you want when you stop looking for it.

I met someone (not through Tinder but in real life), and as much as I resisted it at first (because I was too scared of getting hurt again), we became a couple pretty quickly. My defining moment of commitment? Deleting Tinder for good.

Did you like these Tinder diaries? We want to hear from you!
Tell us about your experience in the comments below.