One quiet Tuesday morning at around 3:30am, I messaged a guy on grindr. His profile pic was a picture taken looking out his front windshield at an open road and his profile description left much to the imagination. Nonetheless, I messaged.
"Hey man"
He replied, "Hey"
"Looking?" I asked.
"For Now?" he replied.
"Yea." Stated I.
And then he proceeded to tell me he doesn't do hookups and that I was disgusting for messaging him this way. So I sat back and with nothing but time on my hands, I wrote the following piece of prose as a response. It is too big for a single message on grindr and thus required 6 separate messages to transmit it in its entirety. Luckily this was completed before I was blocked by him. But here it is for you now, a short prose, titled "Much Ado About Grindr"
Much Ado About Grindr
I've thought long and hard about how to respond to this message. Firstly, I'd like to apologize for your misinterpretation of what is basically a digital catcall, which when done in a public setting, while considered rude, is still at its foundation, a compliment. In this case, behind the request for a mutual release of primal urges onto an erogenous zone of a previously agreed upon location and choosing, I believed you to be attractive in the fantasy I had created with the incredibly few words you had chosen for me to paint with.
Secondly, I'd like to discuss the question, which you asked in your second communiqué with me, “For now?” I'm sorry that your simple repetition of my initial question, which while blunt was not only clear but intentionally made so in hopes of mutually beneficial efficiency, lacked any clarification or elaboration which would have offered me even the briefest of notions as to what you didn't understand; this is a cruising app.
Thirdly, I have often found myself pondering the wide spectrum of parlance and social convention or lack thereof exhibited on this site. I've often tried to imagine what, if any, real world environment could possibly necessitate such vast and varied vitriolic voice for vice and virtue. The closest applicable scenario to have crossed my mind thus far on the subject, is that of a bar or pub. And with this conclusion in mind, I can confidently say that; I would have very few qualms with walking up to a stranger and saying something to the effect of “nice shoes, wanna fuck?”
Last, I would like to point out the perceived inconsistency between your fabricated ignorance and an immediately apparent self-righteous haughtiness. Allow me to clarify - as not to be misunderstood or to have my message misconstrued. When engaging in communication, it is necessary to research and learn the proper language etiquette for the chosen medium. I was asking if you were looking for sex and more specifically, if you were looking for now or more aptly, the immediate future with the implication that I am, in contrast, not looking for later or tonight or tomorrow or this weekend and even if I am I am not open to discussing such things at this time. But I certainly did not coin this phrase nor can I comfortably say it is a slang of a specific niche or fetish club but rather one of the first forms of Grindr shorthand users inevitably encounter on this network. Your profile, on the other hand is not bland by any means but nor does it over any real substance or formulated insight into who the man behind the mobile is. Your subject line speaks to the notions not taking things for granted but also implies that the specific items to which you refer are not things but rather, people. The second sentence seems to be almost a subtitle in that it follows the initial theme but invokes more of a carpe diem style statement. Your profile body is merely a poorly paraphrased version of an elementary lesson on safe sex practices. ** Bold choice of words to be the first things your profile speaks to those who happen upon it. Lastly, you could have just left the profile picture blank in favor of anonymity but instead opted for what I can only guess is a photograph taken during equally dangerous and life-threatening circumstances as the ones which you refer to in the lesson you preach in the main body of your profile.
In closing, I want simply to acquiesce to your request for an “over simplification “of the 3-word question posed in my initial greeting. This being a basic courtesy not reciprocated in your bombastically pretentious, unnecessarily fortissimos, and arguably facetious reply when a simple, east “yes” or “no” would have sufficed – saving us both precious time (that we will never get back). I was being short and concise with you in respect to your schedule: given the fast-paced region in which we live. I chose to be forward and with directness and honesty, while you hid behind your mask of condescension, seemingly rationalized by the listing of your chosen profession as a sort of moral signature. In summary, get off your high horse and go out to a real place, in the real world, to meet real people because clearly: this app is not for you.
Although in your case, “nice windshield?”