Magic Tinder by The Autocrat (Part 1)
John had to laugh. It burst out of him, just a quick, sharp chuckle. He couldn’t help it; it all just seemed so absurd. The old man pursed his lips, and his eyes gleamed lightly with vague disappointment. John felt a tiny shard of guilt and embarrassment at so openly dismissing the man, but it was just so…ridiculous. He looked, once again, around the tiny shop. It resembled nothing more than an antique shop, and not a terribly good one; the sort of vaguely cluttered lair that one could often find in tiny midwestern towns, where the rent was so low that it wasn’t too much to speculate that nothing ever actually got sold. He scanned the old man up and down one more time, looking for some sign that this was all a gag, but the man seemed deadly earnest, almost eager. There was something…vaguely odd about the way his eyebrows came together.
“I’m sorry. It’s just, the concept of a Magic dating account seems just a little…on the nose, wouldn’t you say? It’s just hard to take seriously.”
The old man nodded up and down, quickly. “That’s what I said! That’s what I said. I said the same thing. The same thing, exactly. But my nephew was quite convinced. He said I needed to get with the times.” John glanced around. That much was true, that’s for sure. The “nephew”, whoever he might be, was right about that. The tiny digital card John held in his hand, with the scratch-off redemption code on the back, seemed incredibly out of place surrounded by all this…old junk. But what the old man was suggesting was, at best, preposterous, and at worst dangerously delusional. What was it the old man had said? A “magic Tinder” account. Tinder? Like, the online dating platform where you swiped right endlessly on a completely unobtainable collection of fake supermodels, and then swiped left even more endlessly on desperate housewives and chubby teens? That Tinder? At first, John had been honestly confused. There was an obviously fake-looking copy of the Tinder logo inkjet-printed on the front of the flimsy card, with the words “stop swiping, start matching” written on the bottom. John peered closely. It wasn’t even centered properly. That vaguely irritated him. Who was this idiot? John’s day job was graphics design; he worked at one of the numerous shops that scraped and begged for work from the tech behemoths in the South Bay. And what he was holding in his hand looked like it was “designed”—if you could call it that—by, well, by an old guy who ran an antique shop.
The old man seemed to sense John’s reluctance and his gaze broke and he began wringing his hands (why were his nails so long? John wondered) together. He seemed to rally briefly, and a gleam flashed in his pupils before, seeming to make some internal decision, he spoke. “I sense that you might perhaps doubt my magic,” he said. John chuckled again. “Oh no,” he said. “I’m sure this is absolutely a magical Tinder account. I just don’t like ladies.” “Sarcasm won’t help you,” the man pouted. “Especially when I’m about to make you a generous offer. A ‘try before you buy’, if you will.”
John glanced down at the card, turning it over in his hand. “How is that?”
“I’ll give you 48 hours with the app. When it’s done, you’ll see. Then you’ll see. You’ll be back.”
John looked askance at the old guy. He really was nuts. How do you even keep an app working for only 48 hours? And what was this thing supposed to do to Tinder, anyway? The old guy had muttered something about “every match.” Like, what does that mean, every match? “Look, man, I’m sorry, but I don’t know what kind of racket you’re running here.”
“No, no! No! No! No racket!” A certain life seemed to come back to the old man, and John stepped back. “It’s magic! Just take it!” John decided he just needed out of the shop. “OK, ok, sure, sure, I’ll take it.”
“Good! Good! Scratch off the code—but wait until you want your 48 hours to start. Any woman you want, she will want you twice as much. Swipe, she swipes. Date, she dates. You know, you know. Anything.” John was already starting to back out of the little store, card in his pocket. “All right, man. Sure. Have a nice day.”
The sun of the East Bay seemed so bright in comparison to the tiny, dark shop. It was colder than you might think, but the sun was shining brightly. John found himself wandering down towards the lake. He shoved his hands in his pocket. Despite the bravado he’d showed to the old man, actually things weren’t going so well, especially in the love department. He kicked a tiny piece of bark into the lake and watched it sink. Working in the South Bay was taking up all his time. He supposed he should feel grateful for the job—and he did—but the practical end of it was that he seemed to spend all his time working to put money into rent and keeping up appearances. Dating was a total sham. Women seemed to come in three types: totally, totally broken, utterly unobtainable, and the third type, which was just as confused as him. But even that third type was no good. Last week he’d gone on two dates; both had ended peacefully enough, but there was no passion, no fire. He found it hard to get excited about an average-looking woman who worked just as hard as he did and seemed, after one glass of wine, to want nothing more than to go home and watch Netflix. If he was being honest with himself, he often found himself feeling the same way.
Just then a woman walked by, wearing sandals and a green, flowing dress. Late 20s, but looked early twenties. Totally out of his league. She walked smartly, hunched over a phone, tapping. Probably to one of her hot friends, John thought. Or a guy who treats her like shit. Or, who knows, maybe her therapist. He sat down heavily on a bench and stuck his hand in his pocket, where it touched the card the old man had given him. He pulled it out and turned it over. It just looked so fake. It was fake. Of that there was no question. There’s no way something like that existed. First of all it was, literally, impossible. But thinking about it harder, John realized it was also improbable. If magic did exist, then a) why didn’t everyone have one, and b) why waste it on something so…pedestrian?
Still. It was fun to think about. He shoved it back in his pocket.
A few hours later, John stumbled into his tiny studio apartment. He hadn’t had that much to drink. Just stopped in on a bar on the North side of the lake, a little joint where he could go be invisible. What was he saying, he was always invisible. He’d had one drink, then a second. Spent most of the time staring at a woman and her boyfriend up at the bar. She wasn’t even that hot, but the way she smiled and looked at her boyfriend, lingering her hand on his arm, made him a little sick inside. On the way home he’d actually stumbled at one point, kicking the edge of a curb and almost landing on the ground, and a moment of rage swelled up inside him. Inside the apartment, he looked into the mirror. He wasn’t a bad looking guy, and at 41, he still had a bit of spring in his step. He liked to run, and while he wasn’t in great shape, he wasn’t in bad shape either, just kinda in between. Like everything. He fingered the card again. Whatever. What the hell. On the way home, he’d brought up Tinder and swiped half-heartedly. Most of it was garbage, and the few supermodels he did run into were just tantalizing nonsense. Nobody matched with them. It just didn’t happen. John wasn’t sure if it was exactly a scam, but it sure as hell wasn’t a good way to find a date.
But…what if? For a moment, John’s fantasy went wild. What if you could swipe knowing everyone would swipe back? What if you could pick, have the confidence to just be whatever, who ever you wanted, and yet still get the pick of the litter? His mind filled with images of young 23 year old product designers, 24 year old models and lawyers, all toned and tanned and smooth, wearing sun dresses and bikinis and laughing into selfies, sunglasses perched on their heads, long blonde or brunette or red hair falling artfully around their face. He knew a lot of the pictures were fake, but somebody had to be real? Right?
Making a choice, he reached over to his box where he kept his keys and scrounged around in the bottom for a penny. He turned the card over and scanned the silver ink on top of the code. It looked for all the world like one of those cheap knockoff lottery tickets that you sometimes got in the mail, the ones where the “prize” was that if you bought one stupid made for TV gadget, you got a second free. The thing is, he couldn’t think of a downside, except to feel vaguely like a loser and a sucker. He chuckled darkly; he already felt that way. Can’t get blood from a stone, he thought, and then moved the penny back and forth over the label. A brief flash of light emerged from the card, and John was startled. The light seemed to come…well..from inside the card. Not on the surface, but like the card had lit up, briefly, from the inside. John shook the cobwebs off his head. There had been a bit of an odd noise, too. Almost a…tinkle, if you could call it that. But the thing was, there was no code. Underneath the silver there was..nothing. Just white laminated plastic. There was nothing there. John felt mad, briefly, then he just slumped. What a weird day. He stumbled over to the bed and sat, heavily. Almost reflexively, he pulled out his phone—not for any reason, but just because, well, he always was pulling out his phone. There was an odd notification. It looked a bit like the Tinder notifications, but it was…slightly off, in a way he couldn’t put his finger on. The title said—he chuckled inwardly a bit—“Magic Tinder”, and the text said “Swipe here for terms and conditions.” He looked at the card. Was somebody pulling his leg? He swiped it.
“Congratulations on your purchase of a Magic Tinder accont!” It said—and yes, “account” was misspelled. “We have activated Double Reciprocity Mode. Any action, feeling or sensation you feel towards any woman’s account, she will feel twice over.” The screen started scrolling, as if it knew he had read to the bottom. “Every swipe right is a match! If you want to meet her, she wants to meet you twice as much! If you are attracted to her, she is twice as attracted!” Then there was a change in the font, and at the bottom there was a countdown. It showed slightly less than 48 hours. “Click here to continue”. Again John looked around, irrationally wondering if this was some kind of joke. He stood up. Then he sat back down. This made no sense. If it was a gag, how? And if it wasn’t a gag, well…how? He walked over and, oddly, turned the deadbolt, and then wondered why he’d done that. His neurons weren’t connecting. What the hell?
He sat down again, this time in his beanbag chair. He looked at the phone. It now showed the main screen of Tinder. It looked perfectly normal, except that, once John looked closer, there was a space at the bottom, where normally your number of “Super Swipes” (what.a joke, John thought) sat. But instead there was just a yellow star. John looked up at the woman on the screen. He’d noticed that often, if it had been a while since you’d logged in or swiped, that Tinder liked to store up some unattainable hotties to show you next time. He had always speculated that it was to “prime the pump”, and get you excited about the app and swiping, so that when some crazy weirdo showed up, you just sorta kept swiping out of inertia.
He looked more closely. She was a total hottie. Her eyes were large and expressive, almost watery. High cheekbones. The profile said she was 26, but she could’ve easily been 23 or 29. There was a certain agelessness to somebody that hot. She was wearing a bikini, and a pretty small one. There was no way to tell how tall she was. It was obviously a selfie, taken from above. She was, if you could say such a thing, approachably hot. Those were the worst ones because it was harder for John to convince himself it was a fake account. No, this was probably a real person, but somebody who hadn’t logged on in years. She probably had a boyfriend. Before he could even think about what he was doing, John just swiped right, reflexively.
It was a match.
The screen lit up. “You both swiped right!” It said. Would you like to chat with her? Now John was getting seriously confused. And, he had to admit to himself, a little horny. This was a total piece of work. I mean, he hadn’t been on a date with anybody that hot in years. Hell, maybe ever. What was her name? He hadn’t even looked. Jennifer. Of course her name was Jennifer. He sat, staring at the phone, simultaneously confused, angry, sad, and horny. Seconds ticked by. Well, yeah, he wanted to chat with her. Probably every guy on that app wanted to chat with her. And maybe some of the women.
Just then a notification came down from the top of the screen. “Hi!” It said. It was from Jennifer, if that even was her name.
Now something weird was happening. You never matched with women that hot. This was just understood. But if for some reason you did, you never heard from them. Hell, you never heard from anybody that quickly even if they were ugly. That just wasn’t how it worked. In a way, John suddenly felt better. This was some kind of scam. The next message would ask him to go to some website, pay money to see her nudes or webcam.
“I liked your profile; I’m working in graphic design too”.
What? He looked back at her profile. It didn’t list an occupation. It didn’t list much of anything, actually. There were only 3 pictures: the bikini, a shot of her laying on a blanket in Dolores Park, and a weird shot that might’ve been her jumping out of a plane? You could see she was just crazy hot. Maybe 5′5, 5′7. Skinny, but well muscled. Perfect skin. Expressive green eyes. Light brunette hair. Smiling brightly in all three pictures. In the first picture, gleaming white teeth with a slight gap. John imagined her tongue darting out between those two rows of teeth. Way, way out of his league. What he wouldn’t give to lay down in the park with this woman. Run his hands through her hair. Feel her play with his lips with her teeth and tongue. Just laying in the park with a woman like that would be one of the best dates of his life.
“Do you want to get together for a drink tomorrow?”
John dropped the phone. Now he stood up again. He bent down, picked the phone up. Time seemed to stop. A clock on the wall ticked by. This was nuts. I mean, yeah, it worked that way in the commercials. Or maybe the movies. Although not even in the movies, because people finally realized how absurd that was. It never worked that way in real life. John thought he had a better chance of winning the lottery than of a woman that hot swiping, chatting and asking him out within—what—5 minutes?
He didn’t know what to do. He literally didn’t know how to put the thoughts together in his head. This just made no sense.
Second ticked by. He shook his head. Well, he had no idea what was going on, but he’d be a damned fool not to write back. I mean, scam or no scam, what did he have to lose? If she started to ask for money, he’d just drop the conversation. He was still sure this was some kind of scam. He started to type. He realized his hands were actually shaking a little bit. Jennifer. Her name was Jennifer. “Sure!” He wrote. (Exclamation point too much?). “I’d love to. Where did you have in mind?” He hit send.
“Are you free around 6? We could meet at Tommy’s”. Tommy’s was the bar he’d been at earlier. He started typing again. “Yeah, that’s great, the one by the lake right?” Actually he had thought about running in the evening, but it didn’t matter. For a woman that hot, you moved your plans.
“That sounds great.” John realized he was suddenly spent. He didn’t know what to say. His usual anxieties came creeping in. Where should he go from here? He was totally lost. He wished they could just cut forward to the date. A new message showed up. “I’m not much for texting before meeting up so I’ll let you go. :). But I’m really looking forward to meeting you.”
John exhaled. Weird. He had just been thinking that, as much as he wanted to meet her, he was getting nervous about texting. And then she stopped. That seemed like a coincidence. But then this whole day was a weird coincidence. Why had he stopped into that shop anyway? It didn’t have a sign on it. It hadn’t even looked that open. He just had felt drawn in. He told himself it was to get out of the heat, but that was bullshit. It wasn’t even that hot.
He stopped woolgathering and stared. He was going on a date. Tomorrow. With Jennifer. The bikini model. Who liked graphic design. The 26 year old bikini model graphic designer with the perfect narrow waist and smooth tanned skin and beautiful long brunette hair. Instagram model Jennifer. He realized he was incredibly horny. Did he have a magic Tinder account? The whole thing made no sense. Oh, who cared. Jennifer was hot. He was hot. For her. For Jennifer.
A new message showed up. “I just want you to know I’m glad you said yes. You’re hot. ;)”
What the actual fuck. John lunged for the phone. He had to know. He went back to the main screen. Up popped a woman. She was decidedly not hot. In fact she was a bit rotund. But whatever, it was supposed to be a magic account, right? John swiped right. And waited. Usually if it was a match it happened right away. Nothing happened. Nothing continued to happen. It wasn’t a match. John was confused. What was going on? Was the Jennifer thing a coincidence? John felt a little stupid. Then he realized that, if it was a coincidence, he had legitimately matched with a girl as hot as Jennifer. That felt good. He felt horny again. He pulled up her picture. It was always hard to tell from these phone shots. The plane thing—it was a plane, he decided—didn’t show much of her, and the Dolores park shot was blurry. But the main shot was really gorgeous. She had defined hip bones. The bikini was daring. She was wearing a bracelet. She was hot. Her breasts—young breasts, like a teen’s—reflected light in a way that belied their smoothness.
He went back to the main screen. His eyes widened even further. There was a new profile. OK. Ooooookay. This was another level. If Jennifer was a 10, this girl was a 15. The picture was of her on a deck in someplace tropical. It honestly looked staged—and it probably was—but whoever had done the staging, had done a good job. It was a total cheesecake move; she was lounging on a deck chair, looking vaguely uninterested in the world. But holy shit. First of all she had all the basics covered. She looked like she was about 18, although John saw by her profile she was 23. She was supermodel slim; that kind of slim where you could actually see the difference between the center of her belly and the sides, which gently formed a series of curves; in-out in the horizontal, in-out in the vertical. She looked airbrushed (and probably was). Her hair was a pile of long, brilliant blonde hair with just enough red to keep you interested. It was laid out in pigtails, one of which ran down the side facing the camera almost to her stomach. The leg farthest from the camera was bent, so you could see her amazing thighs. She was like a fitness instructor crossed with an Instagram model crossed with John’s absolute darkest and hottest fantasies. John had seen women as hot as Jennifer, although of course he’d never dated one. He’d never even seen a woman as hot as…he looked down at her name…Dawn. This had to be a scam. Maybe on of those where you have to pay to see her pics. John glanced down; sure enough, there was a profile. “Just moved to the Bay from NYC! Love travel, love life! Milan, Tokyo…love to snowboard. Check me out @dawnluvslife!” Then there was a series of emojis; hearts, a woman skiing. John had heard of these; they were Instagram flytraps. The idea was that, by seeing her profile, you would then go and like and follow her Instagram. It worked, too. Dating apps were littered with them.
Holy shit was she hot. If John could just have 5 minutes with her, it would be the best 5 minutes of his life. Just walking into a room once with her on his arm would be a boost for years. Forget dating, just having her smile at him with that smile that women reserve for men they like; that would be incredible. John shrugged. That’s the thing about dating apps; anonymity. Nobody to notice him feeling stupid for swiping. He’d swipe, nothing would happen, life would go on. After all, that last girl wasn’t a match. And this would be a real test, for sure. I mean, there was literally no way a woman like that would ever swipe right to a guy like him. She probably didn’t swipe right to anybody. She probably never even logged in. She might not have even made the account; her publicist probably did. IF there was magic, this would be it.
He swiped.
A second ticked by, then another. John started to exhale.
“You both swiped right!”. Would you like to chat?
John shook his head. He dropped the phone, and went looking for the card.