So I just got back from a Tinder "date".
We matched on Saturday, the conversation on the app went well, enthusiastic on her part, even, although there wasn't a lot of content beyond the logistical.
We'd proposed getting drinks after my shift on Saturday night, which should've been a green light as it were, but it got pushed back to today (Thursday). Again, her responses on text were a unusually sprightly, exuberant even.
Aiming for a zero-date bang, I suggested meeting at the tram stop by the junction of my street. This was one of the few online appointments that I'd be on time to. Typically, she let me know that she'd be running 10 minutes late, but I found her waiting at the bench after cottoning on to the fact that it was her.
We hit it off immediately, me greeting her with a spin hug. At 31, she looked spry for her age, and better than her photos, with brunette curls and a sleeveless crop shirt that showed a pleasing midriff. Congruent with our messaging, she seemed earnestly happy to see me. Should I have suspected that she could've been putting on her feelings, given that she's an actress? I charged the mood between us saying, "Let's get down to business, shall we?" which she responded to positively.
I turned her down my street, and she soon asked, "So how long have you been living here?"
"What makes you think I live here?" I asked, rather aback, I realised furiously.
"I didn't," she said rather coyly.
I threw in a bit of tension, exclaiming how this wouldn't work out between us if she could read my mind like that. She laughed.
We chatted about where we were from, she's a local. I broke the topic to bring up whether she mentioned liking whiskey on Tinder.
"Nah, that wasn't me....I think you're thinking of someone else," she said, laughing. "But yeah, I do like it."
"Great, I know somewhere that does do good whiskey...how about we head to mine?" I suggested. "I've got some good recipes."
"Yeah, sure," she said without hesitation.
It was only a hundred metres to mine. We chatted bit about our backgrounds, keeping it pretty light. She expressed a bit of awe at mine, unjustifiably so, as mine wasn't much more unique than any thousand or so Federation bungalows typical of our side of Melbourne.
I gave her the brief tour of the house with a flourish of my arm, ending with the kitchen and backyard. I kept my voice down as one of my housemates was already in bed; coincidentally, they both shared the same name, something that wasn't lost on me if things went further.

Once again, she waxed enthusiasm at the setting, and I should point out here at as a rule, Australians tend to be a bit more reserved than Americans in expressing exactly these sorts of feelings.
Leading her back into the kitchen, I suggested a beer, which she accepted; I got her to choose one from the fridge, and asked if she'd any bottle-opening tricks under her belt. She didn't, at which point I unbuckled my belt and popped both of ours.
"Literally under your belt, right," she said, laughing, then indicated the lids. "Where do I throw these out?"
"There," I pointed to our bin. "I'm too old to be collecting bottle tops."
She laughed.
I led the way back to the backyard, grabbing each of us a chair by the big timber table. I made a mistake sitting at a 45 degree angle to her, with a 20 cm gap. We toasted.
Our conversation jumped around from our jobs, to growing up in Melbourne — I cold read her suburb of origin, until we found out that we both grew up in the same part of town in the upper-middle class south eastern suburbs, and even attended neighbouring private schools. We traded a few in-jokes on the subject, talked about Melbourne a bit further and compared it to Sydney, where she lived and attended drama school. From her brief mention about the weather, she mentioned that she'd be attending a music festival that was on this weekend in the country. It commanded a following among the hipster crowd, so that didn't surprise me. On that note, it was hard to lock down dates this week for that reason, two more Tinder girls were flaky, citing attendance there. We talked about it, but I had a feeling tonight was on borrowed time.
I noticed that while I neglected kino a lot with her, she reacted to it rather neurotically; she crossed her when I had her hand on her thigh twice. Even though her lower half was pointed towards me, when I asked if she was cold because her arms were folded, she said she did that normally when she was talking.
Having finished our beers, I suggested a cocktail, and I led the way back to the kitchen where I decided to make a caipirinha. "Sounds nice," she said.
I got her to hand me the ice and ingredients while I set up my shaker. She watched me intently, looking interested. "This looks really fun," she continued.
"Exactly how you like your nights, right," I replied.
"Right," she said. Meanwhile, she'd pulled out her mobile from her handbag to check her messages. She explained that she had to pick up her festival ticket from a friend, and upon my questioning, said that tonight was the only possible time, and that she had an hour, tops. I had to move fast. The drinks were ready.
"Outside again?" she asked. I shook my head and held her eyes.
"Here," I beckoned.
I should've taken her hand.
I brought her to my bedroom. Once more, she reacted positively to the sight of it, and gravitated to my bookcase. I'd explained earlier that I was subletting this place, and as with girls I'd had here, got her to guess whose stuff was whose. I suggested putting on music, she said OK, and I pulled up a deep house playlist on Spotify. We toasted, locking eyes. We talked shop for a bit, I showed her my paintings, which she was impressed at, and motioned to my beanbag, which we sat down on. Our legs were angled towards each other.
"So d'you do anything like that?" I motioned to my artwork. I'm not a fantastic artist, so I was taking a gamble with her impression of my work.
She replied, not really, she doesn't really paint or draw, even though as an actress, she does have somewhat of a creative social circle.
But being an actress doesn't really say much about yours or your friends' creativity, does it?
I probed into how it had a bearing on what sort of people she was drawn towards, what sort of folk she gravitated to. She then launched into saying how she got to meet a vast array of people off Tinder, that so many of them had nothing in common creative-wise. I took heart in her bringing up that and dug deeper.
"Oh you mean like what made me swipe right?" she asked.
"Well, I didn't mean that directly, but sure, we'll get to the question of both of us soon," I said, touching her upper arm. She laughed.
We carried on on this topic further, but she was a bit slippery in outright admitting to physical attraction being the catalyst for meeting all her Tinder dates. She asked me if I'd been on many, then rambled on how we'd never have met otherwise, and talked about how refreshing it was to meet guys outside her circle. I pushed and pulled in my reaction to that topic, mentioning (to my error?) the anonymity of doing so. I eventually went in for the kiss....
She pulled back before our lips could even touch.
"Uh uh, sorry, no," she said, smiling.
I might've called her out indirectly on how people totally meet on Tinder platonically, again maybe a bad idea, but carried on talking as usual. Our glasses were empty by now.
"I'd better go check on my friend," she said.
"Yeah sure," I agreed, leading her back to the kitchen.
She briefly flicked through her mobile and told me she'd enough time to leave in a few minutes to meet her friend.
"Couldn't she come over to Brunswick?" I asked rather dryly, referring to our location.
"I'm afraid not, she's already going out of her way to see me."
"Guess it's about time," I said, moving to her front. I went over to kiss her again.
There was less resistance from her, but I pulled away after a couple of seconds. She smiled and I went in to make out again, holding her waist. She didn't let me use too much tongue, and pulled away after less than a minute.
"You're really sweet, but not tonight," she smiled again. "I'm sorry I gave you the wrong idea."
I held a bit of silence, and beckoned towards the front.
"But thanks again for the drinks," she repeated what she'd told me earlier. "We should go drinking again."
I led the way out. We hugged before she disappeared.
Sure, she may have been pretty sorry to have gotten my hopes up, but WTF? This isn't the first time an online chick had ended up in my room, only to withhold sex, but she flat out denied me a kiss even. Beyond my game and our attraction to each other, are there really serial daters that would follow you all the way to your bedroom only to deny you sex at the very end? She couldn't have sensed that I was only going through the motions; she was very much bangable in my book, save for the fact that her breasts weren't that impressive — and I'm more of a tits man these days.
Should I expect anything from the fact that she suggested meeting at another time? She didn't make it conditional upon anything; an open-ended proposal. Then, so have previous online girls, but nothing had come out of most of them. She knows I may be going to the festival too; but so are thousands of equally cute girls, it'd be foolish to bank on anything happening with her there.