Day 84 of 100 Indian Tinder Tales
Such a well told tale. Thank you, A of Mumbai.

“I have a confession. I joined Tinder because of #100IndianTinderTales. Fresh out of an emotionally wrought breakup and single in maximum city after years, I saw Tinder as the perfect opportunity to meet lots of different men, let my hair down a little, and enjoy some no strings attached, long overdue casual sex. It felt like a way for me to connect with my own sexuality with more choice, freedom and a boldness that I’d always flirted with but never quite grasped before. I would never have thought that this was possible in India, and if it was, I had no idea how to even begin to go about it.

I waited with bated breath for each new story and cheered in my head for every wanton, lustful, sex-positive tale.

I experimented with various kinds of profiles, from direct and no-nonsense (are you really looking for casual sex? I don’t believe you), to blank when I was bored, to deliberately vague, just to see what kind of responses I would get. I never chat for too long, after highly selective swiping if a guy could hold a conversation we would meet for drinks and then I’d decide whether I wanted to take it further or not.

The first meeting was at a coffee shop, miserably awkward and full of pregnant pauses. Not an ounce of chemistry. I fled after a quick (awful) kiss on the street, and the boy decided it was somehow meant to be. A month of desperate messages later I finally had to block him on WhatsApp so he would get the hint.
Things got better as I got slightly more familiar with the idea of how this worked. A lovely Italian photographer had the softest sheets I’ve ever slept in, and skin like vanilla ice cream on a hot summers day… an annoying preoccupation with taking photos of his dick though, unfortunate, and the reason i didn’t see him after the second meeting .

From imagining axe murderers and secret cameras in every hotel room or dimly lit bedroom to snapping on my bra at 3 am and calling a cab, each experience helped me make better decisions for the next.

A business trip to Amritsar yielded a veritable smorgasbord of gorgeous men in suits and sherwanis, exquisitely trimmed beards and sparkling eyes, I was an absolute puddle of goo until I realised every single one of them was across the border in Lahore.

One tepid afternoon there was some hot and heavy texting with this dashing gentleman across enemy lines and after describing all the different positions in which he would like to eat me out, he proposed writing to Aman ki Aasha and asking if they would consider Tinder as a sponsor for the project’s next steps .
There was a lovely, young boy from the hills who rolled me a joint on a roof top in Chandigarh and talked about the drug problem in Punjab with solemn eyes. Afterwards, he couldn’t get it up, poor chap, because of the weed and a bit too much to drink. It kind of put me off weed-smokers for a while, and a dreadlocked English hippy in Delhi a few months later bore the brunt of that prejudice for a while!

There were many polyamorous couples I often matched with and chatted with out of pure curiosity and minor envy, but never met with perhaps out of nervousness and a bit of fear. All the axe murderer scenarios in my head now multiplied by two! Better not, not yet.

Instead I spent my time with an older, dignified lawyer who didn’t understand why I wouldn’t go down on him if he wouldn’t go down on me, and a lithe young media-man with flashing eyes and quick fingers who was his opposite in every way. The latter asked me for a list of what turned me on the most before we met, and then used it as a manual to create for me such a gorgeous sexual experience I went into sensory overload! Finger-tip caresses and taking very very slow…. that’s what did the trick.

Sometimes I feel guilty for being a woman — I think of the ancient story of King Bhangashavana, who was cursed by an angry Indra (as some versions go) to be a woman for the rest of his life. After a few years, when he was offered to opportunity to be ‘forgiven’ and return to being a man, he refused- never as a man had he experienced the vagaries and depths of sexual pleasure that his female body had opened up for him. And nothing in the world would make him go back. “

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