My Tinder Experience in China

Suzy was a girl I met in Beijing through Tinder. Among her six profile pics, one of them is a lean sexy pic of her in a bikini. No head shot, just below the neck of course, which does lead one to wonder if it is really her.

I guess in that sense she might be smart. Such a picture would encourage many men to try and date her out to ‘seek’ the truth. Once we connected online, she wasted no time. Three lines into the chat she asked if I am bringing her out for a dinner or movie that evening.

Wow, this girl was direct and fast. That could mean two things: either her character was more like a guy — straightforward and in it for the sexual possibilities. Hence she preferred not to waste time chatting online and instead meet the real person first to determine if she fancied me.

Or she could be a gold-digger who just wanted someone to pay for her meals and entertainment. If she was the latter she would surely ditch me after the first date if I didn’t seem to be wealthy and generous.

Well… either way no loss to me except for some cash to pay for a nice dinner or movie. Then again she might be a fraud with fake pictures and turn out to be fat or ugly with an inch thick of make-up on.

In any case I wasn’t able to find out since I was leaving Beijing later that evening. I turned her down but got her WeChat ID anyway to stay in touch. But that was not before she impressed upon me that she was a bit of a semi-public figure since her photo was likely to be found inside one of the socialite magazines placed inside my hotel room. (Yes, she asked which hotel I was staying in…)

I wondered if she was one of those many wannabes in China’s first tier cities — a girl who probably came from rural villages, was eager to leave her past behind, and wanted to impress upon everyone she met that she was now a sophisticated, ‘out and about’ city girl.

Couple of days later I dropped her a polite text to ask how she was getting on and within two lines she replied in her usual curt manner that she didn’t like to waste time chatting online as she was usually busy with work. I knew there…