Foi assim que o Tinder arruinou a minha vida
Começou por ser mais um dia normal, em que os meus filhos me acordaram antes do despertador e eu fiquei à porta durante cinco minutos antes de ganhar coragem para começar o dia.
Saímos da porta muito mais depressa do que o necessário, tal como todos os dias, porque tenho ansiedade. Deixei as raparigas nas suas escolas e dirigi-me para a minha. Cheguei à aula estranhamente cedo, tal como todos os outros dias, porque, como já disse, tenho ansiedade.
When class finally ended, I responsibly went to my pharmacy to pick up my birth control and antidepressants. I was a few days late picking those up so you can only imagine my mental state. There was some problem with my insurance so I had to make a miserable phone call, to sit on hold, only to find out it’d take twenty-four hours to fix.
I left the pharmacy and began driving home when I got the phone call. It was from a blocked number and for some reason I’ll never know, I answered it.
I heard a woman’s soft voice say, “Hello? Who is this?” In a not so friendly way, I responded, “Uhh you called me,” and then she said something that made my stomach drop. “I’m just trying to figure out if my husband is cheating on me.”
Fuckkkkkkkkkk. I knew exactly who she was talking about. I will call him ‘Stash’. I had met Stash on Tinder a couple of weeks before. We had this bomb situation where we were each other’s booty calls but neither had any interest in dating or even really becoming friends. He had come over a couple of times, we had super thrilling sex, drank a glass of OJ together and then he left.
Depois da primeira vez que estivemos juntos, ele disse-me que tinha um filho e que estava a passar por um divórcio. Ela tinha levado a criança e deixado o estado e ele estava exausto de lidar com a sua ex-mulher completamente psicopata.
My first instinct was to protect him from his crazy ex. I played dumb briefly. “Umm I’m talking to three people named Stash, I’m not sure which one you’re asking about.” She said, “I don’t want to give you his last name but did you meet him on Tinder and have sex with him?”
Sou a pior mentirosa, provavelmente por causa da minha ansiedade. Comecei a suar, mal; em que raio me tinha metido?
“He told me you got a divorce!” I said, in the most ashamed voice I’d ever heard. I saw it then, all the red flags, everything that had been screaming ‘this guy is a total fuck, run away, don’t sleep with him’. I felt for her at that moment and realized I didn’t give a shit about this guy I hardly knew, that she deserved to know.
I told her yes, I had in fact met Stash on Tinder and we had slept together. She wanted specific dates and times of each occasion. This girl was organized as shit. It’s like she had a list of questions written out and ready.
Perguntou-me onde eu morava; recusei-me a dizer-lhe porque não fazia a mínima ideia do nome dela. No fundo da minha mente, estava a pensar que era uma armadilha, como é que alguém em SoCal podia encontrar o meu número de telefone, saber que eu tinha conhecido alguém chamado Stash no Tinder e saber que tínhamos dormido juntos?
She told me her name, I will say it’s ‘Beauty’. She then bounced back to a specific date and time Stash had come over and when I answered, she said, “I know exactly where you live” How? Their phones shared locations. He was a fucking idiot.
Turns out the day he showed up to my house and drove away before even getting out of his truck wasn’t because his dog had a seizure and his neighbor called him to come home. It was because she had seen his out of norm location and called him and he told her he had taken a wrong turn.
Later that evening ‘when his dog was better’, he came over and we hooked up. He mentioned how he had left his phone at home. Turns out it was so his GPS would say he was home so she wouldn’t know.
Preocupava-me com aquele cão, preocupava-me com ele, pois, pelo que ele descreveu, parecia exatamente como o meu Golden Retriever tinha morrido. As minhas emoções não medicadas tinham-se ativado e isso tinha sido desnecessário porque era tudo mentira.
A Beauty ligou-me várias vezes ao longo do dia, por vezes falávamos durante mais de trinta minutos. Ela tinha perguntas atrás de perguntas e acabou por me informar que estava grávida do segundo filho que tiveram juntos. Eu tinha sido enganada durante toda a minha primeira gravidez. Consegui simpatizar com ela e isso deu-me ainda mais vontade de a ajudar.
Entretanto, recebi uma mensagem de texto do Cowboy. Ele e eu andávamos a sair e a curtir há cerca de três meses.
He wanted to let me know that out of the blue his baby momma wanted to try as a family again. My stomach dropped again. We had just had sex the night before and I had a gut feeling that this wasn’t out of the blue.
A little birdie had told me he had a history of cheating and I ignored it because we weren’t in a relationship. Then it dawned on me—his sketchiness and how secretive and ‘busy’ he always was. He had been living two lives and once again I was in the middle of infidelity.
Dois num dia? O que é que se passava comigo. Nessa altura, tudo explodiu. Ele andava a trair a mãe dos filhos dele comigo há três meses.
Em puro pânico, liguei à minha melhor amiga e corri para casa dela. Perdi a cabeça 100%. Foi-se. Estava uma autêntica confusão. De alguma forma, ela percebeu porque é que eu estava a hiperventilar e fez-me um olhar tão triste e compassivo. Enquanto eu estava a ter um ataque de ansiedade total por causa do facto de duas mulheres terem sido traídas por minha causa, ela disse uma frase simples que mudou completamente o meu ponto de vista.
“You are a victim too.” Woah, hold up anxiety, get a grip on yourself. She was absolutely correct.
O meu estado de espírito passou instantaneamente de uma confusão total, hiperventilação, ansiedade, choro feio e destruidor de lares para raiva. Que se lixe, eu não ia carregar esse peso nos meus ombros, também me mentiram, era altura de eu tomar conta da situação.
Quando estava a pensar em como lidar com a situação, recebi uma chamada da Beauty; ela disse-me que o Stash estava quase em casa (de acordo com o GPS) e queria que eu fosse confrontá-lo e gravasse tudo. Nessa altura, a culpa que sentia por ter participado sem saber era demasiada e estava disposto a fazer qualquer coisa para a ajudar.
Dirigi-me a casa dele e bati à porta, calma e confiante, com o meu telemóvel a gravar no bolso, sabendo que havia uma rapariga ansiosa e querida à espera do meu relatório completo. Ele abriu a porta com um ar horrorizado e surpreendido.
“Hey!” he excitedly exclaimed. “What the fuck is going on and why am I getting phone calls from your wife in San Diego?” He opened the door and asked me to come in, as he was quick on the defense to tell me every lie possible, stumbling over his words; he was digging himself even deeper in a hole and he couldn’t even keep his lies straight anymore.
I felt bad for him, how miserable to live that life, one so full of lies he didn’t even know what was real anymore.
After hearing him ramble complete bullshit for five minutes, I was heading to the door to leave and he said, “Hey, don’t leave without a hug,” and he walked over and gave me one. I got in my car and drove away, thinking about how desperate I had been for someone to be there that I had allowed myself to get involved with two completely shady, deceitful people and had unknowingly helped them both hurt people who loved them.
Dei o relatório à Bela e enviei-lhe a gravação. Entrei nas minhas aplicações de encontros, cancelei os dois encontros futuros que tinha agendados e desactivei as minhas contas. Pensava que me estava a sair muito bem ao não exibir um comportamento autodestrutivo enquanto tropeçava no meu caminho pela vida. Estava enganado. Estava a magoar-me a mim e aos outros porque tinha demasiado medo de me sentar em silêncio e ter de lidar com o que me tinha acontecido nos últimos oito anos.
I’m going to do that now, I am going to be alone. I have now been burned twice more by men who I carelessly trusted, simply because they gave me positive attention. I’m back. I’m once again a fully-fledged man hater.
Que se lixem todos eles. E que se lixe o Tinder. Nas palavras dos Drive-By Truckers,
“So I’ll meet you at the bottom if there really is one
They always told me when you hit it you’ll know it
But I’ve been falling so long it’s like gravity’s gone and I’m just floating”
Maybe I’ve found it.
por Melia Winters
