Tinder isn’t just about looking for love, writes Jessie Mearns.
Listen to the story as it was told at The Watercooler or read on.
My relationship with the Dom Post crossword started sometime in the last year. I can’t really remember when it happened; it is all a bit of a blur. I just woke up one day, on what seemed like a normal day, and it just happened.
To clarify, I’m not talking about the regular, daily crossword, for average Joes who know a whole bunch of words. Just because it happened fast, doesn’t mean I settled. I am also not talking about the cryptic crossword that no one can do, because I am not the janitor from Good Will Hunting.
My lexical hobby of choice is the two-speed, the one that is half normal and half cryptic. The ideal match for me. Nothing too fancy, because I am just your everyday kind of know it all.
Maybe I should explain how I get down with the across and down. And yes, I did rhyme "down" with "down". This is my story and I will do what I want.
I don't get the paper and flip through, carefully poring over the print journalism. No, I read the paper online like everyone else. I flip straight to A23 because that I know that is where the magic is. I get the scissors and carefully cut the two-speed out. Not that free-ripping that I’ve seen you people do. Where you fold the paper to make a line and then rip it, like an oafish hooligan. I also sometimes cut out the regular, Daily one, because even Usain Bolt goes for a walk sometimes.
After being cut out carefully, I clip my crossword to my board made out of the leftover bits of ply that I had somehow not managed to use when I made a K-Mart book shelf, even though the instructions said there should not be any bits of ply left over.
I then will save my crossword, for the right moment. I don't wake up dying to because mornings are not for crosswords. That is unnatural. Seriously, Saint Julias Crossword, inventor of the crossword, would turn in his grave if he found out that people were doing crosswords in the morning, like savages. Mornings are not crossword time, they are get dressed and complain about going to work time.
If I am feeling particularly effervescent I will drag myself to the gym, which looks suspiciously like the Hunger Games training facility.
If I am feeling particularly effervescent I will drag myself to the gym, which looks suspiciously like the Hunger Games training facility. For those of you unfamiliar with The Hunger Games, it’s based on a teen fiction novel, in which 12 children are chosen from the poverty stricken areas of a city, and made to fight to the death for the entertainment of the wealthy and it is all broadcast on live television. Similar to Big Brother but with a bit more “in your face” live murder. It’s a best seller.
If you’ve seen my gym, it truly does look like the high-tech training facility described in The Hunger Games. The place is riddled with Reebok sponsored, personal trainer, crazy science-fiction-esque equipment and body positive branding. Everything you could ever need to feel supported in your quest to slay 11 other teenagers in your personal victory. All staff there are out of their minds on endorphins and B12 shots. Personal trainers are constantly asking me to do a different 2 across 3 down that I am used to. That is a crossword reference, not innuendo…
Because, do you know what are strange bedfellows? Dating and crosswords. Explanation to follow. The prologue to this charming anecdote asks you as the audience to understand, firstly, that my workplace is the perfect marriage of all those American office television sitcoms.
One of the characters in my real life version of this is Carol, or as I have started to call her ‘Bloody Hell Carol’. You will start to see why.
During an extremely busy day when we were particularly low on staff, there was a “one day only handbag sale at work”. Obviously this was at the top of everyone’s agenda, men and women alike. Meetings were cancelled, urgent memos drafted, event notifications sent across and down the building. However, it was just a typical day for this government gal, consuming my Frooze Balls and sugarfree Red Bull at my desk, minding my own business… when… suddenly a wild ‘Carol’ appears and gave me a fright.
“Bloody hell Carol!!”
Carol had come over to ask me if I was going to the handbag sale. I said no, because I am the kind of modern gal that has only one handbag for convenience, Carol then asked me, “If you only have one handbag, then what do you take when you go on ‘single dates’”.
To elucidate; Carol is a big fan of the reality television show The Bachelor. I know, Bloody hell Carol. For those unfamiliar with scripted reality television, The Bachelor is a show where a carefully handpicked hunk choses a wife from a wide variety of caucasian nines and tens. And everyone lives together all at the same time and there are about 30 wannabe brides all waiting to see if they survive until the end. It’s extremely similar to The Hunger Games except all the participants actually volunteer and the murder it mainly kept off screen.
It’s that show that if you watch it and you hold a $10 note up to your ear, you can actually hear Kate Shepherd crying.
I told Carol that I didn't really go on single dates. Her response was “why don't you book some into your calendar?”
I spat my half chewed Frooze Ball out of my mouth and said, “Bloody hell Carol. It just isn’t that simple. How will I even go about that, it’s not like I can just use my milkshake to bring all the boys to the yard. You know I am lactose intolerant! You can’t have a milkshake without milk! Boy’s don’t like soy milk. How could you forget what happened last time when I managed to trick one boy to the yard and he took one sip, spat it on the lawn and say ‘Soy ya later!.’ Don’t you remember, Carol. Bloody hell.”
As a result of this interaction with Bloody hell Carol, I downloaded Tinder when I got home.
Tinder is a dating app where you upload those few pictures you have of yourself where you able to convince yourself and others that you are in fact Chrissy Teigen.
Tinder is a dating app where you upload those few pictures you have of yourself where you able to convince yourself and others that you are in fact Chrissy Teigen, model wife to John Legend and #goals, complete with a fun and flirty tagline in an attempt to attract a mate. The best part about Tinder, which they really undersell, is that it allows you to judge others based on their appearance and spelling from the comfort of your own home.
After downloading Tinder, I consulted with my sisterhood aka my five girl flatmates on a Game Plan over some green tea and chia seeds. The overall opinion was to just be myself. One of my flatmates claims not to have told me this, but this is not her story.
Not sure that telling me to be myself was the best advice. Just dwell on this thought for a moment, I currently have 20 crosswords cut out like I am some kind of word serial killer, bulldog clipped to a square of fake wood and I keep referring to different areas of my life as The Hunger Games. Maybe my authentic self is more of a Plan B...
I went ahead with Tinder anyway, and swiped my way through what can only be described as an oafpocalypse of hipster beards, tiger pictures and every spelling of “your” you could possibly think of. I also think I came across one entrepreneurial lad using it to sell narcotics. And a guy dressed as a clown holding a gun. Swoon, makes a gal go weak at the knees at the mere recollection. I manage to find a couple of matches that I wouldn’t be embarrassed to introduce to the sisterhood.
It goes without saying really that I was doing a crossword at the same time. After all “hidden in plain sight” Mongrel Mob tattoos and use of Y’s where there should be I’s, I just needed something to believe in again. I was sitting on my bed, crossword board on my lap and Tinder in my hand. I could not help but feel like I was two-timing my two-speed.
I ended up getting a couple of words. Being very good at problems I create for myself, I used the ‘send photo to all’ function on Tinder to take a photo of the crossword and clues and sent it to all my waiting suitors. I believe the intended purpose of this function is to take pictures of your boobs and send them out. Obviously I was not going to do that. Do you think Helen Clark got to where she is by taking photos of her boobs and sending them out on Tinder? No. Helen isn’t lactose intolerant so she would never find herself nursing the same dilemma as me! I took pictures of the words and waited for my knight in shining armour to come to my rescue.
It actually worked. I got some help. Some of the responses where helpful and brief. Which was exactly what I was looking for. Because I wasn't looking for love on Tinder, I was looking for help with something I loved. Not all of my potential paramours were as supportive. I had a couple of replies like “LOLS Y yor doing X word baby gurl”, which I did not understand because I don't speak idiot and to which the only appropriate response is was a swift unmatch. Do not pass go, do not volunteer as tribute.
There was one, very special almost bae who offered to come over to my house and finish the crossword with me. In my bed. At night time. I think that was a misrepresentation on my part, as although it is called the two-speed, I very much intended to complete it on my own. Once I carefully explained this to the lovelorn lad, he swiftly unmatched me. Without even a cute emoji. Chivalry is in fact dead ladies.
So I gave up on Tinder. It just wasn’t working out. I woke up the next morning no closer to those single dates Carol had harassed me about.
Do you think Helen Clark got to where she is by taking photos of her boobs and sending them out on Tinder?
However something that proved to be more of an unlockable achievement was the old ‘work, life, cross-word balance.’ I could quite easily take my two-speed to work. However, I still needed to find some help for the big words. Some of which I swear the cross word editor had made up herself. Take “sepulchral” for instance. Allegedly it means “relating to a tomb or interment”. I am certain that this word has been used twice before, once in my earlier crossword and right now. I’ve read The Hunger Games many times and, despite there being endless opportunities where that word could have been used, it never was. How is that for evidence based fact?
I needed to find help from someone who was smart enough, but then also would never offer to come to my house. Not sure if the building I work in had a janitor or not, I looked to the desks near me for possible crossword helpers and was very luck to find Steve, or “Shut up Steve” as he will henceforth be known.
Steve and I became friends at work, surprisingly, after he told me that I could never achieve my childhood dream job of being the All Blacks coach because I am a woman. During a team meeting. At work. “Shut up Steve”.
Shut up Steve and I created a good system. I would email him the clues and he would email the answers back with analysis such as “Don’t feel bad, your girl brain has fewer folds.” “Shut up Steve!I know that, I have a neuroscience degree.”
The two-speed also comes in handy when my 1980s government work computer forces me to take a ‘wellness break.’ There I am, working away on an extremely critical piece of work and my computer force-freezes. A message pops up and says “Hi! Shut up and be well. You have five minutes to make yourself mentally healthy and then get back to work or you’ll get fired!” Which is perfectly effective, as there is just nothing more relaxing than force.
You’re probably starting to understand by now that I am not lying when I said that the crossword is what comes first in my life 100% of the time. My Dad is the same. It’s genetic and you can believe me when I say stuff like that because I have a science degree.
I once picked up my dad’s NZ Herald newspaper and he immediately told me not to do the crossword. I said “Of course Dad, I won’t do it. I’m not going to do your crossword”. But then I totally did do his crossword. That’s exactly why I took the newspaper. Because at 25-years-old, I am running out of ways to lie to my parents.
It wasn’t until I set myself up to start writing this story that I really felt the weight of the bond I have with the two-speed. I would wake up each morning with the same plan: go to The Hunger Games training facility to achieve victory for my district, go to work and hang out Carol and Steve, then come home and set-up my laptop, my notepad, pen, paper and everything I needed.
Every time, without fail, the first thing that would come into my head before I even had a chance to start writing was “Oh my God, this is the perfect set up for crossword doing”. I would turn to my clipboard and start doing crosswords, and before I knew it, time had run out. It was late and I needed to go to sleep or worse, I would wake up with my crossword board nestled beside me, and I had achieved nothing for the story. Not one word.
Now I have finished my story and as a reward I go home, grab my crossword board and proceed to do my 20 crosswords. Thank You.
This story was originally told at The Watercooler, a monthly storytelling night held at The Basement Theatre. If you have a story to tell email thewatercoolernz@gmail.com or hit them up on Twitter or Facebook.
Illustration: Tessa Stubbing
This content is brought to you with funding support from NZ On Air.
