The price tag of love

BY MIKE MUTHAKA 

Get this. A 28 year-old Miss Savage has set up an online campaign to raise 90 pounds she lost on a bad Tinder date. 90 pounds is the fare she paid for the three-and-a-half-hour journey from Leicester to Peterborough.

Miss Savage travelled love-struck and hopeful, no doubt, only for her date, 27, to break the ice by saying, “You’ve put on some weight.”

This was their second date.

Miss Savage says it’s the worst date she’s ever been on. Not least because, afterwards, she missed the bus and had to cough out even more for a train back to Leicester.

Now she’s seeking the public’s sympathy, rallying the troops for a cause that only makes sense to her and various shallow people on Instagram.

I sincerely hope Miss Savage gets her money back. I hope people donate the hell out of their pants.

Me I don’t have 90 pounds. I don’t know what that translates to in Kenya shillings. But even if I had 90 pounds, I wouldn’t have contributed to the Savage kitty, to tell you the truth.

Why should I feel bad because you downloaded Tinder and your conquest turned out to be doozy?

I doubt Miss Savage wouldn’t have had much to complain about if this date had been successful. She’d have gone back home (or not, wink) and crossed it off as a good day. She wouldn’t have thought about the 90 pounds because, ultimately, you can’t put a price on love, right?

Speaking of which, for a minute back there, I was also on Tinder.

I got curious.

I got lonely.

I got bored.

I wanted to see where it ends.

Would I be catfished?

I coasted through the sign-up process – I filled a form that said I agreed to the terms and conditions, another  that said Tinder will not be blamed if my country is not LGBT friendly. Then I set the gender I’m interested in (ahem), age group (22-26) and two pictures for my profile (heavily filtered to draw out my cheek bones and enhance the pink of my lips).

Then comes the hardest part. Writing your goddamn bio.

Some of the silly stuff I considered:

“Muratina connoisseur.”

“Cigarettes after lunch, a freak after dark.” (I quite liked this one)

“I walk to keep company with my mind. I drink to run away from it.”

“Can we get high first?”

Finally I settled on the last one and I was on my way to finding love.

I took me a while to get the hang of it, though. Swipe left, swipe right was all too confusing for words.

What would I say to my matches, anyway? Would it be too straightforward if I said I was only curious and looking for a quick lay?

Then another problem quickly reared its head.

If someone ‘likes’ your profile, you can’t actually see theirs unless you pay a subscription fee. So I sat back and thought, “Well, I’m already here. Might as well.”

I got a few prospects, I suppose. One never replied to my message. One went all the way to Whatsapp where it crawled and died in a puddle of its own making. One fizzled out faster than you can say Soweto Gospel Choir.

I never went on any Tinder date. My subscription expired after one month.

But did I wish to renew for only 15 dollars?

No, thanks.

Eventually I deleted the damn app.

But if there’s anyone out there who would like to donate 15 dollars…
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Follow Mike on Instagram: mikemuthaka