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I got political on Tinder and this is what happened

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For far too long in society, politics have been regarded as an unspoken taboo. We’re told not to talk about politics at school, online, and certainly not on a date.

We live in a world run by PC police and hypersensitivity filters our words. Unspoken taboos like politics are a perfect example of how dating is still broken.

Let’s flashback to August 2015. I was sipping beers in Cleveland awaiting my flight to Los Angeles where I would be moving to the next day. I started boy shopping on Tinder when I matched with this cute software engineer named Karl.

Whether or not we like it, the beginning of a relationship sets the foundation for the future you build with a person. I treat the people I meet online, just like the people I meet in person. I always leave conversations unfiltered, never go in with expectations, and always hope to make a connection.

It’s about time people come together and acknowledge that connecting with someone can lead to platonic friendships, a hookup, relationship, or maybe you’ll just walk away, which should give you another reason to talk about your political views. So after a few brief messages, I made a political joke and dropped my number.

The subject of our jokes was citizenship based humor. Karl called me instantly laughing and made a political joke back.I knew I liked him the second he called me because for starters, who even calls people anymore, besides myself, he understood my joke, and most importantly, he could joke about politics! I’m super transparent with my friends and family, which sparks a lot of interesting conversations. Because these topics are important to me, I was intrigued.

I met with Karl the day after arriving in LA and certainly didn’t regret it. We shared drinks and stories about our lives. Me about my travels, him about how he found confidence.

So many people want to talk about the superficial. “Where’d you go to college?” I dropped out of community college and jumped balls deep into my career, thank you for asking. “What’s your favorite Netflix show?” I’ve never actually had a Netflix trial account before. Karl didn’t feed me that typical bulls***, and because we discussed so many things we cared about, I knew I’d be going on a second date.

 

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Photo credit: Korina Domingo

I would quickly realize the reason why Karl was so well versed in citizenship law was because he’s in America on a work visa. Karl is actually so out of tune with politics that he didn’t even know that presidential election was in 2016. He thought we wrapped that whole debacle in December and that the new president would start January 2016 – offensive, eh?

Although we didn’t agree on the importance politics has in our lives, he’s always open to listen and learn more about what’s going on the world. And since that seemed to be the only thing we disagreed on, we continued to hang out.

Politics has never caused a fight between us, nor do I resent him for his lack of involvement. I admit, the only thing I don’t find attractive about him is his lack of political awareness.

Not everyone is meant to be together and you can’t force a connection. Avoiding politics on a first date just to avoid being offensive just seems like a cheap way of dating. Why fake your way into a second date just in the hopes that this person will find you tolerable enough to love? That’s a shitty way to live. My opinion still stands, I’d rather find out someone’s political opinions on a first date. So why waste time? Cut to the chase already!

Who knows? Maybe we’ll form a bipartisanship ;).