Reminder: Tinder is For Dating, Not Promoting Your Band

I went on a date with a guy who was also on a date with three other girls at the same time.

The dating Ponzi scheme all started when I met Paul on Tinder. Amongst the dating app’s cluster-fuck of bros and desperate hook ups, I was excited about our match; he was French, a doppelganger for Bob Dylan, and in a band. As a Tinder skeptic in New York City, these three factoids seemed good enough for me to meet Paul in person.

We agreed to hang out at Otto’s Shrunken Head, a tropical themed dive bar where his band Electric Discharge Machine was playing. The whole bar was back lit with green bulbs and made the only eight people sitting inside look inevitably mischievous. The staff, made up of two aged metalheads, slumped beneath tiki paraphernalia that decorated the bar. With barely anyone around, I easily spotted Paul, my Tinder match.

“Ça va,” he said and gave me a hug. “I must go, we are about to play.” Paul went to the back room. I stood alone for a minute and ordered a vodka soda. The room started to vibrate as Electric Discharge Machine began to warm up. There were only five people in the audience, three of whom were girls and one of which, sitting in the dark corner booth, I recognized from work. How embarrassing. I started to make up excuses in my head as to why I was there. Meanwhile, Paul went into his first song, “Around the Glorious Sun.” His voice rose and mimicked the same depth of Leonard Cohen. All my anxiety about being on a Tinder date magically evaporated. Electric Discharge Machine, as lame as their name may sound, were actually really good. Throughout the entire set, Paul stood at the front of the stage and played his guitar slowly to hypnotizing melodies. When Paul swayed, we swayed, when Paul ooo’d, we ahh’d.

The room was mostly empty, but had an undeniable flirtatious energy as everyone was checking out my date. Paul wrapped the encore song, jumped off the stage, and began to walk across the room to pass all four of us girls. He started to kiss the backs of everyone’s hands and as it came to my turn, my co-worker finally saw me and walked over.

“What are you doing here,” she asked me with polite suspicion.

"Seeing my friend’s band play,” I half-honestly said.

“Is your friend Paul?” She continued to ask.

“Yes.”

“And did you meet Paul on Tinder?”

My heart stopped. I looked up at my match as he crossed the bar to meet his other matches. We were all at Otto’s for the same date, tripled booked and part of a strange modern love square. The hypnotics induced by Paul's set had worn their course and one of the girls pulled Paul outside to confront him. I followed them out to see Paul, a lanky six foot tall French man, raise his arms as he defended himself against one of his dates. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he repeated, “I just wanted girls to come to my show!”

My blonde colleague pushed her thumb into Paul’s chest and began to lecture him on Tinder ethics. The guys from Electric Discharge Machine had also just caught up to what was happening and huddled in a circle and bent over laughing as the other girls began to leave and go home. Paul smiled to hide his guilt and told me that this was the first time he had done something like this, or at least first time getting caught.

He went on to tell me that as an international band coming to New York, it is hard to promote yourself. Not because there aren’t enough people going to live shows anymore, but because it is hard to get people to notice your live show. “We were trying to save the night by inviting people,” Paul told me, “When we arrived at Otto’s Shrunken Head, the place were empty. It was just the bartender and an old crack head who kept falling on her head. She did twice, and we had to help her.”

Tinder for show promotion, guys. No candlelit dinners, opening doors for each other, or jacket over the puddle gentlemanly courtesy. This is what we’ve come to. Gotta go, I’ve got a date with a guy I met in the Amazon comments section.