What's forever in the age of Tinder?

[Ed's note: #TinderTales is a weekly column that attempts to look at online dating. In this week's tale, our Tinderella tries to escape online by going on an adventure only to find love — or a lot like it — online! Have a story to share? Email us at submissions@gmanews.tv]

“I wish you didn’t leave so soon,” was the message I came home to.

I had just gotten back to my room, after an afternoon beer date turned dinner date turned a post-dinner drinks date with Sergio.

We were solo travelers in Nepal, just a couple among so many solo seekers, backpackers, and climbers eager to conquer Everest and/or themselves.

I was there because two months prior, I was bored to my ears and needed excitement. I'm what you call a digital native. I'm online all day every day, 24/7. I work online. I talk with my family online, I connect to friends online. I do my banking online, and if I could eat online, I would do it. I live online, and it's not fun. 

So I planned on a digital detox by booking a seven-day stay in Kathmandu. You know, be forced talk to people, be with nature, and actually live.

I limited my online access while there, turning to my phone to research on what to do (hooray, spontaneity) and to check the Tinder scene — I was very new to it and very hungry.

But on my sixth day the internet and social media came calling. It was a very loud call: In the five days I was in Kathmandu, I remained bored and to be honest, very lonely.

Everybody at the hostel was coming and going — to temples and treks, going on side trips to Bhutan or choosing to stay in Bhaktapur instead of Kathmandu. I was the village idiot who stayed in the city, going only on spontaneous day trips to the outskirts after doing research on my phone.

It was a dumb way to go about visiting Nepal, I learned, but back then, I was confident that I could wing it. I would meet someone at the common room of the hostel and we’d go off on a spontaneous out-of-town day trip; or I could meet someone (on Tinder) and have a new friend with whom to explore Kathmandu and its nearby towns.

Tinder was still new then, and I was new to Tinder. In Nepal, it felt like the app was launched the moment I arrived; I must’ve seen the entire Tinder population of Kathmandu three times on my first five days. Hardly anybody interested me.

Until on my penultimate day when I came across Sergio’s profile. ‘New to town,’ I thought excitedly as I studied his profile. He was Brazilian, just came from Bhutan, he was by himself, and Sergio loved beer.

I swiped right. We matched.

After learning our trips were about to end — I was leaving the next day, and him, the day after — we set a date for that afternoon: “four o’clock beers,” we quickly agreed.

He struck me as intelligent and sensitive, and upon declaring that “Japan changed my life,” I caved at his sexy Brazilian accent.

It was so easy to make him laugh — a great thing because he laughed beautifully, his crow’s feet appearing in the corners of his eyes already shut closed from delight; his mouth spread from ear to ear, displaying a perfect set of pearly whites. I wanted to kiss it.

And then like an invisible thread connecting one to the other, our common denominators revealed themselves, one by one: We both liked to travel solo, we do it at least once a year, we both loved rock n’ roll, and we were...digital natives! 

Not once did he make me feel uncomfortable. He didn’t try to steal a kiss (though I wished he did), or pretend to brush his hand on mine (I wish he did this, too). Not once did we bring out our phones.

Instead, we engaged in an animated conversation, jumping from one subject to the next: our travels and career, family and friends; what’s it like living in Manila, the very many bands he loved, that new thing called Snapchat, how he uses Tinder. “I admit there are booty calls and hook-ups every now and then,” he began, “but not all the time.” I liked his honesty. I was at ease.

It was a little past 10 p.m. when I said I had to leave; I had a dawn flight around the Himalayas to catch. He said he intentionally left his last day in Nepal empty to pack for Singapore, the next and final leg of his travels. “Maybe you can meet me there,” he smiled.

We got up, exited the bar, and in the middle of Thamel Road before parting ways, we hugged each other. I buried my face in his neck, his facial hair brushing against my forehead. We hugged for very long and very tight. I didn’t want to let go.

And then it started to drizzle, forcing us to go our separate ways.

I got into my room and with nothing to do and no one to talk to, I opened my phone and there was his message.

“I wish you didn’t leave so soon,” he said.

“Do you want to go for another two rounds?” I replied.

As if on cue, there was thunder and there was lightning, and pretty quickly, there was flood. “Ha!” I quickly followed up.

“Take a lot of pictures of Everest tomorrow,” he reminded me before saying, “and then show it to me in Singapore.”

I never made it to Singapore.

Instead, we added each other on social media. First on Instagram, where he liked my Nepal-related posts, and then on Facebook, where on messenger, I admitted to liking him. He responded by telling me he felt the connection too. 

And then the blinking dots danced on my screen, signaling he had more to say. And then finally: “you are electric.”

I melted a little. It was the first time anybody called me that.

He followed it up with :** — a kissy emoji, Google said. I was ecstatic.

Was I naïve to have had high hopes for this one? In my mind, there were so many digital channels available, there was no real threat for this to go where a lot of holiday romances have gone: fizzling to death.

We were diligent in messaging each other every day, even while he was still vacationing in Singapore. When it was time for him to fly back home, the messages understandably became sporadic. Then our everyday messages became every other day, which then became a weekly thing, which then became whenever possible.

On Instagram three months later, I watched him fall in love with another traveler, a Peruvian girl who was traveling Rio. I saw him visit her a few months later, and I was gutted.

I saw him move to Hong Kong for work several months after, and then I saw her visit him there. I saw them breakup.

By then, our non-relationship had been reduced to an occasional Facebook like and/or an Instagram heart. We didn’t even exchange messages anymore, which — could that be a testament to actually having what I thought we had?

He still lives in Hong Kong, and he’s traveled extensively around the region, but curiously, he’s never visited the Philippines.

Since meeting Sergio, I’ve visited HK once. Of course he wasn’t in town (he wasn’t lying either — I watched his Instagram live videos from Europe).

I still think about Sergio sometimes. There are days when I’d be neck-deep stalking him to see if there’s a new girl, and then I would catch myself, and laugh.

First: I was back in my digital bubble again. And second: How dare me hope that I’d be one of the lucky few to find love in the digital world!

And then one day it dawned on me: it was a digital love story, wasn’t it? What started on Tinder, and kept alive on Facebook, was eventually squashed dead on Instagram.

Unfortunately, like most everything on digital, it went zip and then zap and then it was over. — LA, GMA News 

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