Lauren Elizabeth
HELLO CURIOUS
I'll try to engage with you for a while.
My musings on…Tinder
There’s a time and a place for Tinder. Sat at a distant relatives wake, after an Enya style performance of ‘You’ll never walk alone’ I didn’t think qualified as one of them.
But rather than shoot a disapproving look in his direction (I might add a look he wouldn’t have seen for his absolute concentration in the job at hand!), I found myself almost captivated by this behaviour, wondering if this was another example of why no spoke to that side of the family. That aside, I also wanted to identify what kind of Tinder user he was, for like an incredibly diligent market researcher, the need to categorise and judge was immense.
There is The Flicker, cousin to that territorial creature the TV changer, who seemingly uses Tinder as an exercise in self satisfaction. The Ponderer, who doesn’t have the heart to slide either way, and so enters a myriad of emotional guilt, only overcome by the need to dish out archaic sounding compliments, and The Philanderer… who basically says yes to everyone.
To those of you new to Tinder (and we really are a dying breed), a picture of a potential suitor comes up who live/are stood relatively close to your spot. You then, depending whether it’s a yay or nay, slide across right or left. If they slide your picture to the yay section and you have done the same, then the chatting can begin.
Seemingly this rather distant relative of mine had an acquired taste. One by one attractive women, blondes, brunette and red heads were canned, as he began flicking faster and faster through the array of willing specimens. It was while another Status Quo song appeared on the jukebox that I began asking my relative about this Tinder business. I like to think I was rather like Bashir interviewing a rather coy Diana.
It turns out that my distant relative was a habitual user,Tinder’ing (as though the verb just flowed off the tongue) on the bus, at work on his dinner, before he went to sleep. In fact as he put it Tinder could be classed as one of his hobbies, along with wine tasting, rugby and playing the clarinet, which surely had the beginnings of a real dating profile. After sensing my sneer and snuffing me out as a Tinder Snob, he went back to his “work”.
There can be no doubt that internet dating has vastly changed the way we approach the search for a potential partner. Once frequented by those with the personality and looks of a dishcloth, we have every type of lustful lothario flocking to these sites now. Seemingly from a quick scout of the more popular sites, people had also begun to write little reviews of their experiences so far, many of which were formed on the fact that no penis pictures or quick hook up suggestions were appreciated.
In particular I found that the word ‘normal’ was used a hell of a lot. Either that or the potential person came across as such a ‘loon’ that there was an element of doubt if the background in his picture wasn’t that of a safe and secure unit.
Perhaps the greatest overall achievement of Tinder is the lack of brevity placed on words, with far less opportunity to express yourself outside the realms of a badly thought out selfie, which consists of a packet of crisps and a comatose human. For there’s little here but a picture and the promise of a match, your very own lean mean dating machine.
It’s been a quiet month
But I have done more writing than usual.
Let’s examine ourselves, from the food we eat to the music we play. Let me examine myself.
The Little Book of the Big Universe
The Little Book of the Big Universe
Let me tell you some things about a woman who has read The Little Book of the Big Universe from start to finish.
I go to the library to feel in control of my emotions. I sit in the spherical reading room and pick out some of the dustiest books and I pretend to read them.
I was more devastated than I said when I was fucked in the ass by a man, both at night and in the morning, and he said thankyou on the doorstep.
I have led on the floor and not moved for a good four minutes when I was told by a man that we were better as friends.
I have wanted to stab couples.
I have wished that I was more aware that twenty five texts in a row with no response does not scream independent woman.
I am not an independent woman.
The Little Book of the Big Universe
Just a little something I put together which needs mountains of work (but what doesn’t?)
The Little Book of the Big Universe
Reading the Little Book of the Big Universe
and remembering the full anger you have
Nine thirty till nine thirty
With your father.
Bleak, incessant and plastic anger
Of a time you have loved
With a jaundiced mouth.
Of small hearted chatter
“How is work?”
“Are you well?”
And never any answer or howl
Which is over now.
When you’re told of the shock
Of having two metal pans smashed to either temple.
In fiery rage, or drink or frustration perhaps
And that he wept when his own father did this.
Little tears on the back step
And his disabled bully sister smirking in the hall.
How small and compact your anger seems to be.
You are lucky to be something free.
No edit button
I have been writing some fairly weird words recently, sort of ‘corner poems’ as I like to call them. Small, segmented disjointed little phrases which I bring together.
Liver is the pain
In the pan.
Ox heart.
Life lost, or something
Minimal in blood.
A story called Lager.
You expertly boil tomatoes. It is a skill you have perfected since the age of eleven, when your mother first handed you a spoon. The pucker of the fridge opening and closing. Blue steam from the kettle, your mother humming and the bubble of temperature. The slim man across the street curving his head to look for the figures which are evaporate so neatly now. Daddy somewhere, his head tight as his knuckles, tasting sweet tomato sauce plunging down his open shirt.
And prising that window open, each time the bolt blows, aware of your mother washing the tomatoes carefully by the sink. And then watching as the tomatoes boil, punch out of themselves, someone crying. Your efforts spent trying to catch them lightly, fingers ready to burn.And the ease with which mother takes them , one by one, hoofing hot breath.
You, standing by the window watching the slim man plug his headphones in, get some courage. And your mother cooling her thumb in the acid cold, sticky plaster tagged in her mouth. Her looking at you so red and proud, knowing you will practice until you have the right scars and expressions. A matching pan of ripeness which you will bleed and beat until your sauce is thick to drop. You will treat it simply, like an old lover, and taste the sweetness bent on the back of a spoon.
But there’s a knock on the door. It’s all heels on tiles and squeaky mouse clean, with the kitchen door closed. You begin feel the apron wrapped around you, the way it drags upon the floor when you walk. The creak of the door. Daddy somewhere, promising to oil the thing one weekend in his corduroys. Quiet voices that you cannot hear, even though your ear is pressed sharply against the door.
You back out, measure out your apron firmly against your body. You walk to the worktop, look at those tomatoes, now nothing more than a solid, naked fuck. You slowly place them in the pan for pulverising, one by one, not stopping, not thinking about the front door and your mother. The utensil lies there,ready. You do not add your mothers usual things, just work on mushing and weaving through the body of red until it begins to look whole as it should. You will sieve it through later and take out the seeds so they do not make you hiccup.
The cloud has begun to clear, you can see wafts of pink rising from the window box, something planted to cheer the place up. Probably on a Saturday afternoon with burnt coffee breath and short, sharp strides, cloying at the soil to make something stick. Little piles of wooden letters spelling out happy and a baby crawling up the walls to get out.
The door closes with little noise and you hear the quiet clatter of the gate. The sauce begins to cool, beautiful minutes gone watching the slim man edge out of sight with red face and hands.
A truth
Let me tell you
Something
A truth.
Naked and alive.
Sitting far from the window
I have the right to holler down.
I should wear smaller panties.