Snow White & The Seven Tinder Matches

I know myth and legend tell you to avoid the poison apple, but I ignored all warnings as a 21-year-old head-strong girl, and dove straight in! Here's my story.

It started on a typical Friday night, I was getting ready to go out and hit the bars with some friends, in the midst of my glow-up, I would often check to see if prince-charming was messaging me, this came in the form of checking Tinder every hour or so to see if my knight in shining armour was ready to whisk me away. Unfortunately, fate wasn't ready to unite us just yet, instead, I had several open conversations on the go, currently I was texting James. James had been messaging me over the week, he seemed quite nice and chilled out, a bit of a surfer type with a sweet smile. I told him of my plans tonight wondering if we would bump into each other, but unfortunately, it seemed he wasn't taking the hint.

Applying my porcelain foundation to my pale skin, I looked at myself in the mirror, I wasn't bad to look at, pale even skin, dark hair, and ruby red lips, I know it isn't exactly the exotic look some men preferred, and on occasion, I did look slightly anaemic, but I didn't seem to do badly with the men. Just as I was setting my lipstick down and preparing to leave, my phone pinged. It was a new Tinder match—a guy named Doc92. His profile picture was cute, he was a tad shorter than I liked, but there he stood in a crisp white medical coat. I swiped through his profile. Medical doctor, he didn't look overly happy but I figured why not give him a message. I decided to send him a cheesy message, "Hey, Doc. What's your prescription for a good time?" I sat giggling at my own wit and put my phone down as I finished getting ready and headed to meet the girls.

That night, the girls and I landed at The Enchanted Brewery, our town's fancy cocktail bar. I wasn't always fantastic with alcohol, but thought, 'what the heck' and decided to order something off their fancy menu. I was feeling a little free-spirited and decided to order an Apple-tini. The bartender winked as he handed over a drink brighter than the LED lights strung around the place.

No sooner had I taken my first sip than I felt a tap on my shoulder. "Snow, is that you?" Turning around, I saw James from Tinder. He actually took the hint!

Now, if you think this would be my fairy-tale moment, bless your optimism. No sooner had we exchanged pleasantries I noticed he was wearing flip-flops... in February. I mean, I like casual as much as the next girl, but this was pushing it. "The cold doesn't bother me," he said as I raised an eyebrow, sounding suspiciously like a Frozen reference. He just laughed and shrugged, and then I noticed something else, as he leant to put his empty glass on the bar, the smell of weed hit me, like he stunk of it! A little cliche for a surfer type, but as I looked closer at his face, I could see the red eyes and dopey expression. I tried talking to him longer, but he seemed to struggle to maintain focus and essentially looked doped. It seems Dopey James wasn't my prince charming. I slipped away and headed to the dance floor with the girls to have a good dance.

Trying to catch my breath after a particularly great cheesy 90's tune, I went back to the bar, luckily James was nowhere in sight, but I would wait till tomorrow to remove him as a match. As I was waiting for my second apple-tini, I heard a gruff voice next to me, and low and behold, it was another Tinder match! What are the chances of that? Roger was a successful business man living the city, we had been talking for a while, but his replies were often short, so we hadn't met for a date yet. I watched him as he ordered a whiskey neat, scowling at the bartender like they had personally wronged him. "Rough day?" I asked, half-tempted to back away. He launched into a tirade about his terrible boss, traffic, and the lack of "decent single ladies these days." I politely nodded, wondering if maybe I was the problem for entertaining these men. By some miracle, he somehow hadn't recognised me as anything other than a short-term psychologist to dump his grievances on, I'm glad I dodged that bullet. Once my tini had been delivered, I grabbed it and quickly made my departure before Roger remembered I was there.

The night only got weirder. The next Tinder match I bumped into was SneezySteve, or should I say sleezy Steve. To his credit, looked like he had stepped out of a GQ magazine—if you overlooked the fact that he sneezed every ten seconds. Pollen allergy in February, he claimed. Then came Bashful Brad, who blushed a deep crimson whenever I tried to compliment him. There was SleepySam, who was clearly pretty wasted at 11pm on a Friday night as he fell asleep mid-conversation, his head almost landing on my shoulder. Rounding out the group was Happy Hank—pure energy incarnate, but a little too happy and who was gurning like mad and seemed to get happier everytime he went to the toilet, like he had taken a trip into columbia and back. He laughed maniacally at every joke I made, even ones that weren’t meant to be funny. I started to worry he was unhinged.

By the time midnight rolled around, I was exhausted and a little deflated, out of my seven Tinder matches, there was only Doc92 left, and I pretty sure at this point he would be a 4ft dwarf with a weird fetish. In my slight loathing, I downed the rest of my apple-tini like a rebel princess. As I placed my glass down and began strutting away, I completely forgot about the steps to the dance floor, in some kind of strange slow motion, my foot bent and I lost my shoe as I went diving head-first into the dance floor, and everything went black.

The next thing I know, my head is pounding and I'm in the back of an ambulance. As I open my eyes, I see the most beautiful man I've ever seen! I try to talk, to get something cute and charming to exit my mouth, but instead, it's a slur of jibberish. "Easy there, you hit your head pretty bad, we're taking to you the hospital to get checked out". I just nod wordlessly, apparently forgetting to not be a creeper and just stare at him. I catch a glance at his name tag, 'David Charming'. As we arrive at the hospital, it's all a bit of a blur as I'm moved to a ward for assessment. At this point, I thought nothing else could go wrong, but apparently, it's more than my choice in swipes that have poor judgement, because who else could walk into the room than Doc92. Fuck my life.

At this point, I felt the universe was laughing at me, as my hopes and dreams were crushed quite quickly that Doc92 was not my prince charming. Doc92, aka Dr. Killjoy in the flesh was actually very stern, humorless, and with an expression that could sour milk. He strode in, clipboard in hand, looking like he had just been briefed on how to be as unapproachable as possible. I'm guessing he wouldn't have liked my joke after all.

“Well, Miss Snow,” he said in a flat tone, “it seems that you’ve survived your little adventure without any serious injuries. Though you might want to reassess your nightlife decisions.” He adjusted his glasses like he’d just delivered the punchline of a joke—only there wasn’t a joke, just some random Chistian Grey Wannabe without the kink- eurk.

“Is that your professional advice, Doc?” I quipped, trying to inject a little life back into the room. His face didn’t even twitch. “Just stay still,” he replied curtly, scribbling something down on his clipboard. “And no glow-in-the-dark drinks he said as he rolled his eyes. My swiping judgement, was indeed, so so bad.

After being observed overnight by Doc joy destroyer, I was finally discharge. I called an Uber as I did a fantastic walk of shame out the hopsital with my only remaining shoe in my hand, apparently the other had gone astray on my nighttime antics.

As I was walking to the Uber pick-up point, I once again saw paramedic charming. He noticed me and lifted his hand to stop me, and with a smile that could probably start world peace if bottled, he turned his back and grabbed something out of the back of the ambulance. “I believe this belongs to you,” he said, grinning as he held up my missing shoe like some. Honestly at this point, I was trying to remember how to speak, or how to form one syllable, but he knelt down, took my foot in his hands, and placed the shoe back on with the kind of care that should be illegal- or maybe it was, patient, paramedic kinda thing. My face turned a shade of red that could of rivalled bashfuls.

“Perfect fit,” he said, standing up and looking pleased with himself. I opened my mouth to say something witty—or at least coherent—but before I could embarrass myself further, he added, “By the way, I was wondering… would you like to grab a coffee sometime? You know, once you’re feeling better.” I was just about to agree, but his phone rang, he looked down at the screen and waved his phone, "Ah, my stepmother, she must be wondering where I am, she's a tad overprotective and I'm a little late finishing my shift, I wanted to give you back your shoe. Anyway, how about that coffee?".

Well, maybe this was my happy ending after all.