I found love through Grindr

MANILA, Philippines – With the bigger roles of technology and social media in our lives, it’s no surprise they have touched the realm of romance and dating.

Gone are the days of “pen pals” and “eyeball chats.” Say hello to smart phone applications that make finding your “special someone” easier. One need only search and download to begin selecting from the feast of eye candies or not-so-hotties near you.

Grindr is one of the largest “men who are interested in men” dating applications being used today. As a previous user of this app, I’ve found that Grindr’s diverse community of users–which includes gay, metro, “tranny,” bisexuals or just men looking for fun–makes dating more fun and widens the range of people you get to meet.

To use Grindr, you start by creating an account and typing in your bio, which includes username, age, weight, height, what you will use Grindr for and a few things about yourself.

Once another user views your profile, your location and distance from each other is automatically displayed. And then the games begin. Click chat. And if you find the other user interesting enough, you can prolong the joy of talking to each or just meet up for a date and maybe have a little more fun than that. 

Finding love

At first, I was skeptical about the application but then, persuaded by my friends, I caved in. I have used Grindr for dating, meet-ups and, of course, a little fun on the side.

Knowing what most people intend to get from the application, I never knew I’d meet someone like my boyfriend. We both never expected to find a committed relationship from an application that mostly promotes dating and fun. But find love we did, and everything’s going well. After finding each other, we’ve both stopped using Grindr. 

It was early December 2012 when I decided to give a little attention to a guy who had been chatting me up on Grindr. This decision was made when I saw him walking near a local restaurant. He seemed decent so I started replying to him again (he was trying to talk to me last October but I didnt pay much attention to him).

He then invited me to dinner at his place where he cooked for me and we ended up watching movies and talking until dawn. Then we started talking to each other everyday and ended up liking each other. We went on dates. We started seeing each other twice a week and then it became an everyday thing.

We’d have dinner together or he’d pick me up from school and walk me home. On weekends we’d have sleepovers and watch movies and just spend the night together. The whole time he’d surprise me with food or chocolates or just himself waiting for me outside my school or my condo building. We’d have dinner at new places or we’d go on afternoon adventures just like going to Divisoria, museums or ice-skating. Every date was something new. We both wanted each other to try something we’d never done before.

After a few months of dating, we both knew we were in love. Everything just fell into place. We decided to commit to each other because everything was going well. We didn’t let little arguments grow bigger, we kept each other happy and sane. We were madly, deeply in love and there was no reason not to commit to someone who made you feel very happy.

Stay cautious

My experience shows that Grindr is not just a medium for finding fun or sex. But don’t depend on it to find true love or anything close to that. With an app like this, you have to keep your mind open for different possibilities, different people and different experiences. 

Of course there are dangers in using the application. Most people use it to find sex and you meet up with all kinds of people. You don’t know where they’ve been and what they’ve done or if they have sexually-transmitted diseases and infections.

Stay cautious when meeting up with a fellow user. Never do anything you’re not comfortable with and if you choose to have sex, stay safe and use protection because you don’t want to regret that one-night stand. – Rappler.com

*(Fred Fernandez is not the author’s real name)