Twelve Days of Clitmas: 11th day

Beth Simpson, Society and Community Editor

Look, we can’t deny the Boris-faced, virus-infested elephant in the room that this year hasn’t been great. But in the spirit of holiday cheer, I thought I would offer a bit of light relief from all of that by giving you a carefully crafted selection of holiday gifts. Yes, that’s right, I am joining the canon of Destiny’s Child, The Muppets and carol singers far and wide to give you my take on the Twelve Days of Christmas; the aptly named Twelve Days of Clitmas. For the last few weeks, I have been gathering nuggets of both wisdom and fun from many wonderful people, which I (your true love) will give to you (our Clitbait readers) as festive treats for the next twelve days. From holiday recipes, to wild swimming spots, to tips for a more pleasurable sex life, I hope there will be something in this for everyone! So, get the chestnuts roasting as I pop these gifts under the metaphorical tree and let’s end the year with a smile.

On the eleventh day of Clitmas my true love gave to me… 

Eleven swipers swiping

For today’s gift, I have collected an array of pandemic dating app tales. Eleven anonymous swipers kindly bequeath to you the good, the bad and the ugly of their covid courtships. Thank you so much to everyone who offered me a story for this gift. You are an inspiration to us all to keep swiping when all else (meaning the entire world) fails. Love really is all you need! And if these stories aren’t instances of love, I don’t know what is… “I went on a socially distanced date with a biology PhD student and realised halfway through that he was basically using Hinge to recruit participants for his studies that he could take blood from…”

“I went on Bumble and met an amazing guy. We started chatting but couldn’t meet because of lockdown. We talked every day for six months, called each other, etc. The lockdown ended and I went to France for two months. We kept talking. We were so into each other. I FINALLY came back and we were so excited to meet. We went for coffee, talked for an hour and never contacted each other again. SIX MONTHS. FOR NOTHING.”

“I met a boy from Tinder for a socially distanced date in Loch Lomond. We walked around and got a chippy and he was really sweet and lovely. Then, as we were walking to the loch, we saw that up on the right there was a big castle on a hill so decided to go there instead. As we were walking up the hill it was really wet, and my feet were soaking. When we got to the top, I took off my shoes and socks and he said, “you’ve got lovely feet”. I could see the way he was looking at them, so I was like, “have you got a foot fetish?” and he was like, “I wouldn’t call it a fetish, but I do like feet. I think they’re beautiful and you’ve got really nice ones.” So, I was like, “oh thank you. You can touch them if you like”. And then he offered me a foot massage, so I took it. And it was great because we were social distancing. He was just touching my feet, so I could still be far away from him. And yeah, he just gave me a foot massage, sitting on a turret, looking over Loch Lomond.”

“I went on a virtual date” (I tried to follow up with this person to get more information on the date but never heard back. I guess that shows how easy it is to ghost someone in the online pandemic dating world…

“My date walked over to me and I was literally DUMSTRUCK (is this a word, anonymous dater?) and I said to him, “You look EXACTLY like my grandfather!” And that set the whole thing up very badly. But it’s true.”

“I went on a Tinder date with this guy we watched The Exorcist. He said it was the only film that scares him because of like, Catholic guilt (but he’s not even Catholic). We were seeing each other for a few weeks and throughout the relationship he gave me a few necklaces here and there, but I’d lost them. So, to return the favour I gave him a crucifix necklace, because I thought The Exorcist was our cute little thing now. It was like, a full-sized crucifix with a bottle of holy water, 51% beeswax candles and you know, vintage instructions in case of serious illness. Anyway, he hated it, hated that I found it funny and never spoke to me again. BUT he did tweet about it and it was his most liked tweet ever. So, who won there really? I’d say me.”

“I changed all of my twitter settings so I could find / match / fall in love with a boy I fancy who lives near me.”

“I went for a takeaway pint with someone I’d met on Hinge. When I turned up, he was wearing an ankle length fur coat with no top on underneath. Nipples out and sunglasses on. This was a week ago, it was freezing outside. I ended up going back to his house and when I got there recognised one of the paintings on the wall. Turns out it had belonged to a friend of mine from uni. A few years ago, he’d been at the same party as me, stolen the painting, doodled all over it and hung it on his own wall. Anyway, I slept with him.”

“I cancelled my Hinge subscription because I was disappointed with the number of super spreaders that were trying to meet up mid lockdown. I also realised you don’t have to pay for it. I had been paying for it the whole time… “

“I got Hinge in February and was speaking to a guy I really liked. When the lockdown happened, I deleted the app and was pretty sad we never got to meet. Anyway, I got it again in September and we matched again, but he was away so we couldn’t meet. And whilst this was all happening, which seemed like it was leading to a relationship, someone else swooped in IN THE MIDDLE OF A HISTORY SEMINAR ON MICROSOFT TEAMS and asked me out. And now we are boyfriend and girlfriend, which is great but what can I say, all my effort on Hinge has gone to waste!”

“I matched with someone on Tinder because their bio said “live on a boat”, and I was like OOH YES. We started talking and he was great and we had lots in common and then he was like, “what’s your address so we can send each other artwork?” and I thought, “that’s a lovely idea, love that. Husband… what?” So I gave him my address and then I got a bit bored of the whole talking thing so we met up and it was great.

And then a few days later the post arrived that he sent and I was like “PLEASE DON’T BE WEIRD, IT’S GOING REALLY WELL”. So I opened it and it was drawings and stickers and LOADS of business cards and then behind it was this newspaper paper… really rough old kind of material… and I opened it up and it was like a comic book strip with the title “Rat Recipes” and it was a step-by-step guide of how to dissect a rat and eat it.

So I text him and was like “WHAT’S THIS?” and he said, “oh, I thought you’d find it funny” and I said, “aren’t you a vegan?” and he goes, “yeah I am, it’s just… it’s from Monty Python” and I said, “well, I don’t really know how I feel about it”.

And then I got over it, met him again, went on his boat and it was lovely. He’s a good pal. I haven’t actually seen him for a long time…”

Beth Simpson, Society and Community Editor

Header Image by the lovely Beth