For two weeks, Nailantei Norari joined the world of popular online dating app, Tinder. From sexually excited men looking for young and naïve women, to nice genuine guys looking a partner, she saw it all. 

Nailantei Norari @artnorari

My two weeks on Tinder have been nothing if not enlightening and highly entertaining.

I think what I have experienced is a true representation of the dating Kenyan scene, sans filter.

I have received more male anatomy pictures than I care to recount here, have been propositioned to be a dominant and wear heels and whip someone for money, as well as been taken out on a date by a highly attractive lesbian. 

This is just the tip of the iceberg, but before we delve into the meat of it all, why do people get on Tinder.

For those who do not know what Tinder is, it is an online dating app. One can download it, make a profile and then you can start connecting with people near your location.

You swipe left on a person you do not like and swipe right on someone you fancy.

When two people swipe right on each other’s photo, they are considered a match which means they can direct message each other, exchange numbers and hopefully, meet in real life. 

Young and easy

Peter* got on Tinder because it is the easiest way to get women. He talks about how he swipes right on every woman as he believes that out of all those, there has to be at least one or two who will swipe right as well.

He does not see any reason why he should limit his options by swiping left. He does not tell me this when I ask him why he swiped right on me.

Neither does he tell me this when we plan a meet up at a restaurant in the CBD. He only says this after he realises there will be no trip back to his house. 

He then becomes unguarded, open, almost as if he had bottled up all these truths and they are bursting to come forth. He accuses me of being older than my profile on Tinder.

I am 21 there, a whole half a decade younger! “I have found that anyone younger than 26 on Tinder is more gullible as they do not have a strong ability to detect deception.

They are more naïve and are willing to stick it out through an undefined relationship spurred on by their dreams of what the relationship could be,” Peter says.

He finds them more malleable, and a lunch today and a gin date at Social House or any other popular place, and he is allowed to fold them into pretzels or any shape he likes. 

He shares how older women are either looking for a relationship or for a bang toy.

He talks of how he skirts the former and entertains the latter, with Sh25,000 being the largest sum of money he has ever received from a woman in the latter group.

I ask him how old he is. He says 29, but that is inflated by between four and five years as he is in his final year in campus. We decide to remain friends.

Several dates later, I land an audacious and interesting one at a serviced apartment restaurant on Riverside Drive.

I get to enjoy a three course lunch and get a gift box in the process. Ryan* is a 32-year-old white who keeps talking about just how much money he has and how sexually frustrated he is.

He talks about how he just moved to Kenya with a nongovernmental organisation and how he just came out of a bad relationship and is, therefore, not looking for anything serious.

I bluntly ask him what we are doing there then and what he hopes to get out of it. He asks me to open my beautifully wrapped gift. I am never at a loss for words, but this time I am.

Inside is a whip, some leather contraption with four holes labelled arms and legs, a tiny piece of a leather bottom and top and a small wad of new Kenyan thousand shillings.

He really wants me to divest him of his cash and his other frustrations. I think about my rent and my boyfriend who does not give me a girlfriend allowance and almost cave.

Besides, I would really like to know what that leather contraption is used for.

Common sense and that poverty is not permanent while this experience could be wins. 

Ryan does not seem perturbed. He shares how this is not his first time doing this and that sooner rather than later, he will find someone willing to do it for less.

He says, “You do know that you people swipe right more and chase white guys more than you do on Kenyan men, right? I have Kenyan colleagues you see?”

I am too shocked to say anything, but I do recognise the truth in his words, especially since I have friends who would frequent popularly white joints hunting for a white man, despite being high-flying professionals and all. 

Land of lies

I also meet genuinely nice guys, a doctor with no time to date hoping to get a young girl for a girlfriend who is yet to be sullied by the Nairobi dating scene.

On another day I meet a divorcee with two children, he talks so much about them that I think I am more in love with them than I could ever be with him. He seems lonely.

On asking him why he picked me, he shares he just wants someone witty to spend time with and that my bio was pretty hilarious.

I tell him that my bio was written by my friend, but he seems nonplussed. “We are here aren’t we?” he asks.

I tell him that I lied about my age on the site and that I have two children too. He lights up.

We have been talking ever since, trading kid antidotes and parenting tips. I am happy to help him and wean him back on to the Nairobi dating jungle, but I have to get two full grown babies first. On here, I tell lies easily.

I wonder how many people do the same. But judging by the people who do not look like their photos or ages or even know nothing about their supposed profession, I am sure we are a lot of liars on Tinder.

I think Tinder is a platform that distills human essence into its purest forms. It is where the lonely go to searching for someone to ease the ache, and where the undersexed go looking for several people to soothe their aches too.

It is the playground for the vilest form of human desire as well as the purest. It allows one to represent their true selves, but through a virtual platform.

The virtual platform just allows someone to be whom they truly are with almost no fear of repercussions.

The hookup culture on Tinder is simply a manifestation of the true nature of relationships in Nairobi and not caused by the platform itself.

We are all simply looking for a human connection, be it sexual or emotional.