The patio at Stortorget is swarming with the cheerful Friday happy hour crowd. What was I thinking? The chances of running into a familiar face here are basically 100 percent.
As I walk the last few steps to the restaurant, I try to spot him among the umbrellas surrounding the outdoor bar. Here’s something I’ve learned after five years on Tinder: the question isn’t if he’ll look different from his pictures, but how different he’ll be.
I’m standing on the sidewalk outside the entrance, digging through my purse for my lip gloss, when a hand lands on my arm.
“Jennica? Hi!”
He was unusually honest with his pictures.
Most forty-seven-year-olds are, like, half-bald with a doughy belly.
I’m pleasantly surprised.
“Is it okay if we sit inside? I thought that would be more relaxing.”
His smile is so confident and hard to resist.
Together we walk through the stuffy summer air of the restaurant to a table in the back, where he pulls out my chair like a real gentleman. A marked difference from the twenty-eight-year-old IT guy I was out with last weekend.
“Forgive me for saying this, but I’m so relieved.” He hangs his jacket over the back of his chair and sits down across from me. “You never know, with Tinder. So much Photoshop and who even knows what.”
“It’s so nice to hear you say so. I was thinking the same thing.”
He laughs.
“Can we make a deal?” he says, placing his large, hairy hand beside the silverware on the table. “If you feel like I’m a total dud, just get up and go to the bathroom after the appetizer. I promise never to get in touch again, or even be the least bit disappointed. Or—well, of course I would be terribly disappointed, but I promise to keep it to myself.”
“Ditto,” I say. “After the appetizer, in the middle of the meal, whenever you like. Just get up and go. No hard feelings, I promise.” A quick wink.
His hand remains on the table.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I never introduced myself. Steven.”
“Jennica.” I nod and let out a ditzy sort of giggle. “I thought you would have one of those sexy English accents.”
“I certainly can have one,” Steven says in a thick accent. “My mother is from Scotland. Dad wanted to call me Stefan, but she had a terrible time pronouncing it, so Steven it was.”
What luck.
“My parents made a similar deal. Dad wanted me to be named Jenny, but Mom voted for Annica.”
“Fantastic,” Steven says. “We’re both the result of compromise. Isn’t it great when people get along?”
I force myself to zip my lips.
I have a whole lecture on this very topic on deck in the back of my mind. About how my mother, like so many other women, always seemed to draw the short straw when it came to compromise.
I smile and hope a better opportunity will arise for that lecture.
“Well, we’ve got one thing in common, at least. It could be worse.”
Steven laughs. He browses the menu and quickly decides to order the fish.
“I’m thinking of getting the flank steak,” I say.
Steven shakes his head. “That’s a tough one. Meat should be thick and tender. Most kitchens can handle a sirloin or a tenderloin. I wouldn’t take the chance on a flank steak at this place.”
I look at him, astonished.
“It’s up to you, of course,” he continues. “But don’t sit here whining later if you have to saw your way through a tough piece of meat. I warned you,” he says with a smile.
I like this audacious character. He says what he thinks. Besides, he seems to know what he’s talking about.
“I’ll try the fish too,” I say.
Steven smiles, satisfied.
“And wine,” Steven says. “What’s your preference there?”
I shrug. “White? High rating?”
He laughs out loud.
“Maybe a Pouilly-Fumé?” Steven suggests.
That sounds like a breed of horse.
“Excellent,” I say.
There are a few seconds of silence as the waiter arrives and jots down our order, and it’s painfully long enough for me to blurt out the first question that pops into my head.
“So, you’re a doctor?”
What a dumb thing to ask, given that he’ll expect me to talk about what I do in return.
“A pediatrician,” Steven says. “Before I specialized, I spent two years in South Africa with Doctors Without Borders. It was appalling to see all that suffering, but also fantastic to see the genuine, pure joy in those children’s eyes. That was when I decided to keep working with kids.”
“So lovely” is my unimaginative reply.
“Tell me about yourself.” Steven smiles. “I’m so curious.”
What can I say? He saves starving children in Africa while I spend my days pretending to be a student so I don’t have to register with the Employment Service, and play fortune-teller over the phone each night.
“I’m still a student,” I say, picking at my napkin. “Right now I’m studying international development. I got it into my head that I want to do something abroad, maybe with a nonprofit or something, but I’m not so sure anymore.”
“Interesting,” Steven says.
His eyes are intense, deep and pale blue, almost transparent.
“I want to know more,” he says. “Who are you? The person behind the Tinder profile.”
I laugh.
“Come on,” Steven says. “I’m too old for games and that kind of crap.”
I can’t deny that this sounds nice. “I mean, I’m not even thirty yet, so I suppose I’m still trying to figure out who I am.”
“That has nothing to do with age,” Steven says. “You never stop wondering who you are.”
“Maybe not. But it’s especially obvious at the moment. I’m the only one in my circle of friends without a family or a career. I guess you could say it’s my thirty-year crisis.”
At least no one can accuse me of selling myself on false grounds. No wonder my career in telemarketing lasted about as long as a fruit fly does.
“Thirty! Imagine being so young,” Steven says. “All jokes aside. I remember what it was like. I’d hardly had a proper relationship by the time I was thirty. I had spent all my time on my studies and the student union life. One day I discovered that everyone else had settled down and become adults. As if I was the only one who didn’t come down to earth. It was pretty rough.”
“Exactly!”
He really does understand. We raise our glasses in a toast as the waiter brings our fish.
“I read an incredible book last week,” Steven says, without putting down his glass. “More than two hundred pages on eels. I thought I had no interest in eels whatsoever, but boy, was I wrong.”
“The Book of Eels? I’ve read that one too! Isn’t it great?”
“Beyond fascinating. I mean, everyone has heard how all eels are born in the Sargasso Sea, but there was so much more. What an amazing animal!”
“Right?”
I almost have to pinch myself. A date who talks about books! When was the last time this happened?
“What was this, again?” I poke my fork into the white fish on my plate.
“Hake,” Steven says.
I look him in the eye. “They’re probably not mysterious at all, are they?”
“Not at all,” he says, taking a big bite.
It’s like slow motion. Something about his strong jaw slowly chewing his food. I’m riveted.
“What?” Steven laughs and wipes his lips with his napkin. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
I can’t help but laugh too.
But I honestly don’t know what the matter is.
By the time we’ve eaten up our hake, we’ve discussed everything from climate change and Greta Thunberg to Me Too and Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize. Even though Steven appears to have firm opinions on most things (climate change must be arrested primarily by way of the UN and China; Me Too was much needed on a systemic level, but courts of public opinion are never a good thing; and even though Bob Dylan is the world’s foremost rock poet, the Nobel Prize should go to real authors who write real books), he always lets me have my say and seems perfectly genuine when he says he’s willing to reconsider his views.
“Would you excuse me for a moment?” he says, pushing his chair back.
“It’s fine. We have a deal.”
He laughs, and I take out my phone as he disappears around the corner. I send a quick message about the date to the Messenger group that still goes by the name Tinder Central. Then I realize his jacket is gone. Suddenly my heart is pounding. I crane my neck to look for him.
Shit. Of course he made use of our emergency exit. I can’t even manage to order a glass of wine properly.
Responses to my message are already pouring in, in the form of emojis that are applauding or sticking out their tongues. As always, only Rebecka dares to actually ask what they all want to know.
Sex?
I reply with a sunglasses emoji.
“Are you texting your other date?” Steven asks.
He’s standing behind me with his jacket over his shoulders. Relieved, I put my phone aside.
“I have a Messenger group with a couple of girlfriends, we check in to make sure everything is okay when we’re on dates.”
“Smart,” Steven says. “Can’t be too careful these days.”
I manage to avoid the sad fact that Tinder Central is a remnant of better days. I’m the only one who still dates. The others are probably at home on their sofas at this time of night.
“Dessert?” the waiter asks, handing us each a menu.
I try to read it, but I can’t focus.
“A week ago, I was on the verge of deleting Tinder,” Steven says, shaking the last drops of the wine into my glass. “Now I’m glad I stuck it out a little longer.”
“Have you been on it for long?” I ask.
“Not really—I’ve messaged with quite a few people. But there’s only a handful I’ve met in real life.”
A handful? What does that mean? Five? No way can I reveal how I’ve spent years working my way through Tinder, with an ever-expanding age range.
“It was easier in the olden days,” I say with a sigh. “When you married the neighbor boy or let your parents pick someone for you.”
Steven folds the dessert menu.
“There are too many delicious options.”
“Are we still talking about Tinder?”
When he laughs, the tip of his shoe happens to brush my foot under the table. We look at each other.
“What would the lady say to a drink instead?” He leans back with his elbow over the back of his chair. “We could find a cozier spot.”
“Well … did you have somewhere particular in mind?”
“I’d love to invite you back to my place,” Steven says, rising from his chair. “I’ve got a really nice Hennessy. Do you drink cognac?”
“Definitely.”
“But unfortunately, that will have to wait. I’ve got water damage in the bedroom. Blower fans and dust everywhere.”
Typical. Most Tinder guys hardly manage to swallow their dinner before they want to drag me home with them. ...
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