I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for when I signed up for an account, which in retrospect was the root of the problem. 

I was a junior in college at the time, about two weeks into a semester-long study program in Sevilla, Spain. For whatever reason, that particular night, I was not out at some bar de tapas with friends, sipping tinto de verano, gossiping about our classmates who were at the discoteca getting blackout drunk (instead of respectably tipsy, like us), and burning my fingers in my eagerness to get a bite of fresh patatas bravas. 

Nor was I on one of my long, nighttime strolls through the narrow, meandering streets of Sevilla, watching people finish late-night dinners at restaurants, ducking into 17th-century churches that caught my fancy, and frequently getting lost. (Not to worry: I could always find my way again once I caught sight of the cathedral spire, La Giralda.)

Oh no, I was in my room, alone, hunched over my laptop, determined to give the world of app-based dating a try. 

Prior to leaving, some of my friends had joked with me about the possibility of finding love during my study program. I’d never dated anyone before, despite wanting to. 

Spain, far from the responsibilities of work and the student newspaper (as well as from the watchful eyes of my parents) seemed like my best opportunity, at least for a casual fling. 

Sevilla did not disappoint either, as a backdrop for a potential romantic encounter. The yellow, white and terracotta-colored buildings, the orange trees that still had fruit on them when I arrived, the Puente de Isabel II which spanned the River Guadalquivir to connect Triana, the ceramics district where I was staying, with the city center—all of it seemed, as my roommate and I often remarked, like an excellent setting for a rom-com. 

To be sure, there were some barriers. James Baldwin, in his essay “A Question of Identity,” writes of the difficulty of breaking into European social life as an American studying in postwar Paris. I quickly found the same was true in 21st-century Sevilla. Meanwhile, my American classmates offered friendship and camaraderie, but no prospects for romance. 

And thus, Tinder. 

The first stage of using Tinder was sort of a cross between Instagram and the “Design a Princess” games I’d played on my mom’s phone as a kid. After setting up a profile about yourself, you selected all the traits of your ideal mate. Did they smoke? Could they drink? What religion should they be? What age? Did Myer-Briggs personality type or zodiac sign matter to you? 

Only one of these questions posed any challenge to me: what kind of a relationship was I looking for? 

Did I want a short-term, Roman Holiday-style, study-abroad fling, or was I looking for the love of my life? 

I had no idea, and after agonizing over the question for five minutes or so, I brushed past it. 

The second stage, swiping, was more like online shopping. I was presented with an endless store of options that more or less met my criteria. Many were definite nos. (Despite having said I was in the market for 19- to 25-year-olds, the algorithm offered up an abundance of 18-year-olds who looked 16, and 30-year-olds who looked 40.) However, others seemed promising enough that I swiped right, figuring that I could weed them out during the third stage, chatting. 

I didn’t actually get to the third stage. Within a day of setting up an account and before I’d made any matches, I was asked to verify my account, and shortly thereafter informed that my account was suspended. 

Undeterred, I set up an account on a different dating app and returned to swiping. Soon, I had some matches, and I even briefly messaged with someone. Then, I went to bed. 

The next morning, I opened my laptop to discover that my Tinder ban was permanent. 

Indignant, I fired off an appeal. What had I done wrong? Was it the verification photos? Had I swiped through too many matches? Had I changed my settings too many times?

However, as my annoyance at being kicked off without apparent cause settled, I felt something else. Eager to avoid naming this feeling, I opened the other app. There, I had a dozen or so DMs and matches. Which, if I was going to find my study-abroad romance, I need to begin sorting through and responding to. 

Instead, I stared at them with the same dull dissatisfaction that fills my heart when I see more Target ads and LinkedIn job alerts in my inbox. And I knew that my second reaction to being kicked off Tinder had been relief. 

I deleted both profiles. 

All day, I moped about the apartment and the parts of the city closest to it, trying to parse out my reactions. Why was I so happy to discover that the most popular online dating option was permanently closed to me? Why didn’t I want to take the opportunities the other app had presented? 

It was Sunday, so most of my friends were at church, and I couldn’t get their opinion or use them to distract myself. 

Finally, after dinner, I went down to the river. As I sat on the worn stones of the riverfront, amorous couples and other strangers all about me, laughing, talking, and making out, everything fell into place. 

I did not want to have a study-abroad fling. I was already in love with the city itself, and I did not want to give up for some three-month relationship. 

Moreover, I did not really want to be going on dates; I wanted to be going on little adventures with friends or all by myself. If my life was any genre at that moment, it was not romantic comedy, but a coming-of-age. And maybe later on, when I had returned from Spain and had nothing better to do, I’d find someone. 

This conviction was strengthened when, not long after, I received an invitation from friends to go out for gelato later in the week, and again the next week, when I took the bus, alone, to see the Roman ruins of Italica on the outskirts of the city. 

Since then, I’ve kept that moment on the riverbank in varying degrees of remembrance. It’s easy to be happy single when you’re in the most beautiful city in the world, surrounded by lots of friends with almost unlimited free time. It’s harder when you’re bored, and your friends are unavailable. 

And when you’re looking to get into a relationship, it’s a lot less devastating to receive the impersonal, quasi-robotic rejection of an app than it is, for instance, that of a classmate or, worse, a friend. 

Still, whenever I find myself pining for some abstract lover, I think of Sevilla.

Grace Buller

After graduating from Calvin in May 2025 with a degree in writing and Spanish, G. E. Buller decided to stay in Grand Rapids. Currently, she is working as a special education aide. Her non-writing hobbies include fussing over her aquarium and reading about medieval/early modern nuns.