Are You Getting Any? In My Country, Dating Apps Are Only for Lonely People

As the coronavirus pandemic continues, Are You Getting Any? interviews are conducted via video call.

Quality of sex overall: 4/10
Frequency of sex: 2/10
Intimacy levels: 6/10
How you feel generally about the people you fuck: 6/10
How happy you are with the amount of time you have for sex: 9/10

VICE: Hi, Oscar. From looking at your scores, you don’t have sex very often, but you’re happy about that?
Oscar: Yeah, I get so stressed about it – thinking about what to do, how to get the other person more comfortable – so I prefer not to; it’s easier. I think I’m asexual. My first time specifically, I thought, ‘I don’t like this, I don’t want to do this anymore.’ But then I did it again and it was kind of the same thing. I thought, ‘I’m asexual, and that’s not bad.’ So I started to read about it, and thought, ‘That’s me.’

How did you feel before you started researching? 
It was easier to tell my friends that I do like sex, rather than to explain to every single one that I’m asexual and that I don’t really like it at all. I don’t think they’re very open to that, though. I told a couple, but they took it as a joke.

Oh, that’s not great.
It’s fine – it’s not like I’m going to have sex with them. 

Fair enough! Have you been dating recently? 
Yeah, I’m talking to a girl right now. She’s very understanding and funny, and she laughs at my jokes. That’s important. We’re not going to have sex, though, even in like six or eight months, because it’s not that common to do that.

Among you and your friends? 
No, in Mexico it’s completely different. If you have sex with a person on the first date, it’s not well received. You have to develop a very strong connection before you have sex. 

How do you usually meet the people you date? 
I’ve known this girl since I was in primary school. 

Have you ever tried dating apps? 
I downloaded Tinder in 2015, when I was 15, just to see what it’s all about, but ever since then I haven’t used an app. It’s not a common thing here. People use them, but they’re for those who are desperate. Basically, if you have a dating app, it means you’re lonely and you don’t know how to talk to people.

Well, OK then. So you meet people in person every time? 
Yeah, in bars or, like, discos. Obviously now it’s a pandemic, so we’re all at home, so there’s not much dating going on.

How does that usually go?
I have a method. 

Tell me all about it. 
You know wingmen? I’ll scan for ladies in the bar and look at who is single, or whether they’re with someone. Then I get a friend to see if she looks over [at me], then I smile and will approach her if she does. It’s not my favourite place to meet people though.

What kind of dates do you go on?
I’ll take them to the park, or for pizza or a drive-in movie – loads have come up since the pandemic started. Taking a girl to your house, or to her house, is not a thing you can do in the first few weeks.

Very traditional. 
Yes, I will always pick her up and take her home. If you tell a girl to meet at some location or something, it sounds like you don’t care how they get home and whether they get home safely.

What do you think of the way we date in the UK or the US from what you’ve seen?
In Mexico, we have a word – I don’t know if you have it in English – “promiscua”?

Oh yeah. “Promiscuous?”
Yeah! That is mostly what we think over here. Where I live, it’s common that people have family in the States, so we see our relatives from there – it’s like, they’re so liberal and promiscuous. When we watch American movies, we’re like, ‘No, that never happens in real life. A boy meets a girl and the first night they have sex? That’s not real.’

So no one you know has ever done that?
My girl friends definitely do not. Maybe only one of my guy friends would, but he’s like the fuck boy of the group. 

What does it take for you to want to sleep with someone?
I want to know how they think and what their opinions on things are. Otherwise, what’s the point?