Never Kissed An Apolitical
Photograph by Clawdia Marin, modeled by Ambria Elàn and Josephine Rose
As a seasoned user of Tinder, I one day decided that I should branch out from the usual. Try out some new avant-garde dating app to see if I would find someone better suited to me. After a browse of the various options, I decided to take a shot at both Bumble and Hinge. Not realising that Bumble meant I had control of the conversation, and that the anxiety of it would swallow me whole, I was, personally, already quite turned off from the idea. Filling out my profile anyway; wondering the last time I had my height checked; considering if I really drink that much to choose ‘yes’ or ‘socially’; I was taken aback by the option to enter my political leaning. Having used Tinder for about two years prior, I forgot you might want to know more about a person than their age and their favourite music. Not to forget that your bio is completely self-directed, you can leave out important details that not everyone wants to know.
Myself, I always crave to know someone’s political leaning. However, I thought, on Bumble at least, I would just be turned off by seeing someone stating that they politically leant ‘Conservative’ (somewhat of equivalent to Republican). Instead, I could appease the honesty, and that I wouldn’t need to bother beginning the conversation, becoming moderately attached, and then realising I would have to cut the ties and start again. But what struck me as slightly more uncomfortable was the ‘apolitical’ option.
To me, apoliticism essentially means indifference. Indifference means wanting every tomorrow to be the same as today. This is a comfortable option for many, I admit. As an indirect consequence of that indifference, someone else’s horrific today will be the same tomorrow. However, we sit in these hamster balls on the coast of Corfu, or in our lavish homes warm with underfloor heating and with nobody disturbing our peace. Fence-sitting, or what I want to call hamster-ball sitting, means we are sheltered enough not to be effected by the external decisions made on our lives. As far as we are concerned, we have no trouble finding a job, we have a parent’s salary to rely on or a trust-fund. We are sitting on money, we are comfortable, nobody has ever told us to get out of the country and therefore we are above politics.
It’s definitely been heard before. The ‘I don’t really follow politics’, ‘I’ve never really been into it’ or ‘Politics just makes me sad’ so you try to sage it out like a bad vibe. Whilst I know these people are not necessarily bad and whilst I feel that I am disturbing their peace, I just feel their apoliticism can be transformed for the better, to support those whose lives are drastically altered by political decisions.
As it means little to us, we can take two directions. The first is apoliticism, the other is siding with a comfortable option e.g. supporting your parents’ preferred party. Not caring and not knowing can often coincide with letting harmful politics slide. Giving it the a-okay by default because it hasn’t received a substantial amount of ‘No, this is not okay’s. Obviously, politics is quite a deep-rooted thing, since it’s been so long established. Reasons your parents vote for a certain party may not represent the reasons the party is doing so well now. You may not realise that that party is voting to stop pay rises for healthcare workers, or bidding to end free movement, or the fact that racist, xenophobic, homo/transphobic and misogynist ideologies stem from said party.
The other could just be not deciding to vote at all. I am very aware that not all political parties are perfect. Parties on both sides of the spectrum have shortcomings, with leftist parties often vouching for the rich to cough up more of their money in taxes. I’m sure it can never be easy to want to part with your money, and I think it reflects on our values as humans. Abstaining from a vote effects a ballot massively. The 32.6% of the electorate who didn’t vote in the 2019 general election in the U.K. could have turned the vote on its head. If those (roughly) 15 million people had been more informed on politics, understood the brevity of it and the impact of it, we may have been able to see a more positive turnout and a, therefore, more objective result.
However, I feel politics has left many people jaded. It’s understandable. With things going pear-shaped and right-wing politics becoming popular, and left-wing politics having to become more extreme to tackle it, a lot of people don’t want anything to do with it. But behind all of these arguments still remain people who need a voice. Who are under-represented. Who are still being marginalised. Politics requires empathy when you are not the one being directly affected.
Nonetheless, thanks to this option on dating apps, I can figure out who just won’t care about the things I care about. Though all I want to do is send them a text saying please care. As someone who is becoming extremely tired of having to do the explaining, of having the do the educating that should have been done anyway, I don’t have the energy to try. And, for those who tell me not to get my politics involved in my relationships, I have said I just cannot do that. When your existence has become so politicised, it’s impossible to step out of that skin. So, I’ll continue onwards in my journey, until I delete the apps again.