Asthmatic straight guy joins Grindr looking for a spare inhaler: ‘People are nice here so worth a shot’

Asthmatic straight guy joins Grindr looking for a spare inhaler

A straight man joined Grindr in a desperate effort to find an inhaler for his worsening asthma and yes, healthcare systems are perfectly fine and functioning.

In one of queer Twitter’s most ancient traditions, a user shared a screenshot of a Grindr profile in England, he said, on Saturday (3 April).

“Spare inhaler?” the user had as his display name.

“Lol, not even gay,” the user wrote in their about section. “Straight, just desperate for a blue inhaler and can’t get one until Tuesday.

“Am ducking [sic] dying lmao. People are nice here, so worth a shot.”

“I’m sorry,” wrote Joseph, who shared the post on his Twitter. “This has absolutely finished me OFF.”

Joseph later confirmed that the Grindr user eventually did get their hands on an inhaler.

Twitter users can’t get over that a straight guy joined Grindr to find an inhaler

But between the man using, of all things, a queer dating and hook-up app for healthcare, and that he’s a straight guy innocently saying that all Grindr users are “nice”, Twitter didn’t quite know how to process this.

Tallying up nearly 60,000 likes, the post came to capture how healthcare systems – especially in the US – can be unyielding for those unable to pay the price for daily, life-saving medicines.

Others just couldn’t get over that there is a real human being who believes Grindr users are “nice”.

Some asthmatic users even shared their own stories of the lengths they’ve gone to acquire an inhaler, with one New Jersey-based user saying they put out a similar request on a local Facebook page.

In England, asthma treatments are only available on the NHS as a free prescription for certain people and groups, such as the elderly, the young and those on certain welfare programmes, among others.

For those illegible for subsidised asthma medicines, they tend to cost £9.35 at pharmacies – these regular payments can quickly mount up for the some four million adults who have asthma, according to Asthma UK, a leading health charity.

Around three-quarters of people with asthma struggle to afford their prescriptions which can run upwards of £100 per year, Asthma UK found in a study. Some prescriptions can cost even as high as £500.

This means some skip their doses or stretch out an inhaler’s use for longer than advised – the cost of a simple breath, it warned, can be deadly.

In the US, being able to afford prescription medications such as inhalers often requires top-notch health insurance, disposable income or even just the time to hunt around for discounted medicines.

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