When I went to Machu Picchu this past May, I thought I would find a meditative place to sit alone and think about my ancestral past — never crossing paths with dudebros who pose in front of the Incas' sacred citadel for their Tinder profile pictures.

I thought this even though I knew they had to get those pictures somehow. The Machu Picchu selfie is such a cliché in dating app culture, I irrationally hated every man whose initial offer to me was a photo of himself making a strong-man pose before the place I've been taught to revere since before I could read. Swipe left.

I felt like these people didn't deserve to mark it as a notch on their belts, especially before I could go there. It wasn't fair because that place was not theirs, it was mine.

I'm the one who learned in grade school about the might of the Incas and the tragedy of their conquest by the Spanish. I was sure visiting this site meant a lot more to me than it ever could to them.