You are done with relationships. Who isn’t? This is 2020, get on the poly-bus, download Tinder, have some dates, make the sex and stop worrying so damned much.
Mike, I know you’re reading this, so deal with it.
As full disclosure, I’m a 39-year-old lady who was in a committed relationship for 15 years. Let’s do the math. Given that my relationship ended in 2019, that means I haven’t dated since 2004, when Tubgirl was still a thing. After an amicable dissolution, I decided to dip my old, haggard toe into the online dating market. Here’s what I’ve learned.
There are some oft-repeated phrases on profiles that could either be assets or drawbacks, depending on your desires. "Ethically nonmonogamous" is a great example. This could mean one of a few things: "What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her," "Unicorn hunters,"
"We’re in denial about not being attracted to each other anymore" or "Single, but my ego is big enough that I think I can bag more tail than yours." I always swipe left on these—not because I have any objection to the philosophy, but more because the phrase "ethically non-monogamous" grosses me out.
Summing up your personality based on the Meyers-Briggs system seems to be all the rage. I am too A (apathetic) to look your letters up, S (skeptical of your ability to assess your own personality objectively) and S (supremely annoyed that this is how we now classify ourselves.), which makes me an ASS. This seems legit, so I’m putting that on my profile.
There is a vast swath of mysterious daters, who post nothing about themselves whatsoever in their profile. I guess photos are supposed to speak for themselves, but when those photos are of things like "tree," "fancy car," "dog" and "lake," I am 100% convinced that you are ugly and boring. Swipe left.
Do not put pictures of your kid on Tinder. This should go without saying, but somehow, it doesn’t. I can’t even elaborate on this, but
I’ve seen it more times than I have fingers, so please stop.
Let’s also cool it with the gym pics. I get that you are proud of your physique, but please, I don’t personally need to see how many times you’ve nearly prolapsed your anus dead lifting, brah.
It took me a while to learn, but some of these phrases that turn up again and again are easily translated, and include (but, are not limited to) "In town for the weekend" (let me give you herpes), "We can say we met somewhere else" (no one IRL will date me and I carry terrible shame for having to resort to this, and by proxy, so should you), "feminist" (I’ll say anything to get laid), "discreet" (cheating), "give me a reason to delete this app" (oh God, I’m so alone), "great sense of humor" (boring and unfunny, maybe clinical depression) and "musician" (unemployed narcissist).
When you actually find someone who seems like they might not be a complete waste of your time, and, if by some magical event, they reciprocate, someone will now have to say hello. 90% of people are not bold enough to do that, so it’s probably on you. You’ve got nothing to lose, so go for it, but be forewarned—even if you’ve both made a positive initial assessment of one another (and, made the swipe-left agreement that, "Yeah, you seem less than horrible"), there’s still a huge probability that your "hello" will be met with dead air. This remains a bit of a mystery to me, but I’m assuming it has something to do with the abject terror of possibly having a conversation with someone as far out of your league as I am.
When you do actually manage to rope someone marginally interesting or cute into conversation, now the dance begins. What sort of discourse is appropriate? Small talk? Do you jump right into soliciting naughty pictures with courgettes, try to make some actual intellectual conversation or move straight into dumping your emotional train wreck on them? What won’t scare them off? I like to ask "would-you-rathers" and see how they react. "Would you rather full on piss yourself every time you sneezed, or no matter what you do, you always smell aggressively of horses?" is a good conversation starter (or, ender...depending). It may lack the directness and cachet of "Can I put the thing in the thing?" but, it’s a good vetting tool.
So, now you’ve actually agreed to meet up. Good for you. Do you go straight for the notell-motel or somewhere where you’re less likely to get murdered? When you do meet, after all this elaborate dancing around? What if there’s no spark? What if they DO smell aggressively of horses? What if, what appeared to be a charming young lady, turns out to be a mob of angry squirrels in a trench coat? That’s always the risk with these things and has been long before the advent of the circus sideshow that is Tinder. Just remember to tell someone where you’re going, bring your mace, your strap-on and a sense of optimism. Even if it doesn’t go anywhere, the worst thing that will probably happen is some awkward conversation. Best case scenario, everyone gets orgasms and no one gets syphilis— but, more likely, you’ll just have something 10% more fun to spend your evening doing than crying alone, getting drunk and watching reruns.
Eventually, as the novelty of the thing wears thin, you’ll find yourself considering deleting it. But, now you realize you’ve completely forgotten how to meet people in any other context. Do singles bars even exist anymore? Is your life just going to be an endless loop of swipe-chat-flirt-abject disappointment? The answer is "probably," but you’ll never know, unless you try.
That’s why I ultimately deleted it. Because, as it turns out, I’d rather be disappointed in person than online—dating doesn’t have to be a Russian roulette of internet algorithms. I can decide off the bat how much I don’t like you (because I’m too much of an ASS).
Esmeralda Rupp-Spangle is a writer, marathon sleeper, professional flea trainer and aspiring lumberjack. She can be found on MeWe by name, or on Instagram at @EsmeraldaSilentCitadel (but, not on Tinder—sorry, folks).
