As a retired user of dating apps, I wanted to rank my experience with my past matches during my exploring era in the city. This was my 2nd attempt at using a dating app to just see what was out there, especially since I was living near the city and wanted to meet with other college students, since I had a personal “no dating anyone at Lasell” policy for myself. Here are my personal rankings and matches from the city.
Match Rank: 8/10
After hearing about fraternity parties at MIT, I decided to use Bumble to match with someone from there. I suddenly got a match with a curly-haired mountain climber fraternity guy from MIT. He was fun to have met and I did go to a party from his fraternity. We ended up becoming friends after meeting and left it at that. But with the mistake of being just friends and then hiding my feelings until the end, it causes some heartache. I’m marking him as a 8 for ghosting towards the end.
- Finance Bro from Back Bay
Match Rank: 7.5/10
This match had been super respectful since the beginning of our match. He gets bonus points for all the, “don’t worry, everything today is on me,” phrases, with his actions matching. He was a super nerdy real estate agent who went to Suffolk and was the same grade as me at the time. We bonded over our love of movies and romantic comedies.
- Music Teacher
Match Rank: 8/10
This Berklee alum was not my usual type. He had a nonchalant character and was very artsy. As someone who is the usual creative one in the relationship, it was nice to be creative with someone else. He was a long-haired curly-haired drummer who also happened to be in a band, on top of being a music teacher. He was fun to have gotten to explore the city with as he was the first to take me out to places and was down for adventures. However, his inability to communicate and becoming distant puts him as an 8 at the end.
- Bongos
Match Ranking: 7/10
As we were both looking for similar things in each other and had a similar cultural background, he is marked as a 7 on my ranking. However, his nickname comes from our first meet up when I had left for the bathroom, and found him playing with bongos and a hat. He quickly put it away and apologized. After sharing this story with my roommates, we decided to nickname him “bongos” for future reference.
These characters were definitely interesting in my dating experience in school, but they did teach me lessons for the better, especially discovering how I date and navigate the dating world in my 20s. Although there can be some heartaches and confusion at times, there is so much excitement, dancing-after-a-good-time feelings and so much adventure when keeping an open eye out.