I grew up in a small town and attended even smaller schools. Everyone knew everything about anything personal. Whenever a young couple blossomed, it was known by all and everyone shared their opinions whether they were wanted or not. Since I had no interest in dating someone that I grew up with or dealing with the gossip of people around me, I put romance on the backburner and dedicated myself to studying rom-coms instead.
Wanting to live out my hopeless romantic fantasies, I decided to participate in the sacred rite of passage as a college girl and downloaded a dating app. I sincerely made a profile because I truly wanted to meet someone and go out on a date. However, after encountering a wide variety of obnoxious men, I chose to approach my matches with a new mindset.
We as women tend to applaud men for doing the bare minimum which causes the bar to be set extremely low. I suppose the argument I make is that I wanted to raise the bar and reveal to men that saying you support feminism doesn’t make you a good person. My interests soon shifted to humbling men and exposing male fragility, so I had to give it up before my vicious jokes turned into borderline cyberbullying. I asked one guy for his curl routine and told another that he wasn’t six foot five inches tall. After a guy insulted me, I fired back by making fun of his love of dinosaurs. When he asked who didn’t like dinosaurs, I simply responded with “the asteroid.” Historically accurate and a solid burn.
Also, I encountered a few online dating horrors. For example, one gentleman suggested that we “part ways” because I claimed I was drop-dead hilarious. Obviously, he disagreed. Another shining knight chose to ask me if I had OCD. Another had the audacity to say, “I assume that you like to drink orange juice after brushing your teeth.” Needless to say, that’s where the conversation ended. I made the mistake of giving multiple suitors my Snapchat only to eventually block them. I blocked one in particular simply because he said “sowry” which forced me to swallow my own vomit. My personal favorite would have to be when I was talking to a man, and he sent a selfie of him and his friend who I had just ghosted. Apparently, the ghosted guy was ready to take me out, and his friend realized it was the same girl who was harassing him.
While these stories live rent-free in my head, I did have some good conversations with a few men. But I quickly realized I wasn’t ready to go out on actual dates, so I deleted the app. This just proved that even though I am single, I prefer to mingle with a real person who I can meet naturally. I guess you could say I’m still waiting for my meet-cute.