Bumble is what I like to call a women empowerment dating app. We [women] have to start the conversation, and really assert ourselves. Women have now been able to retract from being stereotyped as the gatherers and be the true hunters we are, except this time we judge the prey by how attractive they look in their mirror selfies. When I first got Bumble I liked that; it made me feel fully in charge of my dating future. Sadly, the feeling of control and empowerment my friends and I were feeling has slowly slipped in the abyss. Each date and/or match has somehow gotten weirder or more heartbreaking. My “Girl Gang” has had some of these experiences in the last month.
The story I will be sharing today I’d like to call The Theatrical Exit” in spirit of my matches’ Musical Theatre major. I’m going to call this man “Phantom” to stick with today’s theatre theme. When I matched with Phantom it was a breath of fresh air; he seemed like a normal person. He was a couple years older, had a solid job, and we shared a passion for the arts. Since Phantom was one of my first serious Bumble matches, I got excited about the idea of possibly “dating” this guy. Our conversations were actually competent and more than just “DTF”, which gave my naive freshman self a ray of hope. Phantom shared a mutual love for the band ELO and the artist Elton John which made me feel like he had taste in the same basic things. We shared playful banter about TV shows and random opinions on pop culture. Phantom really showed an interest for me by texting consistently and frequently, and he finally popped the question (not that one… that would’ve been creepy).
Finally, I was going on a date! He told me he would pick me up and take me to a cute lunch place in the city. I hadn’t actually been excited to go on a date with a guy in a while, so this was a big deal to me. Sadly, as quickly as I matched with Phantom, he vanished into the unknown. He had set up this entire date and then 30 minutes before he unmatched me and I couldn’t contact him. I had officially been “ghosted” – as the kids would say. I was a newbie to the online dating game and didn’t ask for any other way to contact him, so once he unmatched me on Bumble, that was the end of my three day romance with Phantom. That hour of rejection and loneliness was sad, but I got Salsa Rico in the dining hall and got over it.
If you learn anything from my first true Bumble experience: know your worth! Phantom missed a fantastic lunch date with me and that is 100% a loss for him. I must’ve dodged a bullet if he was going to jump through a bunch of hoops just to ghost me in the end. To this day, I have no idea why he did what he did, but I wish him the best and whatever the reason is, I hope it was the right decision for him. Also… get his Snapchat!