The lovely cliche of meeting the partner of your dreams while sipping a chai tea latte in a bookstore has now moved to the endangered species list. I know this because I have gone to a Barnes and Noble wearing my best outfit and an extremely challenging Tart Tarteist Pro Palette eyeshadow look, hoping that the man of my dreams will turn the corner and comment on the book that I am reading.
No, I should not have expected this to actually work, and yes, I was actually disappointed when my plan fell through. Unfortunately, I was met with a disgruntled employee asking me if I was actually going to buy the book that I was reading after sitting in the bookstore for several hours, and casually looking up through my false eyelashes, hoping to have my eyes meet the eyes of a gorgeous Dylan O’Brien Internship movie look-alike.
Discouraged in my search for the Barack to my Michelle, I dreadfully decided to jump onto my generation’s internet dating band-wagon. Due to my awkwardness, romantic comedy influenced mind, and unfamiliarity with swiping left and right, I have since deleted the app. I accept the fact that I need an organic “real life” meeting initially, before “talking,” in order to really connect with someone.
For those of you out there who are tired of internet dating and crave love cliches like me, I cheer you on and encourage you to remain hopeful that your bookstore beau is out there. But for those of you who are ready to jump on the train of swipe rights and super-likes, here is a tale of my own rookie mistakes, and how you can avoid them. I present to you a case study of overnight romance, awkwardness, and the concerned eyes of caring friends. For the sake of anonymity, I will be using names from the CW show The Vampire Diaries (R.I.P. you shall live on in our hearts).
Subject 1: Damon
Experimental error: I ignored how self-centered and obnoxious he was because he was really hot.
How to avoid my mistake: Ignore beauty in the presence of red flags, and make sure to check whether or not they seem more interested in themselves than in you.
Summary:
When I saw Damon’s profile on tinder, I automatically felt like how someone feels when they have a sugar rush or their food finally comes to the table at a restaurant. It was just a beautiful moment overall, he had large golden brown eyes, caramel skin, and extremely neat eyebrows. His smile seemed to shine brighter than the light of my iPhone screen, and it was not a moment before I swiped right that I found out he had “super-liked” me (tinder glossary at bottom of page).
I had ecstatically grabbed my friend by the shoulders and squealed/shrieked in a flurry of first super-like excitement. My friend smiled back with concern in her eyes, and we began to partake in the long back and forth texting ritual in which you can’t say too much but you have to still seem interested, when talking to a guy for the first time. He made me swoon with his vast knowledge of Game of Thrones characters and strong dreams and ambitions. I was so enthralled with his looks that I completely overlooked the fact that our entire conversation was revolving around him.
A couple of days later, as fate would have it, he somehow ended up sitting behind me at a football game. After questioning whether it was actually him behind me several times, I found the courage to ask his name. It was Damon, and we picked up right where we left off in our tinder messages. We had an interesting conversation, but I found that I asked the most questions. On top of that, he was a terrible football heckler. He shouted obscene profanity and cussed out the players that he did not like, to the point where he grasped the uncomfortable gaze of students around us looking on silently annoyed. I was pretty embarrassed to be associated with him and afterwards as we texted I realized that, in fact, he only enjoyed thorough conversations about himself. I was pretty discouraged since he was so cute, but I figured that the John Legend to my Chrissy Teigen would not dare cause a scene just because his favorite quarterback wasn’t let off of the bench.
Subject 2: Stefan
Experimental error: I made a rookie mistake and swiped right on someone who I had a class with, and I ignored how opposite our personalities were because of their cuteness. Afterwards followed weeks of doing the “act like you never met me.”
How to avoid my mistake: Again, do not let how hot they are put you in a situation where you become annoyed because your new partner would rather watch hockey instead of the entire season of Handmaiden’s tale in one sitting. Also, make sure that they aren’t within 25 feet of you every Tuesday and Thursday.
Summary:
I had been secretly instagram stalking Stefan for quite a while before I happened upon his tinder profile. That sounds creepy, but I am not going to sit here and lie. Stefan was an extremely cute, tan, curly-haired guy that sat behind me in one of my classes. He was very quiet and he looked just like a curly haired Dylan O’Brien (to me). Every time I talked to him he would be the one to initiate the conversation, but in the midst of our conversation it felt like pulling teeth.
He was atrocious at talking about anything deeper than surface level information. I am an extremely talkative person, and I have always known that I need a partner who can listen and talk as much as me. I also love having deep conversations. Stefan on the other hand was extremely shy and seemed to have a hard time warming up to someone. I can respect that someone is shy or introverted, but I tend to be more interested in extroverted guys that can out talk me until 3 a.m. respectively without taking 4 months to do so.
When I saw his profile I realized that I had two options. Option One was to swipe left and continue developing a relationship in class. Option Two meant that I could swipe right. If I took option two, he would only see that I swiped right if he also swiped right which would then mean that we were a match and both thought the other was cute and what could go wrong right? So, consequently I chose option two, and I now rue the day that i did. It turns out that he saw my profile and had the same thinking process that I had. He swiped right and we ended up being a match. Great news right? Wrong. I went to class and we spoke zero words to each other. It was weird because we would normally talk in class so everyone around us knew that something was off. I didn’t know if I was being awkward or if he was being awkward so I just decided to avoid seeing him ever again and took a completely different route to class following the incident so that I would not cross paths with him (I can be kind of over-dramatic).
Soon enough I got tired of changing my schedule just because a boy wouldn’t talk to me, so I approached him about it and asked if things were awkward. Thankfully, he said no and we picked up where we left off and just didn’t mention Tinder ever again. That incident was pretty bad because I literally changed my class route due to my extra-ness, however, it was a lesson well learned.
Subject 3: Kai
Experimental error: I overlooked his possessiveness due to (yet again) his hotness.
How to avoid my mistake: Watch out for possessiveness and jealousy especially if it’s stemming after only three days of knowing each other.
Summary:
I met Kai while sick in bed. It had been about a week of swearing off Tinder due to the Stefan incident. It wasn’t enough for me to learn that I suck at internet dating was it? I was at home for the weekend because I had a sinus infection, and out of sheer boredom I re-downloaded Tinder. I ended up matching with a very sexy track and field runner whose profile picture was of him and his grandmother (adorable but deceiving). He struck up a conversation with me about horror movies, and I love horror movies so I was automatically convinced that he had the potential to be a good contender for the upcoming cuffing season. I messaged him that night for a few hours and he casually mentioned meeting up to go get ice cream and then watch a movie at his place (insert eye-roll here). I assumed he just wanted to hook up so I kindly but boldly let him know that I was on the app for a relationship, and not just a casual situationship that would end in grief and two hours of Friends on Netflix. He agreed with me surprisingly which only made him more endearing, and we continued talking about our own personal theories that scary movies were getting less scary.
I fell asleep while texting due to my sinus infection medication and the fact that it was 12 a.m. At 10 a.m. the next morning, I was rudely awakened by several repeating notifications on my phone. They were from Kai, and he kept accusing me of “playing him” and stated that “nobody had time for this.” At first I had no idea what he was so upset about, and then I realized that he was mad solely due to the fact that I had not texted him back after his last text at 12 a.m. This was unsettling because I had mentioned to him that I was sick, and it’s also very normal for someone to go to sleep at 12 a.m., so I promptly blocked him because he was right- nobody had time for this. I wish that I had at least said something about how his actions were abnormal and a bit misogynistic to hopefully educate him, but at the time being it was just another takeaway from my tinder tragedies.
Overall, I realize now that the source of my mistakes was my tendency to overlook major red flags whenever a guy was cute. Online dating cemented the fact that beauty on the inside does matter. For now I am off of tinder and I continue to look for the bookstore boy of my dreams, but for those of you who are just now beginning to get into the online dating world, hopefully my anecdote of mishaps will clear the path for you in distinguishing the man of your dreams from just another guy sliding into your dms with overused pickup lines and a picture of their dog.