In my Hinge Era
Long time no see.
I sincerely apologize for allowing you to go so long without hearing from me. Don't worry I’m alive, I'm just not doing well. I’ve had the fortunate luck of increasing and decreasing my different anti-depressants which has caused me to have moments where I thought I was dying to moments where I stayed up until 4 AM in the attempt of trying to create my own business.
This blog isn’t about how amazing my ideas are (at least not this one anyways). I’m currently dealing with a dating app crisis.
I don’t have anything against dating apps besides the fact that they obviously suck. What are we supposed to do though? We grew up on TV shows about friend groups doing everything together, and now it’s imprinted in our Gen Z brains that we can’t go out and do anything alone. If you want to read more on that I recommend reading “Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness,” by Kristen Radtke. Fair warning; it does make you sad.
You know how terrifying it is to walk up to a group of guys to try and flirt with one of them? It’s intimidating and I also believe this goes both ways because I’ve been out with a group of my girlfriends and I can only imagine how terrifying we look. All of us hovered around a small table, laughing and glancing around at everyone else in blank curiosity. Also, let’s talk about how we don’t walk up to strangers anymore. I know back when our parents were young it was the common thing to do but with everything we know today due to social media, we are just not doing that. It’s easier and safer to just see the person, try to find their social media, stalk to make sure they’re not a psycho, like a couple of pictures, and then maybe with enough confidence you DM them or you download a dating app. This could just be a me thing though.
Anyways, I use Hinge. I’ll find two to three good matches and communicate with them for a bit to see if there’s any potential, but I think I might be destined to be alone. For clarification, I’m not mad about that. I have my expectations in my head about the kind of man I want to marry and if I can’t find that then I can’t find it. I’d rather be happy and single than miserable and in “love”. I do like talking to people though (and I love attention but that’s another problem). I had my most recent three matches and today I just ruled out the third one who sent me a 15-minute YouTube video about Antifa in America and how it’s a terrorist group organization. I would like to add for context that Mr. Anti-Antifa sent this to me after he told me he’s “not too into politics.”
There’s a cause for an eye-roll here and also an important lesson and I’ll tell you about it now. I don’t know if this is a personality trait that I’ve seen mostly men take on, or if I’m just cursed with the men I tend to find myself around. When a guy begins anything with “I’m not too into politics,” or “I don’t follow politics,” just know you’re about to sit through a rant about politics told by them in the most mansplained way possible. And with my experience, you have no hope of contributing to this conversation unless it’s to agree with them, because they won’t listen to anything you say even if they give you the space to say it.
In conclusion, I will be alone forever and I am re-downloading Hinge as I type this.