The Heads Or Tails Of Digital Dating

I switched dating apps. No, this time it wasn’t because awful people drove me away. It’s because Tinder kept demanding my phone number and wouldn’t let me login without it. I’ve never indulged corporations that think they can hold me to ransom, especially when I have a choice. So my reasons are purely business/ethics based, not personal.

I think there’s something about a newer interface that makes it possible for me to carry in a new approach. It’s like being in a new room so even if the people in it are likely to be no different from the ones in the room you were last in, you can approach them with a fresh outlook. And perhaps people do use the other apps a little differently – a little more effort in building bios, a little less of entitlement in their first messages.

I received the following opening message from one person:

“You were my boss at so-and-so company.”

At first, I couldn’t place him. He was referring to my first time as a manager, where I inherited a large team of rapidly moving people. Then I deducted a decade, added some gawkiness, removed experience-based confidence and tacked on an eager-to-please smile onto his pictures. And there he was. It’s a lovely thing to be able to remember people’s origins and then realise how far they’ve come. Then I remembered that this was on a dating app and it got weird.

I connected with someone else, deciding to meet for a coffee a little later. I suppose I was wondering if it would be like my one 8-hour-look-where-did-the-time-fly date. It wasn’t. For starters, I mistook someone else standing outside the restaurant for this person. Is it just my generation that finds that “Hi, ABC?”, “No, sorry” interaction awkward? The mistaken person didn’t appear ruffled or even judgemental. He just went back to staring at his phone and I briefly debated asking if he’d like to be said person instead. Then I pulled my manners and age together and walked in. It wasn’t a bad conversation, though a tad reserved. It made me think of how much harder this whole thing must be for people who aren’t naturally extroverted or vivacious. We chatted for about an hour after which he had a work thing. And no, that probably wasn’t an excuse to get away since he messaged a few times after that.

There have been a few irritants. I’m rapidly realising that the kind of men who demand ‘interesting conversations, not if u typ lyk dis’ are also the likeliest to be inadequate conversationalists themselves, with the extent of their loquaciousness being “LOL, gimme your number I wanna Whatsapp”. True story. We demand from the world what we do not posses or do not feel like trying for and where is this truer than in how most men treat women?

I am liking that there’s been nary a ripple in my emotional balance from these last couple of months of dating experiences. There is the occasional ‘Sigh, it would be nice to have somebody’ but I get over that pretty quickly. I’m working on the idea that not every relationship will turn into the damaged nightmare I was in last time and it’s taking. But I’m afraid it will stop being fun. I know now that making an effort with dressing up my body and my mind will always help in keeping my life exciting and fun. But I doubt most men (or people for that matter) have the inclination or capacity to do that. And when other people aren’t as committed to a life of joy, it doesn’t take long for your own to sink. This kind of casual dating lets me get away before other people’s lack of alignment with my own way of life sabotages mine.

I saw this thread on Twitter this morning…

People who do not enjoy dating apps, how do you meet/date people?

— 🌺👀 (@maluhthee) August 20, 2018

…talking about how a lot of people who don’t enjoy dating apps are just choosing to just not date. I guess I’m headed in the same direction.

Eventually I’m realising love, joy, sparkle, romance, chemistry whatchamacallit are matters of complete chance. You can’t predict who, when or what. The laws of probability tell me that there’s some value in maximising my encounters with other people but there’s no real guarantee. Too long of the left-right swipe business and it can really dampen one’s good humour. People manage to find what they want without doing any of these things. And others don’t, even if they’ve done all the maximising they can think of. And I suppose that’s okay.

Heads or Tails, it’s just a coin flip anyway.