The Science of Dating in Kampala

Firstly let me say, I’m a dater.  I love dating, I have been on thousands of dates, I feel like I could write a manual just on the subject.  Internet dating?  You name the app, I’ve applied it.  OK Cupid is my favorite because I just have too many deal breakers to not sort through some of that shit before spending my precious time on a date.  I tried picking up a guy from a bar once, he told me he didn’t believe in gay people.  Didn’t believe they existed.  I left him at the subway stop.

In the US I got so good at dating I would take my dates on a randomized control trial of dates.  I’d take each man on the same date, each date with the appropriate number of stops in case things got weird/boring.  Coffee, then dinner, then drinks, then my place (for-another-drink-nothing-more-ma).  But through such a rigorous scientific process I was able to directly compare and contrast.  Do I pick the burly man twice my height with muscles etched deeper than the grand canyon?  Who picked me up and tossed me over the railing when I tried to get onto my roof?  Or the one who on the same roof got giggly off two glasses of wine but made me laugh until my sides hurt? (I always pick humor.)

The moral of the story is: science wins. 

Except when there is a complete dearth of people to date.  The sample size is just too small for anything to be significant.  I’m out of my country but still recognize the importance of someone being similar enough in education and upbringing to me to make things work.  Most expat men here either have beautiful wives/girlfriends, are leaving in a week and are just passing through, or feel they can do better, because after all, expat men outnumber us expat women 5 to 1 (or something.). 

I tried my old trusted methods.  On Ok Cupid I was asked “could I date a squid?” and “could I lift him?”  On Tinder I mostly get “I’m a pilot who is here for the night an hour away from Kampala.  Could you meet me ‘cause you cute.”  I’ve been told “I have curly hair too. We’d make some great curly haired babies.” 

This week I hit the jackpot.  A Jewish man from the states who loves Louis CK and makes jokes about schtetls.  WINNING.  He and his mom were visiting the family that they helped put through school for the last 10 years.  We went out with his “sister and brother” to various clubs.  He was flirtatious.  I started planning our son’s bris. Then I turn around and he’s making out with his 18-year-old Sponsor a Sister.  Oi.

SO now dear readers, I’m giving up.  And not one of those: I’m giving up but only to keep looking behind me to see if he’s “been there the whole time” kind of giving up.  That’s it.  Fin.  Shesh.


I'm just going to buckle down and save more babies from Malaria.  Because that's the science that matters.  Right?

No I cannot lift you.