Speed dating through NYC has left me winded. Tinder,
Ok Cupid, Coffee Meets Bagel, Cupid Drinks a Coffee. I have been on 19 dates in 2 months. It’s not the dates that are leaving me
exhausted but the ease at which each person enters and then abruptly leaves my
life. It’s the dichotomy between
the almost relentless connections we maintain on social media and the jarring
transience of our dating life.
I dated my last boyfriend for only 4 months but Facebook
still shows me his picture every day.
Linked in tells me he got that new job he wanted and Instagram tells me
it wasn’t in my head, he really did like her, love her?
And while it’s totally messed up that we can’t move
on, that I know he ate a banana for breakfast, it’s also sort of
comforting. There remains a connection
that justifies the days and dreams and anxieties I shared with him. It’s not just gone.
If Facebook anchors me to past loves, online dating
has me throwing lines out again and again just to leave me baitless and hungry.
I am so sorry you still love your ex-girlfriend but
please do not cry on our date. It’s
embarrassing. And I know you’re excited
but please don’t reach over and honk my boob 30 minutes into our first beer. Because that’s sexual assault and the guy
before you tried it already.
And although it’s fun to always have a story about a
crazy to share over brunch, I would give up the laughs to share a cup of coffee
with someone who has lasted through the season.
And so I reach out and lean in and learn about your sister’s
new baby and how you also just want a connection, something to sustain past
this drink, the now. And then it
ends. Facebook told me that the guy I
dated in college for 2 months rode a horse in his wedding but I’ll never see
you again. After two more dates I won’t remember if you were you from Kentucky
or Tennessee?
We love to live for love and love for life. So how do I rectify an online life where I’m
almost forced to attach with a dating life of first chapters?
A few weeks ago I met up with Matt, a man I had been
texting with for days. Both curly
haired Italians, we hotly contested how my Brooklyn sawce would beat his Boston
sahce. When we met, we didn’t stop talking until I hit him in the face with my
talking hands. But neither of us felt
the romance.
Would he be just another Matt OkCupid in my phone to
be erased in a month?
Yesterday, I went on a date with someone who didn’t
believe in Gay people. Didn’t believe
they existed. I immediately called Matt. “That’s nothing,” he said. “I went on a date with a girl who asked me to
spank instead of kiss her at the end of the night.” I smiled because 1) good for her and 2)
because I knew I would see Matt again when he posted on Facebook tomorrow.
