Getting Picky on Dating Apps

Or, how we arrived to Valentine's Day.

Feb 14, 2024

wassup girl, just got my booster :) got a non-binary sister, glad you’re an ally 😅 anyway, I’ve been thinking a lot about the 71 brave hero police officers the CIA killed when they did 9/11 💙😭

This Valentine’s Day arrives several weeks after my two-year anniversary with my girlfriend, which we spent eating edibles, indulging in cheesecake and cocktails, and attending The Book of Mormon. On this romantically contrived holiday, I will be treating her to an intimate homemade dinner of dijon-marinated lamb leg, paired with roasted potatoes and heirloom carrots. I am informing you of the details of my Valentine’s Day plans because ~~my girlfriend harangued me to let my audience know how much I love her and that she was recently accepted into a Ph.D. clinical psychology program~~ I cherish the time we share, for every moment spent apart is an agonizing disintegration of my soul, each passing second is a dagger thrust straight through my heart. The point of finding and nurturing love, I have come to realize, is not from enduring hardship at each other’s side, or committed support of each other’s ambitions, or that feeling of unrestrained ecstasy when you stare into each other’s eyes and know that you have found a partner that you want to share the whole of yourself and every worthwhile milestone in life. No, you hopeless romantic idiots, the point of finding love is the fleeting feeling of superficial validation that arrives when a person you knew from undergrad hits like on your Valentine’s Day post and you can convince yourself that they’re a miserable 30-something single undesirable twat and they’re totally jealous of your relationship and they look bloated in all the photos from their friend’s bachelorette weekend and fuck them for hooking up with the guy you liked from your Psych 101 class and for telling you that you couldn’t pull off the pixie haircut that one time back in 2012. MY RELATIONSHIP IS PRECIOUS AND NOTHING CAN CHANGE THAT!!

Everyone who has found themselves a life partner knows that this is a coveted spot, but a highly contingent one. Despite or because I have come across countless Hinge or Bumble profiles, I had both a good idea of what I wanted in a girlfriend and no real idea of how I would find one. I knew, from these profiles, that it would involve a brunette nerdy/hipster type who likes music and cooking and traveling, and also would entertain my mind-spiral rants about the fall of capitalism and how honeydew is an invalid fruit and why Eli Manning isn’t a Hall of Fame quarterback. These profiles would be adorned with rear-end shots of women looking off into the middle distance while the sun sets behind them, or it would be a video loop of them cheers-ing margs or bloody marys with friends at brunch. There were more daring and edgy thrill-seekers with pics of axe-throwing or indoor rock climbing. Some even made spurious claims of how they were “fluent in sarcasm,” but when they opened with “What’s one thing I should know about you,” I would respond with “I’m HIV+” and then they immediately unmatched me for inexplicable reasons. Some would make it very clear that they are very committed to their career, and a series of subtle contextual clues suggested that they would be doing at least some probing into what kind of meds I’m on during the first date, and possibly in additional future dates.

All of these photos and prompts, I guess, were meant to provoke me into making a cartoon-style awooga sound. But the person behind the online facade either had much more depth than what was articulated on their profile, or their personalities were so incongruent with their self-branding, that it would beg the question as to whether they are undergoing some kind of undiagnosed psychosis.

My eight years of singledom preceding my current relationship have exposed me to an unnerving level of repetition on dating apps, so I understand how hard it is to sift through the clutter to find something ✨R E A L✨.

It feels like the questions are almost streamlined to direct people to the same “clever” response.

Let’s debate: Pineapple on pizza.
I’ll fall for you: If you trip me.
I’m overly competitive about: Everything.
Let’s make sure we’re on the same page about: The Office being the greatest show ever.
Dating me is like: Biting into an oatmeal raisin cookie and realizing it’s chocolate chip. (Sometimes they’ll swap “chocolate chip,” for, “…and then realizing it’s an edible.”)
Worst idea I’ve ever had: Downloading this app. (Many go on to add “Maybe you can change my mind.”)
All I ask is: That you’re in therapy.
Together we could: Rob a bank.
Unusual skills: Folding a fitted sheet
The quickest way to my heart: Food/Beer/Tequila.
The best way to ask me out: By asking me out.

Given the choice between answering genuinely and appearing clever, most people will choose the latter in the same way that people say the number “seven” when asked to pick a number between one and 10. With that quickest way to my heart question, for example, the “standard” answer may be flowery gobbledygook about candlelit dinners and walks on the beach, so the “against the grain” or “down-to-earth” response becomes something about food and alcohol. In an attempt to be subversive and unique, thousands of profiles become original in the same way, not realizing they’ve just created a new boring cliche. These are fly traps built to catch people who think they’re wittier than they actually are.

Literally just punched a hole in my grandfather after finding out he was part of a generation that thought it was acceptable to degrade women. (I'm almost 6' btw)

After several years of enduring dating platitudes, I reached a point where I resolutely refused to engage with this kind of basic behavior on the off-chance of potentially finding a special someone. It no longer was worth the risk of going on a first date where I’d have to pretend that Doja Cat slaps.

There is something about dating apps that turns everyone into a judge on Miss USA. The issue mostly lies with my specific brand of low-grade neuroticism.

If a woman’s name is Sophia or Rose, I immediately picture Nick at Night and Wuther’s Originals. I assume that going down on a woman with a ‘50s housewife name will taste like meatloaf.
I have swiped right on profiles due to the name of someone’s dog. I can’t date someone whose dog is named Tucker, because they could also be an investment banker. I’d call their name at the park and a guy with a Patagonia vest jumps out from behind a tree.
Any profile that lists their religion as “spiritual” is a red flag. Neither of us could accurately define what this means and I don’t need anyone using a crystal on me as a butt plug.
I’ll come across someone who appears to be a functional adult and my visceral, guttural reaction is fuck off. I’ll see a bio that reads, “I like getting up early, reading a book with a cup of coffee, and going on morning hikes.” I knew everything about this person: The true crime novel about a murdered woman, the pumpkin-spiced latte in a ceramic Starbucks travel cup, and the walk that ended with an Instagram post with a leaf in black-and-white with “gratitude” written in cursive.

It was refreshing to come across a brutally transparent dating profile, with a bio that would readily admit that she likes to wake up and doom-scroll and sip a glass of water that’s been sitting next to her bed for a month. Radical honesty was a quality I desired in a woman, even if I could never muster the courage or audacity to be that forthcoming. I’m 5’10” and five-eighths inches, so naturally I would round up to 6’1”. It’s guy math.

As absurd and arbitrary as personalized dating standards can be, I refuse to feel any sort of guilt for my draconian right swipes because plenty of women get a reflexive ick when they see photos of men holding a fish. It’s not as if men pose in photos with fish to troll lonely women and deliberately cockblock themselves; straight men have limited opportunities to accumulate photos worthy of attracting others. It took me years to assemble six decent pictures of myself. Bachelorette parties are a series of photoshoots and every woman has a specific role: Creative director, lighting, selfie stick holder, videographer of Hummer limousine drive-bys, the person who takes the hip of their friend’s bikini and holds it above their shoulder. It’s not as if men plan their weekends in Vegas by making a point of emphasis to giggle in front of a sunset or snapping some candids in front of a mural in a gentrified part of the city. Men aren’t even allowed to whip out their phones during a bachelor party because no one wants to violate the Stringer Bell rule.

My version of the fish picture is when women claim to never have eaten fish. These people are either 10 years old or a logistical nightmare. If I took her to the Cape, we’d go to a seafood restaurant and she would order chicken tendies, so I’d have to resort to dangling a fish taco several inches from her mouth so I could put an end to this wretched personality trait.

In retrospect, dealing with Valentine’s Day might be worth the hassle. MY RELATIONSHIP IS PRECIOUS AND NOTHING CAN CHANGE THAT!!