Revisiting Dating Apps

This is going to be a longer post than usual. Make sure you got some time!

So I got back on dating apps. It’s been almost two months and WOW do I have stories to share!

I joined BLK, Match, Hinge, and Bumble. I’ve had the most success on BLK, and the biggest flop and shock on Match. 

If you’ve read my last post on dating apps, you’re probably very surprised that I wound up giving them another try. 

The idea to get back on dating apps came from my therapist. I had been doing a lot of work surrounding what I want out of life and she just encouraged me to take a chance. Before this experience, I thought that it was a relationship that I was after. That might've changed...maybe.

I’m gonna start with sharing my own dating profile!!! I’m gonna put these dudes on blast,  so I gotta put myself on blast too! (I may have downplayed the anxiety) (Ok I flat out lied)

Here’s my Bumble profile!

So there you have it. My corny ass dating profile! It's cute! I love it LOL You get nice wholesome women like me on these things, and then a guy slides in your inbox and says:

Guys can be a little weird on here. I know that’s biased, but I never see what women post because I’m not looking for one LOL 
Check out these other things I saw while exploring on the dating apps:

That last one...I was equally pissed and weak lol you can have your preferences but that was just disrespectful for no reason. His stupid ass would love it here. He's holding himself back. 

So the first app I tried was Match. You have to pay to talk to people. I thought that if I was gonna take this seriously, investing in it might be worth it. I matched and had conversations with a few guys and after a few days, I exchanged numbers with one of them. Remember, I had the biggest flop on this app. Yall….we got off the app and all of a sudden he didn’t know how to hold a conversation anymore. He would text me and respond with one word answers or take two days to respond. First of all, that was triggering af. Second, he was 42. How are you 42 and don’t know how to talk? I stopped responding. During that time, we found out the kids were coming back into the classroom in a really fucked up way. I was very angry for a while. He randomly text me out the blue and said “Hope all is well”. When I responded, he said I was a bad communicator for not telling him about work. I looked at my phone like what?! Who are you?! I don’t owe you shit. I don’t even know you. And that’s where I learned the first lesson: communication is reserved for what and who matters. It’s also reciprocal. So there you have the biggest flop. 

FUN FACT: I matched with a guy I've matched with before.

I also experienced the biggest shock from Match. Right before my month was up, I had been having a pretty good conversation with someone. And because of that, he confessed something to me. He told me he had been living with herpes for 16 years. I responded thanking him for his honesty and then my month was up the very next day. I didn't intend to leave it like that. I just knew I wasn’t going to pay for another month. I was done with paying for these little apps. No judgment to him or anyone living with something like that. People don't just go out and get herpes on purpose. I understand that. 

FUN FACT: I'm currently friends on facebook with a guy that I matched with. I've never done that before. 

Let's move on to Hinge. That is a newer dating app and I like it's format. The very first night on there,  I matched with a white guy. He liked my picture and we started a conversation. He was not my type. I entertained it for a day until he got really drunk that same night and started messaging me about anal. I'm. Not. Kidding. Lesson number 2: Don't waste time on someone you don't like. 

Now my favorite dating app is BLK. The energy radiates from the app lol IYKYK. So anyway, I matched with 9 guys on here. I proceeded to have conversations with 5 of them, consistently. Then I became really aware of something--I no longer knew what I was looking for. I'm having all these conversations and somehow what I wanted became elusive. These guys are telling me what they want and I'm just like ok cool. NOOOOOOO! Not cool! Not having clear boundaries and being so open to what he wants is where I have always gone wrong with men. All this swiping and all these conversations started to get difficult to manage, so I changed things up. I had hastily decided that I just wanted to have sex. So I started looking for the safest option. The only issue was that one of those conversations started hitting a little different. We moved off the app and started texting, then calling, then facetiming. And then I got confused again, which scared me. Lesson number 3: know what you want before you get started and hold yourself accountable. 

FUN FACT one of the guys I matched with gave me the recipe to this tea that makes me feel so much better when I'm sick. I'll never forget that. 

So then we get to Bumble, and I'm just trying to get laid now. Yall...I matched with this guy and he told me I was gorgeous and that he wanted to spend time with me. So I'm like ok cool it's sounding like a hook up. So I'm talking to him, trying to get to know his habits to see if he's safe to have over and he tells me he would love to take me on a date. I'm out here trying to get slutted out and he said he wants to have a covid-safe date. I had to re-evaluate my life choices at this point because wtf? How do I keep getting this all wrong lol?

FUN FACT At one point, I was conversing with 4 guys between BLK and Bumble. Two of them have the same name and the other two of them have the same name. Can't make this shit up lol 

So where did I land after all this madness? I'm still talking to two of the guys and thankfully, they have different names. I'm still a little confused about what I want. One of them is a little more involved than the other and I may make the choice to see him first. Yall know how I feel about covid, so I'm trying to get him to chill for a couple weeks LOL we'll see. He's pretty lowkey, but he still does too much for my comfort. The other one, I don't feel a super strong connection, but he is really trying and he's respecting all my boundaries. 

So the last lesson: if you're really looking for something, you're going to have to invest a lot of time. I weeded through a lot of creeps, weirdos, and pervs and I was only doing this for two months. It's like speed dating but not speedy and it's online lol so it's not like speed dating...

I feel like I rambled. Look out for the next post where I will dive deeper into some of the other highs and lows with the guys that I matched with, how past "relationships" have impacted my decisions, and where anxiety plays a role. 

Trying to date in a pandemic is ridiculous lol why did I embark on this journey again? Lol jk, I'm having a lot of fun with it!

Have you tried to date since March? How did it work out?  Any tips?