The Modern Dating World: A Fickle Bitch

Many moons ago, I decided to download Tinder and try my hand at the modern dating world. The usual response I get it “Well, you shouldn’t have used Tinder to find someone. Everyone knows that.” No shit. I knew that too, but curiosity killed the cat and it sure as hell killed me too.

Thus, the first blog post I bring to you follows my Tinder journey in the exciting world that is the post-breakup emotional wormhole.

He dresses well, has his own apartment, loves his three dogs, works at an advertising company, drinks tea. All of the vain things that I look for when I spend two minutes glancing at someone’s profile. We start talking and he seems like a pleasant, good-natured human being. Eventually, we make plans to go on a coffee date. As we’re going through the motions and getting to know each other better, he asks me if I have any fetishes. In the spirit of thinking he was trying to be funny, I said no. He then tells me that he has something embarrassing to tell me. After asking him what it is, he reveals that he has a foot fetish. Naive as I am, I thought the joke was continuing and said “Oh, you’re kidding!” He wasn’t kidding. He proceeded to ask me if I would send him a picture of my foot. I told him that he would not be receiving any foot nudes from me, to which he said “I knew you would think it was weird.” He thought right. We stopped talking that day.

Fast forward to guy number two. He’s 26, claims to know his way around cocktails, works for a government organization, has a full beard. All things that I can wrap my head around. We spend about two weeks talking before we make any plans. As we talk about where we want to go on our date, he tells me that he lives with his parents. While this was slightly off-putting (no offense to the 26 year olds who are still bumming it with mom and dad), I told him that we could just find a bar. He said that was fine, but didn’t know where we could go after. I was like “Well, that’s certainly presumptuous.” He then told me that he was using Tinder to find someone who could take his virginity. Again, I thought he was just trying to be funny. He wasn’t. Not wanting to deflower anyone, we never went on our date.

Moving on to guy number three. He’s 29, used to be in a band, has cool tattoos, likes traveling. He also reveals to me that he has a two-year-old son and used to struggle with a gambling/alcohol addiction. I was like “Well, at least he’s honest” and went with it. My previous two experiences desensitized me to weird shit and I was ready for anything. We spend a few days talking and decide to go out for tea. This time, I actually followed through with my plans and we met. As I’m starting to think that he seems friendly enough, he tells me that he has to drop off his son at the police station when it’s time for his ex to take care of him. I was like “Hmm…that’s odd. My parents have had shared custody of me for almost 20 years and they never had to exchange me at a police station.” I asked why he couldn’t just drop the kid off at her house. He responded by telling me that she has a domestic abuse claim against him and hides in the bathroom when she sees him. I asked him to tell me about the domestic abuse claim. He wouldn’t. I left.

I hope these stories made you laugh rather than fear for my safety. I promise, I know how to take care of myself. However, I think people are afraid to talk about their dating nightmares. It’s embarrassing to show up with yet another story of crashing and burning. As the title states, the dating world is a fickle bitch and at least you’re bold enough to brave it.