Imagine this.
Despite being most sceptical about online dating you decide to give it a go number two (round one was mission rebound a few years back). You work with 35 women, 2 men and 1 gay man who is more female than you. All your friends are married and have married friends. The single men you know are single for a reason (so I am, probably). Phone apps that enable you to 'meet people' are thrown in your face like BOGOF offers at Tesco's.
Please mind that I am the most naive person you will ever come across. My family home was a safe place full of trust where tricks and manipulation were absent. There was only room for good intentions and good deeds. Sounds like a fairytale, right? It was. So here I am. Me vs. the online dating world. The monster that is yet to be tamed.
Full of hope that it will actually provide me with dates, here I go. Reporting ready for duty of searching for love. Swiping left, right and centre. It is a job itself, I am not sure whether you are aware of that. As time-consuming as reading meaningless e-mail threads at work when asking myself 'why am I looped in?'. Still. You get what you give, right? I will invest in this. I will treat it as carefully choosing lottery numbers as opposed to going for the lucky dip.
Episode 15. James. Cute. Tall. Wearing glasses accompanied by a crisp shirt gracefully hugging his manly broad shoulders. A cheeky smile. Boom! Match. Small talk, asks me out after 3 messages (I am so not looking for pen pals so a brownie point scored!). Before I know it, my fingers are typing my phone number and I have a date for Saturday night. And then he texts me. 'Hi, It's James x'. To my surprise, my phone does not display his number. My phone is shamelessly reminding me of how pathetic (and consistent) I am. I could almost feel that Siri was silently laughing on the inside when the text came through. My phone has displayed the following: 'Message from James Tinder'.
Just like Samantha in SATC, I have run out of men. I have yet again fancied the same guy (proves that I am consistent in my choices at least), fallen for the same chat up line, and swapped numbers with James. As scary as this was, I could not help but wonder. Why did we never meet? At this point, as much as I did not remember speaking to him, I was sure we never met. And there is very few reasons that would cross someone off immediately. There was something about James though.... I have decided not to tell James that I had his number (he clearly did not have mine) and go with the flow. Only to find out the reason after two text message exchanges.
'Are you in bed? What are you wearing?'. A little lightbulb in my head lit up with surprise. He tried that before. Tricked me into thinking that a date would happen but all he was after was just nudes. After hitting the same wall repeatedly, I came to a sad conclusion: people do not even want to meet any more. Investing time in dating face-to-face became an inconvenient luxury that is going out of style. Just like perm. Men are content with a cheap thrill caused by home-made porn-like pictures of you touching yourself (have you heard of Google btw?). How did we reach this point? It is both frightening and worrying. We live in an instant society where result is expected at the same rate as iPhones read out fingerprints. Did we grow too lazy to even meet for a one-night stand? Not to mention building a closer bond, a relationship. Are nudes really enough?
I refuse to live in such reality. I will stand strong and remain naive and full of hope that apparently endangered species of love, passion and excitement are not extinct. Just like Carrie in SATC, I need to feel a weight of a man on me. Even if he just lies on top of me for a minute of two.
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