It Is Trish

I’m (three days away from) 28 now, and still single.  I know that as a society, we’re moving past the idea of online dating as being “desperate” but…I’m desperate.  Not just to find a guy, but to prove to myself that I’m the sort of person who can take risks and step outside her comfort zone.

But why now?  Partly it’s because one of my super cool, super intelligent, super self-possessed friends started using online dating, and I figured I’d be in good company if I did the same.  Plus she shared some really funny conversations, and I’ll be honest – I thought it might make good blog post fodder.  But the second reason was my old boss’s visit.  Chrisette told me that I would be single forever until I was willing to fail.  That felt like a lesson I definitely needed to learn so…I looked into a bunch of different options.

Match, Hinge, and Coffee Meets Bagel were all unavailable in Greece, which is unfortunate because they are the most Relationship Oriented (as opposed to Hook Up Oriented).  Bumble works here, but not many are on it, and within three minutes I had run out of people to swipe left.  I signed up for How About We, an app designed to get people to go out on dates instead of sit around talking all the time.  But you get ZERO information about a person other than their idea of a date, and my hyper-sensitive trust issues were not okay with that.

Elizabeth told me to try Tinder.  I wrote back:

And also: no, that’s what people use when all they want is sex.  She sent me this article that convinced me to give it a try.  And so, on the 14th of March in the year of our Lord 2016, I signed up for Tinder.  It was immediately terrifying, but Elizabeth virtually held my hand on Facebook Messenger.

I swiped right on exactly three men.  One because he possibly referenced Hamilton in his “About Me” section.  One because his picture was of him giving bunny ears to his dog.  And the third only because he had a gorgeous smile.  A couple seconds after swiping right, we were a match!  Elizabeth and I celebrated and schemed about what my opening line should be.

For two glorious minutes, I was the sort of badass confident woman who starts conversations with guys who are super attractive!  But after he answered my, “Where’s the most interesting place you’ve ever been?” and made small talk, he asked, “Where do you live in Athens?” and after I answered vaguely, he asked, even more damningly, “Do you live alone?”

YIKES.  That’s what I get for chatting with someone based only on their picture.

In the end, I only swiped right on those three guys.  In contrast, I swiped left on at least 200.  Am I too picky?  Yeah, probably, and maybe that’ll change in the future as it becomes less terrifying.  But I like to think I had

Good Reasons for Swiping Left:

1. too hot
2. not hot enough
3. can’t pronounce their name
4. no personal information provided
5. the selfie angle is horrible
6. “yolo”
7. photos at the club
8. photos with hot girls on their arms
9. incorrect Greek (seriously, if I know you’re misspelling things, something’s wrong)
10. not their picture (you are not a cartoon or Bill Murray, I’m PRETTY sure)
11. semi-deep quotes
12. “shake your pee pee”

Tinder is 99% Not My Place, but I’m going to keep messing around with it for a while.  At least until I swipe right on ten guys.  Because even if nothing really happens with this, I like being the sort of person who tries new things even when they scare her, who starts conversations, and who is Putting Herself Out There.

If anything else interesting happens, more blog posts to follow!  If not…well, I guess I’ll just continue to occasionally complain about being single but do nothing about it.