So, there’s a new-new plan
A couple months ago, I got off the dating apps, considering the classic and accurate saying, crazy is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. I was going CRAZY. Nine or so years on the apps, and never a relationship has sprung from the seeds. Infertile ground? All I ever got was weird stories. But then I thought about the popularity of my dating stories. And I do love to please my audience. Maybe I’ve just been going about this all backwards. Like a naive little lamb, I was cruising the apps in hopes of making a real romantic connection. To find an actual boyfriend. (Or girlfriend, for a minute, when I hadn’t had a crush on a dude for so long that I thought maybe I was gay.) Unfortunately, I think I’m mostly straight. Not totally, but mostly. I know. Embarrassing. Anyway… The new-new plan is to go on the apps with the intention of collecting more awkward and brutally shitty dating stories, so I can entertain my beloved readers. I am your lab rat. Of course, there is the off chance that in putting myself out in the world, in this new-new way, I may fortuitously, accidentally meet someone. But if it ends up being the usual slag of weirdos and creeps, I won’t feel so disheartened. I’ll alchemize them into cautionary tales. Let the fun begin! SATURDAY: This is the day I first decided to do the experiment, while talking with my friend and neighbor Charlotte about my two favorite subjects; writing and dating. Immediately after our hang — attending six art openings (where I met no men) — I came home and re-downloaded Hinge and Raya, excited to get to work. Right away I matched with like, six people on Raya. But nobody talks on this app. So I wasn’t getting too excited. Then I signed onto Hinge after being gone for several months, and had to go through all the dudes who liked me. Out of several hundred, I matched with eight. Before you think I think I’m hot shit… most of them are truly, seriously non-playable-characters, I swear, I swear they are AI. All their prompts are talk of walks on the beach with their dogs, and farmers market Sundays, and lifting weights, and their greatest wish of finding their soulmate and winning the lottery. ALL OF THEM. And they all write highly unoriginal things to me like, “Hello beautiful” and “I’d love to get to know you”. So yeah. I’m not buying it. No way these are unique human men
. SUNDAY: I’m overwhelmed by the amount of conversations I’m carrying on, trying to remember who said what and what I found amusing, and matching the face to the words. No tone in text either, so between a few pictures and a couple mildly clever quips I’m finding myself sort of detached and losing interest, as usual. One guy invited me to meet him tonight, for soup. He said he was craving soup “rn”. Soup seems like an intimate meal, like something you’d do with someone after you’ve had sex, at least date twenty-something. I cannot fathom eating soup with someone on a first date. No fucking way. I did tell him I’d meet him for coffee later in the week. He’s very handsome and is also probably the most fun to text with out of my current roster. And he knows a few things about astrology which, as an LA girl, I think is kind of fun. (Him-Virgo/Me-Scorpio) I spoke on the telephone like it was the 1900s with another guy, also very good looking according to his picture. He is impressively intelligent, which I find hot, and it was a fine and nice conversation but made me feel a little sleepy. An executive type guy is telling me his intuition is telling him there’s heat between us. So basically he just wants to bone, which I can’t say I’m mad about. Although it’s unlikely I’ll go there, but more likely I’d do that than eat soup with a stranger. Already this is an immense amount of work. I posted a video about my experiment on TikTok and a lot of the creepy men who follow me are pretty angry about it. One guy said I’m just trying to get free dinner and drinks, but he doesn’t know that I know there is No Free Lunch. This might very well go horribly awry. MONDAY: I’ve decided I must disclose my experiment with those I meet in real life. I don’t want anyone to feel tricked or taken advantage of, though I do run that risk. I have allergies today and don’t really have the energy for any of this shit. Maybe I am allergic to dating apps. I also feel like only guys over fifty-five like me, which is fine, I do like older men but maybe like, a little closer to my age would be better… I can’t help but think of when I tried to get my ninety-two year old grandma set up on a dating app. She was still really beautiful and had all her teeth and almost all her wits about her. She could even drive. The men her age were a disaster. The men way younger than her, also a disaster, but the sickest part was, they all wanted a WAY younger woman and considered my beautiful, high functioning, good-time-having grandma too old. And this wasn’t even in LA! This was Tennessee! So, I fear guys my own age want twenty year olds. But I guess I don’t want those guys anyway. Ugh. Exhausting. Depressing. I already want to give up. This is giving me a hot combo of dread and fatigue. This afternoon I was telling a girlfriend about the new-new plan and she said, “You need like, a lumber-jack.” I thought that was especially funny cause the psychic who predicted all my career stuff that might be coming true also said I would have a very simple and wonderful relationship with a mountain man. “I hope you mean the Santa Monica mountains,” I snorted, which for those of you who don’t know, is the mountain range where the Hollywood hills are located. My friend, who is also quite psychic went on to say it’s more of a masculine energy that she sees than a literal lumberjack or mountain man. A guy who’s not afraid of shit. Someone who will run towards me in when I’m in a fragile, human moment, rather than away. A guy who will scoop me up and take care of business. A man with confidence, who will make plans for us and follow through every single time. Someone who can do things with his hands, maybe. Like, toss me around a little. I don’t know. Actually, I do know. Every time I make a man-manifestation list, it starts with… 1) NOT A PUSSY.
TUESDAY: I have one date set up. With one man. Let’s just say he’s “a creative”. He wrote me unprompted, Crazy Monday. Had two pitches today. CRUSHED EM :) Uh. Okay. Right on. Creative Guy and I are supposed to meet for a drink at seven pm on Wednesday. Not too far from where I live, so that’s good. I guess he didn’t see the part on my profile where it says I don’t drink. I am still capable of going to a bar and having a liquid beverage without alcohol, so I didn’t say anything. I have a meeting today with some men. It is not for dating, it’s for a project. (Although my project this week IS dating.) They asked me to sign an NDA. I’m debating, seems a bit paranoid. UPDATE: I matched with six new dudes today. One guy, on Hinge, sent me a voice memo. He said, “Beautiful photos, beautiful smile, and your photos aren’t edited, which I think is great.” That’s it. That’s all he said. To be fair, I did make a joke about being real, and not AI. But still. I hate him. Even a casting agent for a print ad would dig a little deeper into my personality. I want to puke. In other news, I signed the NDA. Too bad I won’t be able to write about this non-date meeting, though it’s off topic anyway.
WEDNESDAY: I can’t do this. I have a rule that I try very hard to live by: If I’m not having fun, then I shut it down. I am not having fun. I don’t want to go out with Creative Guy. I already know he’s gonna bug me. And here’s the other thing… he’s a human and he has feelings and he is probably looking to actually connect, and I’m just planning on using him as an experiment, as someone to write about and I don’t feel good about that. I’m supposed to meet Soup Guy at three today, on Larchmont. He seems like a cool person. Its not his fault that he enjoys soup. He doesn’t know my weird rules or feelings about liquid food on a first date. Ah, this is stressful and awful. If he eats soup today, that’s fine. I just won’t join him. Or maybe I will. Some rules are made to be broken. And now I’ve just matched with a new guy. He’s kind of hot in a CEO sort of way, and lives in Beverly Hills. UPDATE: I just looked at Creative Guy’s profile again and I feel guilty for making fun of him. I re-read what he wrote to me, and it’s all fine and nice. I shouldn’t judge people so harshly on what they text. He was probably just having a great work day and wanted to share it. I feel insane. My allergies are just fucking bonkers. Or it’s long covid. I don’t know. I also may have forgotten to take my Wellbutrin this morning, but I can’t take it now, in case I already did take it. I am a disaster. Going to go for a hike. Perhaps nature will balance me. I don’t know what to do about this stupid experiment. Push through? Shut it down and bail on everyone? I am definitely deleting the apps on Friday. This is way too much of a mind fuck.  THURSDAY: I did it!!! I went on a date with Soup Guy yesterday. Soup Guy is actually a handsome actor, recognizable though not famous-famous. We met for tea, not soup, at three pm. He was warm and engaging, and right away I felt comfortable, though not in a sexy way. He spoke in a specific style that I came to realize was a lot like listening to free jazz. Prone to wander, and the way he strung his thoughts together was a bit like alphabet soup. I’ve also heard it called “word salad”. He said a lot that sounded smart, but I was having a hard time following. Maybe because of my allergy, long covid sitch. My brain is foggy. At one point, he went on a fairly in depth tangent about the movie, Molly’s Game and I’m still trying to figure out why. I think it was simply that Molly rhymes with Holly. I kept waiting for him to bring the conversation back around to something we had been discussing, for him to land the plane, but it never quite happened. I asked him how his Raya life was going. He said most women he meets do not look like their pictures. I felt like I was privy to some secret information. Realizing he was willing to dish, I asked him what he thought men wanted. He said, “Men want a woman who makes them look good.” And there ya have it. Not, men want a smart, cool, fun woman. Not, men want someone who’s driven and passionate. Nope. It’s about THEM. (According to him.) We walked around for a bit while I tried to hold onto his train of thought on men, women and what we all want. His train turned into a plane and flew off, an ever changing melody humming above the din of Larchmont Blvd. He’d mentioned having taken an Uber to the restaurant so I offered him a ride home, feeling he was a little too famous to be a murderer. I pulled onto his street, leaned over, gave him a hug, said it was nice to meet and maybe let’s hang again sometime. I waited for him to exit my vehicle. Instead he leaned in for a kiss. Came towards me, lips pursed. I turned and offered him my cheek, and when his lips landed, they made an actual smooching sound. Then he left. I gotta give a guy credit for shooting his shot. Especially at four thirty pm after a non-sexual, not flirtatious tea encounter. Unless I’m flirtatious all the time and I don’t know it, but that’s sort of getting into she was asking for it territory. I did not disclose my dating experiment. My best friend told me I didn’t need to. I did tell him I write candidly about my personal life though, so I think that’s enough. After getting home from my date with Soup Guy, I felt too sick and sneezy to go out with Creative Guy, who I was meant to meet at seven. I cancelled. He was cool about it. Probably also relieved cause this shit sucks. I took Benadryl and went to bed at 8. I slept till seven am and woke up sneezing again. I’m suffering immensely. Might call it on the dating experiment. I do think we all know how this ends. I may have already landed the plane
.FRIDAY: This morning I visited an acupuncturist who healed me the last time I had long covid. I felt immediately better after the session. Then I ran errands and met a girlfriend for lunch. I completely forgot about the experiment. I feel so much better today, it’s nothing short of miraculous. I came home this afternoon and there was a package waiting for me from the Real Real. Riding boots, my new fall look. These will make the over fifty-five dudes on TikTok very happy. Maybe making them happy is enough for me. Social media is all I need. I decided my experiment was done. I only met one person. The numbers are not great considering the amount of work. The volume of people I matched with and was forced to carry on boring, endless text talks with. Twenty-ish? Not good numbers at all. I almost got laid, so that’s not nothing. But I can’t fuck a guy I don’t plan on spending a lot of time with. Therein lies the rub. Or the opposite of rub. I did have a really interesting REVELATION though: My relationship to the apps themselves is negative to the point of being toxic, and pretty all encompassing. It’s likely taking up so much space, I don’t even have room to meet someone. My relationship to the apps takes up the space a man should fill. The space is full. To clear space, I must delete the apps! So, I did. Hitting the red DELETE button gave me the greatest pleasure I’d gotten all week. And I’m not sneezing anymore! Also, having spent so much time navigating what I don’t want, I got a little closer to knowing what I do want. It dawned on me while having actual, in-person conversations with friends, discussing the experiment. REVELATION #2: I finally figured it out. I want a bad boy who’s a good man. And NOT A PUSSY. Is he on an app? Maybe, but that’s not how I’m going to meet him, because I’m not. (I’m still down with slides in the DM’s, FYI.) THE TAKEAWAY: from one lab rat to another — Save yourself the trouble. I am giving you permission to delete these shallow hell-scapes, that actually don’t discriminate in that they seem to make everyone I’ve ever talked to about them feel kind of bad and shitty. The pandemic is over. Our thumbs are tired. We all have carpal tunnel. Let’s party IRL. We should start making eye contact in public, walking up to one another and saying hello. In the grocery store. On a hike. At the hardware store. In the coffee shop. Even in a restaurant for fucks sake, come to my table, introduce yourself, slip me your number, what have we got to lose? PSA to men on dating apps: Posing with Jared Leto in your profile pics… not a good look. You’re currently a free subscriber to Neon Cowgirl . For only six bucks a month, you could upgrade to paid!
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