When we decided here at 20SomethingReads.com to dedicate some time this month to blogging about dating in honor of our new favorite book, Adelle Waldman's THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF NATHANIEL P., man, did I have a lot of thoughts about digital dating (a very apt umbrella term for any kind of dating that is happening NOT in person) --- which is totally ironic because digital dating is not entirely effective for people with a lot of thoughts.
Okay, that’s not really so fair (I studied Journalism undergrad, and I’m still a sucker for a good hook). There are plenty of success stories when it comes to digital dating, and they’re not all about someone’s airhead cousin and her dodo boyfriend. Some pretty cool people have met some other pretty cool people in the ether-eal Meat Market --- even I have rendezvoused with some sweet, intelligent guys in the romantic glow of my laptop screen --- but I’m talking about what works in the preliminary stages of digital dating, if you ever want to actually meet your match in the flesh.
My friends and I got into OKCupid a few years ago --- I remember it was after a particularly fruitless winter (the weather just wasn’t conducive!), and we all agreed if we were still single come April, we’d sign up for this weird, new-ish site, which we assumed was only for the very date-desperate. Of course we were still single in April (and many Aprils thereafter --- sorry to out you, guys!), and one early spring night we gathered together and made what we thought were just about the drollest profiles ever for ourselves and for one another, fueled by lots of booze and solidarity and our own secretly harbored romanticism. They were clever and interesting and representative of what we thought of as our best selves --- I’ll even admit that I had an Oxford comma joke somewhere in mine, so potential suitors would have to know that I’m not only smart but funny, too!
Let’s just say OKCupid wasn’t the answer to my dating woes that I thought it would be. It’s not that I’m a weirdo, or particularly eager to please, but I’m pretty neurotic and I’ve studied writing at a graduate level, so I took my message-writing verrry seriously. I could spend hours crafting a tonally perfect, hilariously entertaining response to a guy who had reached out to me and seemed cuteenough from the handful of pictures on his own profile (to be clear, I rarely reached out first --- except for the week my friend Matt hijacked my account in an attempt to take a more aggressive online approach to my non-existent IRL dating life). My messages --- when I actually chose to answer --- were always engaging, self-deprecating but self-assured and grammatically flawless.
But here’s the thing. Nine times out of ten, the recipient of my heavy-handed love notes would be weirded out by all that effort (or so I suspect --- when two people are dating from the obscured, comfortable places behind their keyboards, it’s hard to gather any conclusive evidence), and if I was lucky I would get a phoned in (metaphorically, because who uses the phone anymore, amirite?!) response, which was basically a semi-polite no freaking thank you (“hehe sounds like you got ur hands full over there”). Mostly I just wouldn’t hear back, and all that gorgeous prose was for naught.
My OKCupid experience was short-lived. In a dramatic huff, I abandoned it forever (read: disabled it with one blithe click), but tried not to take it too much to heart (and how easy is it to pretend you’re just too smart for online dating? --- equal parts self-serving and delusional!). More recently, I tried my fast-fingered hand at Tinder --- quickly becoming the most popular smartphone dating app --- and tried to put my hard-learned OKCupid lessons to practice. Tinder is a decidedly more casual forum for meeting potential somethings --- hookups? the future father of your children? someone to trick into killing that spider that has been lording it over your bathroom for the past week? idk. On Tinder, you basically get a digital pile of headshots of guys in your area, and you can yea or nay them with a careless or careful swipe of your thumb. And when the only information you have about someone is that he did Tough Mudder (he may or may not have completed it, but he was there!) and danced with an old lady (his grandma?) at a wedding, communication ends up being a really mixed bag.
I would love to tell you that I maintained my dignity and refused to dumb myself down to fit in on a dating app, but that’s not entirely the case. I’ll always be a goofball --- and a terribly self-conscious flirt (which manifests in the form of A LOT of puns) --- but I did try to be way cooler than I had been in the past. Tinder messaging is more like texting, so I like to think that maybe the limited space for communication and projected expectations made it easier for me to take it less seriously. And I’ve had plenty of inane conversations on the thing (and non-conversations: pointing hand emoji + A-OK hand emoji??? was a personal favorite), but I’ve also had good, spontaneous conversations with some cool dudes.
The point is (and there is a point --- [insert pointing hand emoji here]), I can’t speak for everyone, but I will say this for myself: Sometimes what you perceive as your best self isn’t really your best self at all. Your best self isn’t rehearsed or contrived or carefully crafted, but way, way looser. It’s the person you are at the end of the day when you’re too tired for artifice, that time in between washing your face before bed and texting your friend “I JUST BEAT LEVEL 104 OF CANDY CRUSH!!!! SO FREAKIN SWEET!! (SEE WHAT I DID THERE?)” I’m not saying that you shouldn’t put your best digital foot forward; I am saying it’s important that that foot is flexible.
