You Can’t Always Get What You Want
We have become an on-demand culture. Everyone is just one tap, swipe or scan away from completing their to-do list. Need a ride to the airport? Call an Uber. Heading out for a big night? Get the Glam Squad to drop by your house for hair and makeup, log into Urban Sitter for someone to watch the kids, and then scramble to make your Opentable.com reservation. Need someone to mount your new TV? Check Task Rabbit and hire a local handyman to do it for you.
Feeling a little lonely? Hop onto Hinge and swipe right a few times and you’re sure to get a match who will at the very least flirt with you over text. This new mentality of instant gratification has even infiltrated the intimate world of romantic relationships. There has been no other time in history when people have had a virtual catalogue of candidates to sift through complete with photos and detailed bios. The options seem endless at times and they are, really, but finding the right guy is a little more complicated than just matching online. (For those of you who have been spared the experience of Internet dating, matching occurs when two people swipe right on each other’s profile).
The Internet’s impact on dating and courtship has been massive. It allows us to be pickier on one hand and it broadens and diversifies the pool from which we are picking on the other. If I am home swiping on Tinder or browsing matches on OK Cupid, I get to meet people I would never run into in the normal course of a day. Take Max, for example. He lived about an hour outside the city and worked the night shift at a large engineering company in his area. If it weren’t for OK Cupid, we would have never crossed paths.
It was a crisp fall night and I threw on my jeans and headed down to the local pub, where I arrange to meet many of my dates. It has dim lighting but is not too dark, it has great people-watching potential (always crucial on a first date in case the conversation goes stale) and there is no table service. That makes is easy to get away with just having drinks and if the date goes well, staying for dinner. The place is ideal for a first date.
I met him at the bar and on first impression I thought he looked like a lumberjack. By that I mean that he had a beard and wore cargo pants with a solid, red flannel shirt. I was not sure if that earned him a point or knocked one off. He was sitting at the bar when I got there, staring straight ahead like he was deep in thought. I sat down and ordered a glass of wine. We started talking and the conversation was a bit stilted. After a second glass of wine, it started to flow a little better but I was not convinced yet that he was a make-out candidate.
I was paying very careful attention not to let my legs relax and touch his legs under the bar. Body language is a key component of any first date. Leg touching of any sort sends the message, “yes, I will make out with you at the end of this date and perhaps will let your hands stray beyond my shoulders.” It took one more glass of wine (I typically limit myself to one or two drinks on a date so I don’t make any poor decisions) and my legs went slack. I was all but letting them lean up against him. Boy did the alcohol get to my head that night!
After the third drink we decided to go on a walk. It’s at that moment when the date looks like it is winding down where you have to make a critical decision. Do I want to make out with this guy or not? Will it be fun or gross? I made a quick decision to go for it and once he kissed me we had instant chemistry. I was right! For once I had taken a wild guess and made the right decision. Cut to the following week. We had started seeing each other. I let him see my place, which was a big move for me, we made dinner together, we made out some more and it was all a giant head rush of hormones, ego and excitement.
A few days into our budding romance he threw me a curveball, well actually, two. “I love you,” he said with reckless abandon. My eyes widened. It was our second date. Shit! I was not there yet. Not even close. Sure, I was enjoying the fleeting exhilaration that is at the beginning of almost every relationship, but I didn’t know him well enough to be in love yet. I didn’t even know his middle name or his birthday. “What did you do today?” I asked him. Remember he worked nights. “It’s a surprise! Let me send you a picture.” I didn’t know what to expect but I was nervous. The familiar ding of a text message sounded and a picture came through.
My eyes widened as I took a closer look. It was a picture of a queen-sized wooden bed with an NBA-approved basketball hoop as the headboard, complete with leopard skin blankets. Did he buy this bed for a nephew that loves basketball? Why he is telling me about it? What’s with the safari-themed bedding? “I spent all day making this bed for us. It’s solid. It can take a real pounding,” he said over text. I went from nervous to terrified in a matter of seconds. I would never see the bed in real life. For all I know it was a picture from a sports-themed furniture store.
It didn’t matter. Any yellow flags I had had turned a bright red. He loves me and made me a bed! I should be flattered but instead I told him that I thought we needed to slow things down quite a bit, emphasizing the quite a bit part. He got the message. We did not see each other ever again nor did we talk. We had broken up in what would have been considered an incredibly harsh way back in the days of regular dating. We simply stopped contacting each other.
I was disappointed and relieved all at the same time. Remembering a conversation I had had with one of my besties helped. “All but one of your dates will end in disappointment,” she wisely said. She was right. If my end goal is to find one guy, get married and live happily ever after, the odds of avoiding disappointment are not in my favor. I soothed myself. This was all part of the journey.
