Swiping Left
Sweaty palms. Pounding heart. Awkward Small talk.
Isn’t dating just the worst? Don’t worry this isn’t a multiple choice, I know the majority of you couldn’t cope with yet another heart wrenching exam, so I’ll make this one easy for you- the answer is yes, a thousand times yes.
Even a self-diagnosed starry eyed romantic like me cannot stomach the idea of the theatrics that come with dating. I have been on enough dates to know ( not that I’m bragging because it really hasn’t been that many) that they never go the way you imagine them. If you are my mum or are seriously starved for entertainment and lack any substantial time occupying hobbies, then you may remember me writing about my obsession with romance- novels, films- the works. I love it all. Pride and Prejudice is my go-to sad movie- come on everyone has one ( but if you say the Notebook you are sadist and you know where the door is) . I cry every freaking time that Mr Darcy proclaims how ardently he loves and admires Elizabeth Bennet. Naturally, he has to do this in the rain because there is nothing more romantic than professing your undying love looking like a drookit rat. I grew up reading about these all-consuming relationships with these equally powerful and fearsome heroines. I spent the majority of Primary 2 pretending to be Belle, walking round the playground, my nose in a book. Yes, I was a sad child. The stories all start out (like every Hallmark movie ever made) with the heroine being far too busy for love but then one day, she bumps into a mysterious stranger in a lift or she is reunited with her childhood best friend who she realised she loved all along. They have challenges- they mostly come from completely different worlds or there is a love triangle that launches an all-out war between teenage girls everywhere and just when the couple you thought were fated to be together are about to part ways forever, fate- destiny or some wise old man who has all the answers intervenes. They guy gets the girl; they ride blissfully off into the sunset to their happily every after. Roll Curtain, Audience applauses, the End. Yes, I grant you, some of the plot lines are frankly ridiculous and implausible and more over done than your Dad’s turkey on Christmas but I love them. They would be a guilty pleasure of mine if I could admit to liking them out loud. I can lose myself in the stories and even though I know how unrealistic they are, I can’t help but hope to secretly find a cringey rom com to call my own.
Ugh I know, I just threw up too- sorry I know I am a walking cliché. Privileged white girl, obsessed with romantic comedies but shrugs it off because she should really be this tunnel vision career woman who replaces romantic relationships with canine friendships and stands all over the patriarchy in her brand-new Louis Vuitton’s. The thing is I am that girl ( minus the Louis Vuitton’s -insert Primark finest) or at least I want to be. I spent such a long time ignoring my own needs for the sake of making a relationship work. An exhausting effort which in the end was fruitless because I wasn’t happy. That relationship, as happy as I initially was, made me question a lot about myself and challenged my extremely high expectations. Those romantic heroes became simply a work of fiction. They were the men that women wanted rather than the ones they actually had. It was unfair of me to measure, a real living and breathing person by the perfectly crafted and chosen words of a best-selling author. Let’s be real, if I was lucky enough to be the subject of a love professing monologue, I’d probably fart or something. It’s probably safer to leave that to the stuff of fiction.
So, when that relationship ended, I did everything I have told you about already. I threw myself into my work, surrounded myself with incredible friends and drank away my troubles until it naturally blew up in my face. What I failed to mention was the toxic pattern of installing, deleting then reinstalling of apps like Tinder and Bumble. I go back and forth over why I would put myself through the strained and horrendous pick up lines OVER and OVER. They aren’t clever if you get them off the internet FYI. Call it boredom, a need for an ego boost, loneliness but for a couple of months there I would do the same old pointless Tinder dance. I’d download it in a moment of weakness, chat for a couple of days and promptly delete it when I came to my senses again, swearing I would never ever resort to such methods as long as I lived. Then it was reinstalled on Monday. The good news is, ladies and gentlemen, I think I have beaten the bug and have been tinder free all over 2019.
The question is, why bother talking about it? Just don’t download it Becca and let everyone else lead their own lives how they close to live them. Tinder is the future, you might argue. It’s part of a new modern dating age that gives women power- they have the control. You are a feminist, aren’t you? Surely, you would like that. The sad thing is I used to convince myself of all of the above. Tinder ( and apps like it) were liberating and fun- a modern kind of dating that gave me choice. It was a blessing for my control freak nature. I could swipe left and right in a matter of seconds, choosing what kind of relationship I wanted: casual, serious. It’s an odd sense of power if you think about it. Until you stop feeling powerful. Until you read that first pick up line and cringe behind your screen. Now don’t get me wrong I actually love pick-up lines, I like a corny joke as much as the next person, but I have realised something very recently that I am sure you have all experienced at some point or another. Tinder might work for some people, some relationships but do we really want to meet our future partners this way? Now, if you aren’t looking for a relationship on there, that’s your business, I am not here to judge but that isn’t me.
I tried the casual dating thing. I hate it. I am far too sensitive and dramatic to have a light and breezy relationship. I like being somebody’s girlfriend. I like mattering to someone and have that someone matter to me. I like having someone to meet off the train, share chips and watch terrible movies with and as much as I would like it sometimes, I am not going to change. If I am really frighteningly honest, I have downloaded these apps in the past because I was scared of being alone. There have been very fleeting windows that I have been single since I was 15 and I think I had forgotten that once you get off one train, you don’t necessarily have to get straight on the next one. You can sit on the platform for a while, get a terrible latte and wait for a train that you actually want to get on. Not that guys are trains or look like trains or act like trains. I’m not really sure what this whole analogy was but I think there was some wisdom in there somewhere.
It’s true that my future husband probably isn’t going to look like Mr Darcy and to be honest if he did that would be pretty creepy and he would really need a new wardrobe, but I do know something. I might not be able to expect big romantic gestures every day because life isn’t like that. It’s messy and complicated and people forget to buy the anniversary cards, but I do know that I want something more than a guy swiping right on my photo. I want our hands to touch when we pick up the same book at the bookshop or something equally cheesy that I can tell my grandkids when I am old and wrinkly. I want something like my parents have.
Oh, woops another cliché. I’m not telling you that their relationship is perfect ( even if I did come from it haha!) but it’s full of these beautiful and pure moments: my dad waking my mum up with coffee every single morning and my mum indulging my dad’s terrible film choices- who needs that much Sci-fi?? They are the definition of ‘get a room’ and they obviously never got the memo that people aren’t fans of PDA but 20 something years later and they can’t manage a night apart. If that isn’t love I don’t know what is.
I don’t know about you but I’d rather wait and swipe right for that.
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