Tinder @ Home #1: Three Years of Shawn
If you, like me, did not have the most jammin’ romantic life in high school, you might have some reservations about using dating apps in your hometown. Personally, I didn’t use Tinder or Bumble at home until I reached a peak of boredom/no longer caring what anyone in my small hometown thought of me, which happened in January 2016.
First: Shawn. Shawn and I went to middle and high school together, and ran in just-disparate-enough social circles to not have interacted prior to spring of senior year. As the entire world (it seemed) paired off to go to senior prom, we were pushed toward each other basically just by coincidence. We started talking on Twitter, which, goaded by friends, turned into texting. I argued to my friends that I barely knew Shawn, and wasn’t going with some random guy just for the sake of going with someone (Baby feminism rears its head!). Soon enough, prom was upon us, and, at the last second, he took a friend.
As it became increasingly clear that living in New York was not going to be the explosion onto the dating scene that I’d envisioned, Shawn and I spent more and more time talking. Although I was never wildly attracted to him, there was nothing else to hold my attention, and he’d do completely unfair things, like text me “I know you’ll want to see this” out of nowhere with a picture of North West in a tiny ballet outfit. (He wasn’t wrong. I did really want to see that.) He’s tall, and looks kind of like the less attractive Property Brother, so it was easy to convince myself that he was cute enough… for his personality.
The summer after freshman year, Shawn and I were both home, working meaningless summer jobs and doing essentially nothing. (I almost accidentally hit him with my car at one point. Unrelated, but… relevant.) On night, my friends and I had a party. Well, party is too strong of a word — it was a bonfire with seven girls and gallons of liquor. I got a few drinks in while texting Shawn, and, eventually, stumbled toward him coming over. Again: this was just me and six other people. His arrival was not subtle. He showed up and we went to the back corner of the backyard, where I sat, dangling my legs out of the little treehouse structure leftover from someone’s younger years and he stood next to it smoking weed. He finished smoking and crawled up with me. We were too tall to really fit. Suddenly, we were much closer, and it was much darker. Just as suddenly, the liquid courage I’d relied on to get him there took its revenge. I said I’d be right back and ran to the bathroom. When I returned, he was sitting back with the group. I realized later that to him it looked like he got close to me and I immediately bolted, not that I felt like every cell in my body was full of urine.
We kept talking through sophomore year, during which time I became increasingly convinced that I’d messed up a chance with Shawn in the treehouse. At Christmas, I got red wine drunk and texted him that I liked him. His response was… underwhelming, as he basically fell off the face of the earth until I returned to New York, giving me the sense that I was a threat that he was waiting to abate. I soon found myself forgetting that I’d ever told him at all.
I didn’t return to my hometown the next summer, ending the chances of Shawn and I being in the same state for more than a week or two. Nevertheless, that June I got tipsy with a high school friend, and, astonished that I was still talking to Shawn, she convinced me that it was high time to state my intentions again. I demurred from texting him, arguing that it was the season premiere of Game of Thrones and Shawn would be distracted. My friend was aghast, saying that people without romantic interest in each other did not have each other’s TV-watching schedules memorized. I was wary, but also tipsy (new life motto!), so I sent some variation on “no pressure, but I still like you.” He responded with some variation on “I like you too, but we live in different states, and I’m still working on how to deal with that.”
That’s a lie. That was the exact text — I know, because I immediately memorized it. The reciprocation, the acknowledgement, the active certainty of “I’m working on it.” It was so much more than what I’d had before — so it was enough.
That summer, I was barely home, so Shawn and I didn’t see each other. But we texted a lot. At one point, he got really drunk and tried to sext me. I had a minor mental breakdown and did anxiety sit-ups for like 10 minutes. He kept talking about maybe coming to work on the east coast for a semester. He kept referencing coming to visit New York. He kept walking up to the edge and walking back.
I’d reached a point where I felt insensible, continually believing that there was a possibility that we’d get together. I was still not overwhelmingly attracted to him, which didn’t get any better as he became more and more of a pothead. But we still talked: he still always responded.
Over Christmas break of junior year, I got on Tinder at home for the first time. Since I was uncertain of where I stood with Shawn, or if I was even attracted to him, I held an odd, conflicted hope about seeing him on it. It was like what they say about solving a dilemma by flipping a coin — in the moment that the coin is in the air, you’ll suddenly know which outcome you want. I ended up avoiding swiping on him at all, though he referenced having seen me without saying which way he swiped me.
That spring, last year, Shawn was the most demonstrative that he would ever be, just as I began to feel uncomfortable about the amount of my college experience that I’d spent thinking about someone who lived hundreds of miles away. That was when Shawn started talking about his fraternity formal — a two-day event in late April. He bemoaned not liking anyone enough to ask them to such a long-term event. I got the impression that the implication was “other than you, who clearly can’t come,” but he never actually mentioned me as an option.
Around the same time, Shawn invited me to a St. Patrick’s Day party at his college during my spring break. The implicit assumption was that, since I’d be drinking all day and night (qualities of the party touted in the invitation), I’d be sleeping there. With Shawn. I’d be hanging out with all of his friends, many of whom I went to high school with and hadn’t seen since, drinking a ton, and, basically, committing myself to hooking up with him. I told Shawn that I couldn’t make it.
A few weeks later, he picked up the topic of formal again. Of course, he did so in the weirdest way possible, sending just: “Wanna come to formal with me”. I wasn’t really surprised, except at his… gumption? (Is that a word I can use without sounding like it’s 1936?) Shawn had, at that point, spent months telling me about how he’d looked high and low and searched out every girl he even remotely wanted to go with. If he’d thought I wouldn’t be able to go but was wanted to ask anyway, he could have done it at the beginning — not after months of complaining about scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Hurt, I responded, “Couldn’t find anyone else?” He responded “maybe,” which was a dick move, so I came back with, “Tough luck.” He said that I “didn’t even know when it was yet,” which… was clearly not the main issue. I told him that I was in New York until July, so if it was then, we could talk.
Our texting mostly stopped after that. He went to formal alone.
Shortly after, I met Colin and told everyone who would listen how good it felt to talk to someone who was clear about expressing interest. When I left New York in July, fresh off of going out with Colin, it didn’t even register when Shawn started talking to me again. I was sitting in my living room watching TV at 1:30am and received a text from him: “Do you want to come over and hang out?”
1:30am.
This time, I didn’t do him the courtesy of a reply.
He ended up interning on the east coast during fall semester of this year. Not that I was feeling particularly keen on it, but we never even tried to meet up. We talked infrequently.
And, this winter break, back at home, feeling the cold indifference of being ignored by Colin and, as always, bored out of my mind, I went back on Tinder. Shawn popped up. Of course he would. I was a little drunk on red wine. Of course I was. I swiped right. Of course I did.
The next day, we matched. We talked a bit. Nothing happened. If there’s any lesson to be learned with Shawn, it’s that nothing ever will.
