As a teenager, I veered towards being what one would call a “Pick Me.” Are you familiar with the term? I’m sure it’ll be making its way out of common social media vernacular soon enough, but for now:
Having been boy-crazy since birth, it’s only natural that I turned to the internet for the kind of feedback I was seeking. It started with sites such as Face the Jury and Hot or Not, both of which are long lost to the sands of internet time. The anecdotes that originated on sites such as these, thankfully, have not.
Aside from the standard assortment of fakes and flakes, I learned that most classically attractive men are around 5’7”, the impact of each growth spurts having gone towards the production of a handsome face in lieu of towering height. We can attribute Handsome Short Guy theory to the same website that taught me a man’s ability to palm an NBA regulation-sized basketball was not necessarily a sign of things to come; good lessons to learn early, really.
For all the experience, it’s not like I only use the internet for dates; sometimes it’s good for meeting other weirdos, too. There was no need for me to participate in online dating roulette while living in New York – that city was meant for chance encounters. Yet the more fascinating characters I met during that period came not from the streets, but my screens.
Take the not-yet Nazi-puncher I befriended off Tumblr, for example. We traded comments and likes until he offered to take me to sushi and ice cream on a hot day. When we parted ways that evening, he was more than a little put-out that I wasn’t interested. “I don’t need any more friends,” is what he said, actually. With hindsight, I can see that the white cotton dress I wore was not only too short, but too sheer for an outing meant to be friends-only. Isn’t that fun – that I get to dismantle what I wore and what it might have said about my intentions, despite the fact most straight men can’t provide specifics about what a woman was wearing on any given day?
See also: The Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist, the South African that friend-zoned me, and the 18-hour first date with a law student who I ghosted, effectively, for two years. (We’re great friends now, I’m happy to report.) Oh, and I can’t forget the man that moved to Colorado, in the dead of winter, for the climbing. He was living in his car and missing an upper incisor not divulged in photos – which isn’t to say anything bad about him or his teeth, just that I don’t like those kinds of surprises. He did, however, buy me three bake-to-order cookies at the overpriced cookie spot in Boulder just prior to the recession, so at least there was that.
These stories make for great conversational fodder: the long version provides a sufficiently detailed blow-by-blow, the short one a three-sentence cautionary tale. When I’m playing the bard, it’s as much for the incredulity others express in response to my date’s actions as to mine; regrettably, there are few heroes to report on in nearly fifteen years of internet-sourced Persons of Interest.
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“Every relationship is fundamentally a power struggle, and the individual in power is whoever likes the other person less.”
The quote above is from Chuck Klosterman, an author known for his social and pop culture commentary. The piece I’m quoting from bemoans the Lloyd Dobler effect – Americans have been taught to measure their romantic experiences against those seen in mass media, “the kind of mind-blowing, transcendent romantic relationship[s] they perceive to be a normal part of living.” It’s a shame this and other fabulous one-liners were penned in the same essay where Chuck thanks Woody Allen for making it so that unattractive “funny guys” like himself could consistently punch well above their weight, but I digress.
The state he describes is known, at least in my circles, as having The Upper Hand. When correctly applied, The Upper Hand provides one with the necessary leverage to establish the arrangement they most desire. I say this with some authority, having both wielded and grieved under its influence.
Related: My boyfriend and I broke up recently. In his absence, a myriad of faces have reappeared, some with the intent of sticking around and others just passing through, all of which were offering assembled body parts onto which I lean, cry, or otherwise hoist a rucksack of post-breakup emotional shit. The most obvious assembly was of friends and family; it’s the number of acquaintances that have rallied which I find so surprising. Where did they come from, and how long had they been standing there?
I do that sometimes – get lost in relationships with interesting people. It doesn’t have to be amorous in nature for me to fall headlong into a several-month foray among social circles to which I most assuredly do not belong, though that certainly helps. I’ve come to think of this place as “BoyfriendLand” – an amusement park so distant, you could die of excitement en route before succumbing to the sugar-fueled joy experienced therein. This trip comes at a cost: afterwards, burnt out on the company and thoroughly exhausted, you get back on the road just in time to hit traffic and hailstorms during a somehow-longer trip back home.
Someone else’s recent Tinyletter offered a postmortem for a friendship that had crumbled under the weight of expectations. Its most resonant line, for me, was this: Let people show you what they can do for you rather than assuming they are exceptional or align with what you need.
Now that I'm done crying over the ending, I see that my relationship made too many allowances based on the feeling that he was both of those things – exceptional, which must be at least somewhat true, and in line with my needs.
In the argument that preceded our parting, I cackled in response to what was meant to be a cutting line. This did not inspire a reconciliation – in retrospect, it effectively ended the whole thing; most men cannot handle being laughed at by a woman, let alone one they're trying to insult.
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I have been on (and off) the internet dating circuit since before it was app-based, but rarely do I stick around for very long. Periods of use last a few weeks before I get frustrated by the futility of the exercise – the lack of viable candidates, or a string of dates whose best qualities on paper do not make an appearance in person. Each account reactivation launches me back in the mix, sorting through user accounts featuring familiar faces whose default photos haven’t changed in all the years I’ve been ignoring their messages.
Previously unsuitable suitors remain such, re-initiating conversation with the acknowledgement that “we’ve been on here too long,” or that our previous communication had fallen flat. Perhaps worse is a partial acknowledgement – the ‘I can’t remember but I might have messaged you before.’ I never thought I’d reach the point where I’d prefer a polite lie over tactless truth, but here we are.
There are plenty of fish in the sea, as they say, but do you know what else the ocean is rife with? Garbage.
The first relationship I went “all-in” on in nearly ten years was with a person that expressed less interest in my penchant for storytelling than any member of this email list. I'm choosing not to be bitter, opting instead to embrace a renewed awareness. Between romantic capriciousness and all-in there has to be something better – a variation on a meme: Dating me is like - ‘Are we doing this or not? ‘Cause I got shit to do.’