Online dating. Just, all of it. Every time you hit that regiser button, a little piece inside you dies.

I ran this all by my best friend first. 

Here’s the thing, online dating sucks. Its not like our parents days, or even my sister’s days (who’s 2 years older than me mind you)… Everyone is so afraid of rejection that we hide behind technology to feel better about ourselves… Why do you think the show Catfish is so popular? You can be anyone you want to be, and unless you muster up the courage to actually meet this stranger (in public places only), no one’s the wiser.

Let’s start with fresh out of college online dating, guy picks you up in his shit car, you notice the inside handle is a fork mcgyvered with a rubber band. Said car stalls out in the turn lane to chopotle (which you don’t even like)… Guys card gets declined in chipotle, so you pay for the date, then agree to walk around in public at the mall while he tries to hold onto you. No? Not your cup of tea?

How about….

You decide not to use these prospective dates real names, but give them nicknames until it becomes serious. This then alleviates the confusion to friends and family, until you have to remind family of a particular controlling boat captain’s real name because you would only refer to him as “Guy” until he actually agreed to meet your family, in which case you have to clue him in to the reasoning and hope he understands/ doesn’t think you’re psycho.

Cue guy being transformed to the more appropriate “Captain Ahab” (call me Ishmael!) And back into the terabyte dating scene you plunge. “You can argue…that Ahab is a fool for being obsessed. But you could also argue that there is something tragically heroic about fighting this battle he is doomed to lose” (John Green, Paper Towns).

This could lead to….

Falling for one of your best friends, who, lets face it, is still your best friend. Even after you pour out your heart & soul, to be told he’s chosen someone else over you and then invites you do be the 3rd wheel and dine with the two of them…  like that’s not parading his choice in front of you.

So you test the water again when up pops what seems to be a southern Gentleman, aptly nicknamed Memphis for geographical reasons. All seems well until that funny churning in your gut tells you something is wrong. You ignore it for months, continuing to date others who do not get nicknames because they do not stick around, until coming to the realization that you really have less effort than a sloth to play mom and therapist to a 30 year old child with no job.

You wonder how, without jobs these socially dubbed “adults” are able to take trips and fly all over, yet refuse to treat you to a nice birthday dinner without complaint. It all comes full circle when  after yet another horrible first date with a 23 year old kid pretending to be 28 that your gut, not to your surprise, was correct yet again.

Memphis has been using you to escape the oh so pressuring stresses of not having a job while using your locale, money, food  and wifi to swipe right on the “love of his life” WHILE STILL IN YOUR APARTMENT WITH YOU, who happens to live in Australia because he “can’t help wanting to meet new people” and justifies it by saying “we weren’t in a relationship”.

I’ve begun to equate my life to the movie Good Luck Chuck – wherein everyone person I meet, seems to fall in love with the NEXT person they meet. Minus the whole sleeping-with-everyone part.

I think it’s time for a break.

You win Mom, an arranged marriage it is. You work with doctors right?

*facepalm*