Hello beautiful people and happy Monday! During this quarantine, I decided to hop on Hinge since I figured hey I have nothing better to do. I thought maybe since people can’t see each other in person we’ll be more apt to go back to the way it was of when people courted and actually got to know each other before trying to seduce you into their bedroom. It’s been about three weeks now and I can say it’s honestly been a wild ride. I’ve known people who met their fiancés, boyfriends, husbands, etc. off of Tinder and Bumble however my experiences on Tinder have never been positive.
For the sake of this experiment, because that’s what it’s beginning to feel like I decided to post pictures that show off my personality but we’re not in any way sexual. Meaning no bikini pictures even though I’m often traveling to tropical places or around the pool. No club attire and no headshots. In the past, I’ve listed my job as an actor in my profile. From the get-go instead of mentioning my finance day job. This often-brought men who set out to play 21 questions about my job. “Are you really an actor? Well, what would I have seen you in? You seem too fat to be an actor. Well, how much do you make? You can’t be doing well since you are not based in Los Angeles. Oh, I’m an actor too I’ve been an extra for 3 years.”
While I don’t mind questions, asking some of these right off the bat without trying to get to know me outside of my career seems a bit like a fact-finding interview instead of getting to know a person you potentially want to build a life with. I can’t tell you how many times I have asked a finance bro, engineer, or consultant to explain their job only for them to give me the most basic one-line synopsis. This makes me laugh because I know many people working their exact job, and the descriptions the guys have given me don’t even cover 10 percent of the position. I’ve never felt a need to ask an architect to build a house in front of me to prove that they are in fact who they say they are. So I don’t know why people want comedians and actors to personally preform for them to prove their talent. It feels strange to me. Especially since I am looking for a partner to uplift, laugh, and work through problems that pop up in life, not a competitor or someone insecure.
So why do artists need to justify their success by telling you what shows or exhibitions their work has been featured in that YOU would know. I don’t know you yet, so I don’t know what type of shows you watch and frankly, I don’t know if I care to get to know you if you act this aggressively with strangers.
On Hinge, I listed myself as a finance admin since that is the position I have been working in for the past four years. So far, I’ve met five types of guys. Let’s start with the positive.
1. One of the genuinely nice guys who message you every day and just wanting to get to know you on a human level. They take interest in what you like to read, watch, and what you do when you’re not in a quarantine. I found that these guys are very close to their families and make it a point to call their families at least a couple times a week.
2. The second is the fuck boi. These are the guys that start out saying things like hey beautiful or hey sexy! Which is always a oh no red flag in my book. I say that because usually if someone starts out the conversation based on your looks on a dating app it rapidly progresses to them only asking for nudes literally no conversation just ok sexy so do you have a Snapchat? What’s your number? I would rather text your number than on here. You give them your number and then literally all they will text you is hey it’s fuck boi such and such why don’t you send me a sexy picture of yourself? Come on just do it. Just one of your boobs just for me. Like you are supposed to be flatter than a literal stranger feels entitled to viewing your body before they even know your last name. My response why would I do that I don’t know you? For all I know you could be some 50-year-old fat man sitting in a chair or my friends’ dad.
3. The guy who’s not over his ex. He usually will mention his ex in his profile. Something along the lines of as long as you’re nothing like my ex-girlfriend we will get along fine. Red flag if he’s mentioning his ex in his dating profile he clearly is not over her. These guys usually make comments like as long as you don’t complain about me playing video games or going to the sports bar-like my ex did. Why are you bringing up your ex when you’re on a dating app? If you still are carrying a torch for her shouldn’t you reach out to her for closure or go to therapy. These guys are often kind of misogynistic too and sometimes have expectations in general. Like women should be seen and not heard or speak when spoken to. Women should not complain when I come home late reeking of beer in another woman’s perfume just previous experiences trust me.
4. The people who lie in their profiles. There are a lot of people that have a habit of not fully filling out their profile. For example omitting that they have kids. Then posting a picture of a young child and I’m talking an 8-month-old infant in their photos with some kind of weird caption saying oh ask me about this photo. When you do they say oh this is my son he’s 8 months. All you could think is why don’t you try to work it out with the mother of your child? Instead of bringing another third party into an already potentially chaotic situation? I’m totally fine with the concept of dating someone who has children but you need to be honest from the get-go not hide the fact that you have children from this potential stepmom. There are a lot of factors that come in with dating someone with a child. You have to deal with scheduling babysitters swapping weekends being very flexible to last-minute changes . You also have to make it a point to speak to the baby’s mom and establish rules. Ask what she feels comfortable with, obviously you wouldn’t discipline her child but just knowing like is he allergic to anything? Who should I call in case of emergency? Is there a specific pediatrician I should have the number to? When you’re just starting to get to know someone the last thing you really want is to add in a new relationship with their ex and current child. Other guys will lie about smaller things. In their profile that they do not drink or smoke but then post multiple pictures of themselves drinking and smoking. Which then makes you wonder if they just mean they only drink and smoke socially or are those the only pictures they had of themselves? Or are they just not telling the truth.
As I’ve gotten to know various guys I’ve made it a point to tell them that I am an actor usually by day two of our conversations. They’ll ask what I’ve been up to and I’ll tell them I’ve sent out my self- tapes. I have since there have been so many great open casting calls with casting directors and certain network television shows. Some have taken it well. Others I could tell were immediately annoyed because to them that means I will not permanently live In Georgia. Personally, I don’t think I want to live in Georgia long term, and I’ve made a point to say that in a couple years I would probably want to move. I’ve also had some guys make comments about how actors do sex scenes and not understanding that we have a protocol for staging them and that actors do not actually have literal pornographic sex with each other contrary to popular belief. If you’re confused about this see my or a blog post on intimacy here. I think part of this is also just because Georgia is notoriously conservative even though there are tons of guys here on the down-low if you know what I mean. Who is not being completely honest with themselves their partners or their families.
5. The insecure one is the guy that when you don’t message him back within 30 minutes will send you 3 heys. He’s also the type that will mention family problems two lines into a conversation. When you send back your empathy and mentioning how you know therapy is really great and helpful to work through things. They get defensive and say they don’t need therapy. When therapy is great! Everyone should go to therapy. It is a great way to talk through situations and have learned how to cope with the different things that happened to us in life. They will then backtrack and say oh I’ve been in therapy before that was really helpful.
The main thing I’ve noticed from all the different dudes I’ve met on Hinge is that they’re all are very quick to want to meet you. Everyone wants to meet you in person even though we’re literally in the middle of a public health crisis. I cannot tell you how many times I have said no we can talk on soon Zoom or the phone. In response, the guy will whine about how this could go on for months. How are we ever going to meet? We might as well just do it now. I respond with the fact that I’m not willing to risk my health for the sake of meeting someone that I could meet over FaceTime until it’s safe. If we truly are meant to be then our personalities should click through FaceTime. I really don’t see what the big deal would be about waiting another month and a half just see each other in person. The blatant disregard for health tells me that most of those guys just want sex. The ones that I have Zoomed with I’ve noticed we don’t really talk after. I think we could both tell that there wasn’t really a connection. In one case the guy picked the time for us to do the call then was two hours late to do it. He had decided to go to the grocery store instead but didn’t text me to give me a heads up. I didn’t even mention that he was late to the call I just asked if he was okay since he usually texted me pretty frequently. He then spent the entire Zoom call putting up his dishes and looking so pissed off. It was very obvious from the call that our personalities are not compatible. I’m definitely more extroverted but can handle being alone since I am an only child. He on the other hand clearly needs to be around his friends 24/7, because he mentioned doing multiple virtual happy hours and walks with them throughout the day. Even though he is an introvert and describes himself as stoic.
Overall dating during the quarantine has taught me that there are some decent guys out there. It is a lot easier to weed out all the bad guys, without having to sit through a 2-hour dinner wondering if you should ask the waiter for the bill. Debating if you should text him later that you don’t see this going anywhere or saying it to his face at dinner. This has been a much quicker way to immediately say no to the people that shouldn’t be in your life and say yes to getting to know the people who are meant to be there. Have any of you tried dating during the quarantine? What has your experience been like?
