Cheers.

Recipe 49/52. Dreary, we reach with feeble limb for the bitter end. The end, once but a pale apparition, has never furnished with such light. Death... is nigh.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! As it is now January, thanks to time, it's been one year since my last post on online dating. It seems only appropriate to update you on the online dating culture, since it has to have improved in a year. Right? 

My Christmas tree is still up, so I present to you An Unassuming but Intelligent Old-Fashioned Woman's Journey from Timidity to Judy Garland: a new classic holiday story. 

Ingredients

• Boredom
• Nerds (people, not Rope)
• Aziz Ansari's Modern Romance audiobook, so you'll miss all the graphs
• "Hey"
• Whammy!
• Holiday MAGIC, or time

Instructions
Where else to begin a modern holiday classic but with a winter flashback: The last time I cooked with online dating, the ingredients I shared were all cockamamy dingbats' attempts at messaging/texting me via our connection on the dating app Hinge, and I poked fun at the mobile dating culture in which I was apprehensively participating. Shortly after, a male friend and I were having a conversation about the "who should pay first" Abbott & Costello-like debate. As a straight male actor, he struggled with the expectation most of his own Hinge matches had that he'd automatically pick up the check, when in fact most of the women he met there made much more money than he did. He pointed out my blog post, in which I'd joked that I'd use dating as a way to finally dine out in NYC, to prove his point. My blog! Obvious satire in highest intellectual form! But he knew there was a layer of truth under there-- I'd blown my own old-fashioned expectations into not-so-exaggerated satire of using dating apps to snag free meals. I'd written the recipe in the short period of time in which I really was excited about the possibilities of dating-- still shocked that there existed, so close in proximity to me, guys who were willing to pay for things. Oh, youth. I had no idea the cobwebs through which I needed to weed before I got to that food-- and how little I enjoyed the reward. 

Why, then, after deleting Hinge fairly quickly, would I return to it 4 months later? I claimed I didn't enjoy my time talking to or spent with my matches because they were all finance/business guys. I knew it was because I'm a romantic traditionalist who would never take a dating app connection 100% seriously. Regardless, I'd become fascinated by Hinge-- stories of other's experiences with it, articles written about it, etc. Also, it was May and I was a little bored. Combo? The plan to beat Hinge.

If Hinge updated my matches based on which profiles I liked/disliked, could I not turn it totally on his head? If I was matching with only business-finance Ivy League boys (or guys from Ohio), could I completely 180 it to match me with solely unemployed comedians? Turns out the answer is... yes.

See how we're already close to Judy Garland?

In less than 2 weeks, I rid my matches of Harvard grads working at Goldman Sachs and replaced them with diversely educated funny guys working at Nickelodeon, their own production companies, or nowhere. Here's the silly part: I had no intention of meeting up with any of them. Albeit for research's sake, I was a dating app troll. Months later, I proudly told my plan's success to 5 male friends of mine and one declared that this is exactly "what's wrong with online dating." Looking back, I can't say I fully disagree. Well, despite my intentions, I met Nickelodeon, Sk8rboi Freelance Photographer, and Loyola Boy (you can find his story here, as well as a picture of a baby monkey) for my 2 longest Hinge stints: with Skr8, a fun chunk of weeks (including the 4th of July, romance's most serious holiday!) that fizzled out so naturally it seemed wrong; and with Loyola Boy, the true definition of "The Long Con." (While we were seeing each other, I used it to describe our situation because I thought it meant "the long conversation." Then I found out what it actually meant... and unfortunately could keep using it.)

Leading us to late September, the perfect pre-climax to a holiday classic: frustrated with modern dating and angry, yet again, that I live in this millennia. As per previously mentioned, one of my best friends Caroline is a natural font of wisdom. From her flat in London, she advised that I stop sitting around complaining and instead go forth and set the world on fire... ... Nope; no, that was my single year of Jesuit education. Here, you'll see how I got confused, they're so similar: 

"When you meet the right guy it'll feel so right, so perhaps this suffering is key to true happiness. Otherwise you'll end up marrying a f#$*boi and then you're stuck with that shit for life (or until you get a divorce) 

Keep going  

Use bumble [a dating app for which I'm convinced she works, due to how much she pushes it] 

Date around 

Treat yourself"

Like a true holiday heroine, I jumped back on my smart phone-- but this time with Coffee Meets Bagel. What a difference! CMB, as we on the inside call it, is for, you guessed it-- nerds! You see, Hinge, Bumble, and the other slew of dating apps? They claim to be different than Tinder (widely known as the hookup app), yet they display the same interface; the expectations are so muddied that, at the end of the day, I'd rather use Tinder and know what I'm getting into. CMB does not, by any means, scream "casual sex." On the scale of Tinder to paid eHarmony and Match.com memberships, it is somewhere nicely in the middle, whereas Hinge bounces towards the middle like a mindless hyper leprechaun trying to sneak up on it, only to get too scared and quickly soft-shoe it back towards Tinder. 

Also importantly, CMB fit in perfectly with what I was reading/listening to in Aziz Ansari's Modern Romance, which I suggest be read to all babies in the womb. Aziz, my main man, presents fascinating research and experts, and makes some arguments of his own, like contending that calling online systems like Tinder "dating" apps/sites is misleading.

“Online dating is just a vehicle to meet more people,” says the author and dating consultant Laurie Davis. “It’s not the place to actually date.” The anthropologist Helen Fisher, who does work for Match.com, makes a similar argument: ... “They should be called ‘introducing services.’ They enable you to go out and go and meet the person yourself.” (Aziz's New York Times piece "How to Make Online Dating Work")

CMB kicks you & your match out of your chat window after 7 days. Right before that 7th day, it bugs you repeatedly to make sure that, if you want to, you've set up a time to meet. Because who the F wants to date within a chat window?! (I know, we all know them, but let's be serious and not talk about them right now, OK.)

Here's a quick Run-DMC-down of my brief (shocker) time with CMB:

1. The textbook perfect awkward end-of-first-date kiss 

Sadly he ended up being judgmental and conniving. Alack.

2. My first encounter with someone who looked nothing like their profile

3. A hibernating med student 

Planning a date 2 months in advance is oddly moving too fast.

4. A fellow Wildcat who went immediately from promising ice cream partner to an idiot who thinks offensive undermining is effective flirting

And that was that.

5. Proof of the uselessness of the greetings "Hey!", "Hey," "Hi," or "Hey what's up," "What are you up to," or "Cool" amidst other actually engaging conversations

... honestly forgot to respond to these.

6. I'd like to say this: If you can't respond to a date offer, which you initiated, for 2 days, I lose interest. Because you're a stranger I've never met so this is the only info I have to go on.

Also, here we see that I, too, am guilty of "ghosting"... Where did I go? Perhaps to a maze in my brain where I was figuring out why the more time passed, the stronger he came on?

7. Slight & subtle sexism = confusing & unnecessary (oh, and also still offensive)

At least we agree people are stupid.

8. ALMOST finally getting down to exactly what one guy wants-- almost!!! 

If only I'd had a better understanding of his version of the conventions of the English language, we could've had an enlightening conversation! Alack again. 

9. An eager beaver who immediately texts pics of his Halloween costume and continues texting heavily all weekend-- only to drop that he'll be in Germany for the next 2.5 weeks. As in, "How's a date 3 weeks from now?" No lie, 3 weeks is just enough time for me to start dating someone else and spearhead a major crowdfunding campaign to raise $20k for my nonprofit. Sorry, dude. But thanks for all those pics from Germany... I hope you weren't using your data.

Take a knee, kid. 

10. Rude finance flakes with no respect for your time because nothing ever changes. Standing taller.

Except for meeting up with the guy who didn't end up looking like his picture (but only because he's smart and asked me to a cider festival-- man, does asking someone out to a specific fun event work), I challenged myself to not do or say things I didn't want to do or say this time around. Given my low expectations, I gave zero f*#%s. If someone didn't text me back, I didn't care because, like, whatever. It's Coffee Meets Bagel! If someone offended me, I spoke up. If I didn't want to see someone again (poor cider fest guy), I let him know. My first test of this was up there in #10. Some frat boy from my own alma mater, of all places, asks me out, claims he'll choose the place, and then disappears, only to cancel the date 4 hours before the time he chose for it to start. Sadly, this is not the first time this has happened, with "swamped at work" always the excuse. OK, fine. In that case, don't schedule a date during the week!! What on earth makes a job with a flexible end time a suitable prequel to a date?! This time, I didn't want to deem it acceptable... but for some reason I was so nervous to send my pointed rejection. This guy went to my college! We had, uh, maybe 10 mutual friends! I can't come across as a b...iiii...tt...cchhhhhhhhhh.

I obvs got over it. And then the craziest thing happened... he answered. This careless boy, whom I don't know at all, wastes my time, then sends a plea of "apology," clearly waiting for me to forgive him. Fine; you want me to give you a second chance, sure, but I'm not about to pander and forgive you for disrespecting my time. Thus, I'm a bitch, and I don't get a date. Well, cool, because that Sunday I GOT STUFF DONE.

My last bout with online "dating" has taught me that I'm learning what I want. I want to date someone whom I meet in real life, naturally and without the help of an electronic introducing service, because that's a stubborn romantic ideal I've had my whole life and can't shake, and that's OK. I want someone whom I don't have to badger to meet up, who respects my time, gender, and career. I want to feel like we are on the same page, not attacked or ignored. And I'm 100% not afraid to admit it. 

CMB brought me the longest "relationship" I've had since my first boyfriend (1.5 months, score!). I've not included him in the list of 10 above because he was genuinely great. Completely vetted through a close friend of mine, cute, 100% respectful. Unfortunately, life sucks. Our bodies betray us by means of housing a random mystery called "chemistry," which I picture as a the devilishly happy red gremlin from Whammy!.

Love/hate this dude.

While I could easily claim, "I wish I knew why my Whammy threw a whammy at this situation!" I can't blame it all on unexplained physiology. That's a cop out and we all know it. This "it's no one's fault" mentality makes us feel better about ourselves for breaking up with someone or turning someone down. And while it is no one's fault, because no one is at fault for being the uniquely holiday cut-out cookie he or she is, stifling the honest and justifiable reasons for not wanting to date someone denies us the opportunity to learn from our relationships. I do not suggest when you decline a young lady's date request that you also text a detailed list of why you do not wish to date her; similarly, handwritten letters have incredible sentiment, but I don't wish to see you passing one containing a memoir of your romantic needs to that guy with whom you've been on 3 dates. However, I dare you to speak up for yourself to yourself. And if you have been dating someone for a while, to speak up for the both of you. Equally respect both each other's intangible Whammys and concrete time. Unapologetically own your needs as confidently as you acknowledge the stupidity of love. 

Bartholomew, it's not Helena's fault she doesn't get along with your brother, which is a deal breaker for you, just as it is not Portia's fault for being a homebody, which happens to work against Septimus's extrovert mojo he's got going on right now. You are not cruel for wanting your girlfriend to be friends with your brother; he's the sheath to your sword, part of you! Portia, you are not lesser, you don't need fixed, and you're stellar for being a homebody! Somewhere out there is a lord or lady who wants to spend every night on the proverbial couch watching the proverbial Game of Thrones with you, because other people are scary and you gratefully don't need that consistent haunted house experience. 

When we're honest with both our hearts and brains, because we're humans and have both of those things-- I hate to assume, but let's say 100% we do-- we grow. We'll (hopefully) not mess up the same exact shit next time. We'll progressively wade through the crap instead of being stuck... behind the crap... Gross. Caroline was right: the more people you go on dates with, the more life experiences you gift yourself, the closer you get to figuring out what you want. No, you can't always count on your fingers tangible reasons that you don't jive with someone, nor can you define what you want and need during or after every romantic endeavor. Sometimes you realize months later what you liked and disliked. The more we allow ourselves to honor what we know we need, though, the less we swim around in exhausting dates we want to escape. Listen, I'm all about giving people a fair chance, because you can't judge a book by its cover and other quotes like The Golden Rule, but I'm also allowed to say, "You know what, Fulvia, I know Constantine doesn't want a relationship right now and I'm personally not interested in something just for fun, so I'd prefer if you didn't set us up. Thanks for checking in. Bt-dubs, your toga is hot." 

(Tryna bring old-fashioned names back on an extremely old-fashioned 1st century level)

I wrote a list of my relationship needs. I expect it to change. I expect certain bullet points to never change. I respect it and love it, for it is product of pain and assholes. Oh, let's not write pain and assholes together like that. It is product of pushing and shit. You know what, never mind.

I do not regret my 3 short stints with online dating. I'm done pretending it is for me and give props to those who use it. My step-sister is marrying her best friend whom she met on OK Cupid, so like, how the flying fish can I claim it's baloney? I dare you! But I am finally comfortable allowing myself to wade in my now less shitty crap in corporeal, old fashioned life, recognizing that my Year of Dating (2015, if you're lost), in which I unpreparedly threw my middle-school-level self into the Russian roulette of modern dating in New York City, left me unfulfilled and, ah, can end! I tried, I risked, I enjoyed some of it but mostly none of it. What I did enjoy, though, was thoroughly enjoyable-- yeah, I'm talking to you, you awesome dudes who were unfortunately outnumbered by awkwardness or ignorance this year! 99% not into dating or talking to multiple guys at once, 99% won't see someone who dislikes seeing comedy shows, and 100% still figuring out texting, flirting, first dates, and "defining the relationship," because quite seriously what the frick. I have zero answers, and that's better than the negative quantity I used to claim. 

I feel like zero is an undefinable entity I can hold. 

Well, we've made it through this Hallmark holiday classic without a workaholic ignoring the holiday season, some girls having one last shot at friendship, or finding out Santa is real. Perhaps, in my journey, you've taken offense or questioned your own behavior. That's either because it was a successful modern holiday flick or you think I'm overreacting, overly judgmental, aggressive, or stuck up. To which, ladies and gentleman,