Dating apps must be bad for karma because the task of chucking someone out based on how they look makes me feel like shit. Sometimes the decision is easy, like when a man’s profile picture is a selfie taken from his belly button, and he looks like someone who spends a lot of time on the dark web.
After judging their picture, it’s off to the one to three sentences they write about themselves. Some don’t bother, which is a shame because I have to make up who they are in my mind completely, and I go to extremes, either giving them a long rap sheet or plaque for best-person-of-the-year.
One person wrote, “I am looking for a woman who isn’t evil.” He looked like the kind of guy who’d punch someone in the face in line at a water park for not saying ‘excuse me’ after bumping shoulders; volatile, short-fused, and oddly particular about manners.
Once there’s a match, we move to messaging. I am conscious that most people don’t spend hours at night reading and their days scribbling notes of funny thoughts or observations to use during a carved-out writing time when their kids are at their dad’s house, so it’s alright if it’s basic.
When someone asks how my day was, I give an anecdote from the day. On Tuesday, I got some good mileage telling people how I accidentally set a bag of groceries on fire when I placed the bag on the stovetop. I came back from the car with the remaining bags, and my kitchen was full of smoke.
One person replied, “You’re sexy,” and it made me hate him so much more than the person who replied, “neat.”
One guy blocked me after asking me what I thought about the app, and I wrote, “My cousin recommended this app after I told him the one I had used was full of disgusting perverts. In the previous app, 90% of the men looked like convicts, and in this app, it’s more like 70%. I haven’t gone out on any dates yet, but I have one set up for Sunday, but honestly, I can’t tell if that guy is part of a cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme.”
It was too real, or too negative, or maybe he is a part of the cryptocurrency influencer community.
I canceled the date for Sunday because my horoscope has been adamant about me listening to my intuition. After I reread the message chain between us, there were multiple red flags that I might be repeating an old pattern. He was (1) an artsy guy, who (2) talked about the many irons in the fire, one of which was (3) just about to take off. Reading that third one sent a shiver down my spine. My sister even agreed, “He’s almost 50, that mother fucker should already be flying.”
It’s hard to be so judgmental, and it feels gross to have negative emotions for someone I don’t even know. I think I could be carrying the negativity around with me.
I was substitute teaching in Special Ed last week. I was instructed to sit on the right side of the class, where the “biters” sat. One of the aids showed me a horrible scar on his forearm where a kid clamped down on him earlier in winter. The boy they said did this looked like a cherub-angel-child, and I loved how he’d smile at the moving clouds and delight in a swaying tree branch.
The kid I sat next to was nonverbal, and he went onto his iPad and pushed a button that said, “ugly.” My gosh, that was hurtful. Then he did it again. I listened to The Telepathy Tapes, so I was led to believe this kid could be thriving in an alternate dimension, and he’s seeing my higher self with all its judgmental warts and decided to read me. I put my sweater on to protect my forearms, but it turned out to be unnecessary - he stopped slagging me off.
I read people’s reactions to The Telepathy Tapes on Reddit. There are two distinct camps among the people who are willing to write about it. I can’t say I fully embrace either side, but it is interesting and cool to think about.
While on Reddit, I received a notification that someone replied to a comment. I don’t comment on Reddit, but my daughter does. She was defending Taylor Swift and damning some guy named Scooter who screwed her over.
When I asked her about this guy, she clenched her teeth and told me she hated him. I said, “Don’t you think you should save your hate for someone you have a closer connection to?”
She said, “Fuck Scooter.”
So I said, “Yeah, fuck that guy,” because were family, so I hate who she hates. Maybe that’s a better use of my hate, and helpful for my karma.
