Meant to be?
Creating an online dating profile proved to be the most ambiguous way I could have started off 2019. I spent several of my last hours of 2018 letting the idea of meeting someone online for the first-time brew in my head. The more I did that, the more I felt like I should follow through just because it was something completely out of my comfort zone.
Before I knew it, my online profile was up in early January.
Wanting to prepare myself for what was to come, I went over the pros and cons with my friend Jordan, but little did I know that my emotional reaction spiked to a degree that caught me off guard.
You know those days that show you exactly how you’re going to feel for the whole day? Well, that was my Saturday morning – it was fucking cold and clearly screaming, stay indoors.
Guess who didn’t stay indoors?
That morning I dragged myself into campus, and lo and behold I was lost inside the new Highland Hall (HL) building at UTSC. Wanting to pass time, I checked to see my new matches and one in particular – his smile – drew me in (but seriously, it’s hard to find a guy genuinely smiling into the camera on this app!) and I decided to start a conversation with him.
“Hi,” I wrote.
He replied almost immediately.
“Hi. How are you?”
“Kinda lost… in a building actually.”
Oddly enough, the convo with him felt casual, and he always had something to say. My goal was to get the hell off the app as soon as someone agreed to go on one date with me. The moment I realized I could keep a digital conversation going with this guy, instead of working in the study spaces, I procrastinated for five hours analyzing and dissecting our messages.
Was he the one? Meh, he’d do for now. I knew it was time.
Ok you can do this.
Just. Nike. It.
So, on Saturday evening I told him that this was my first online dating experience and that my goal was to go on one date only.
“Wow that was fast. And you’d want to go on that one date with me?”
“Yeah,” I replied, “since our convo hasn’t been awkward on here. I’d really want to see what it’s like IRL with you.”
“I’d really like that too,” he responded.
And I, after consulting with two of my friends, Michael* and Jordan*, and examining about every text, I sent the message: “It’s a date then.”
Don’t celebrate yet, he’s not fully on board.
Immediately I asked Jordan how I could steer the convo back to setting a venue and time. Yet, at this point it almost seemed easy to slip in various questions. So, I tested the waters by sending one question at a time and he responded almost instantly, which was awesome. While my heart was skipping beats and my mind was racing faster than Tokyo’s Metro that night, I started to plan my outfit.
I also began to plan how Jordan could come to spy on us and keep an eye out for for stranger danger while I was enjoying myself.
Hey everybody, look at me I’m kicking off 2019 by leaping out of my comfort zone—yes, clap for me. I did it.
Opening Pandora’s Box
Sunday morning, I locked eyes with my phone and grabbed it from my night table to check it.
No messages.
He was on my mind all day, so much so that by the afternoon my eyes drifted to the clock each time I uttered “Hallelujah” in church.
Right after church, I begin a conversation with him. This time, it was different. I realized that my feelings for him had inflated overnight.
For some reason, I found myself asking questions about the sharks on his bio photos, and it’s like this switch turns on inside him to send strings of messages with loads of fucking info.
And then he dropped the f-bomb. Family bomb. And kept going.
This sent my attraction signals off the roof because the more I was learning about the kind of person he was, the more my desire to meet him in person grew. I noticed how strongly intertwined his family and work were.
Not long after, we reached a convo plateau.
It’s a good time to stop now, yes? Oh …n o? You want to keep going? Sure, don’t listen to reason. Go, be selfish, indulge yourself.
I wish I’d stopped there. Instead I took a guessing game a little too far – oopsie?
“What if I guess where you work?” I wrote. He hesitated, but still told me to give it a shot.
I should have at least asked him “Are you ok with me checking?” one more time before he said, “You can give it a try.”
I guess we were both ignorant, him with the huge amount of information he spilled to a complete stranger online, and me being the stranger who was cocky to admit that I knew enough about him to find out where he worked.
And inevitably, I guessed right. He was probably having a fucking panic attack then and there because he said, “I’m actually kind of worried that you know where I work now.” A short while after he stopped replying. I cried myself to sleep that night.
I knew things wouldn’t be the same, but a small part of me wanted things to go back to normal so Monday morning I asked him where things were at. Nothing.
It just went downhill from there I sent about eight or so messages mentioning that he was my first date online and I completely understood if he wanted to block me. Finally, on Tuesday night… after heavy convincing from Jordan we decided to delete his chat, so I sent him a final text saying I wasn’t going to be on the app much longer and ended off with “It was nice meeting you. This was definitely different.”
And a minute later all I got was:
“I’m sorry.”
At. Least. He. Replied.
But that was it.
There it is, a date that never happened. It promised a lot ,but my lack of patience ended it in less than 48 hours.
*Names have been changed at individuals request
