Things Girls Do After Graduation: Date Online, Pt. I

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It’s the dog days of February. It’s cold, no one’s going out now that football season is over, and frankly, she’s bored. Not to mention, Valentine’s Day is this coming weekend, which means all of her friends will be busy with their boyfriends, further snowballing her everlasting “I’m so single” feeling.

At the end of the day, Sperry’s companionship can only go so far. Yeah, he’s a great listener and is always there when she needs him, but his love is boundless and the gratification she’s getting is stale.

“It just feels like all of my friends are either engaged or married at this point,” she ponders as she walks on the treadmill/watches Keeping Up while decked out in her Nike Pro Combat spandex ensemble. “What about me? When will it be my turn? I want more.”

She walks away from the treadmill not wiping her sweat off of it because, “Ew, no, the gym pays people to do that.” On her walk back to her apartment, she fervently scrolls Instagram, seemingly seeing engagement photo after engagement photo. She somehow lands on Stone Fox Bride’s account and a wave of anxiety hits her like a ton of bricks.

After going months without downloading Tinder (“It’s just filled with perverts and high schoolers”), she’s finally had enough. She remembers hearing someone talk about Hinge being like the new Tinder, but less perv-y and more catered towards people like her. You know, the WASP-y affluent types who graduated from college between 2008-2011, and work at Yelp or a marketing firm.

“Ugh, this is so embarrassing. I can’t believe I’m… online dating.” After setting her location and spending the better part of a Sex & The City binge editing down her profile photos, her profile has it all: a candid photo from abroad, a professional photo from work to show she’s career-driven, a cute selfie from Emily’s bachelorette party, a shot from Caviar & Corduroy, and obviously a picture of her with Sperry.

Praying she doesn’t see her ex-boyfriend Travis (or even worse, her brother), she begins sorting through the first batch of guys. “Do I just like everyone and see who it was?” she wonders. “Ugh, no, I have standards.” She ends up liking all of them anyway.

Five minutes passes. No matches. With E! News on mute and her Pop Chillout Spotify playlist on, she mulls around her apartment waiting for her phone to light up. She has the same longing feeling that Ariel had while singing “Part Of Your World.” It just makes no sense to her that in a world where the Internet has made hooking up and dating so easy, she has some how fallen by the wayside.

Another ten minutes passes. Still nothing. It’s existential crisis time. She draws a bath and turns on Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill while burning a lavender candle from Sephora. She’s fearing she’ll be single forever. She starts calculating how old her parents were when they met and got married. After realizing she’s already a year behind their schedule, she calms her nerves by telling herself, “It was a different time back then.”

Then, suddenly, through the wallowing of “You Oughta Know,” she hears a ding. It’s not her text tone, and it’s not her alarm to take her birth control. It has to be a match.

She towels off and bolts to her phone. “Congratulations! You and Todd are a match!” She doesn’t remember heart’ing a Todd, so a nervousness falls over her as she opens the app to see what her future husband looks like. Michigan grad? He’s smart. Works in finance? He’s rich. 6’4″ with a full head of hair? She doesn’t want to speak too soon, but she thinks she’s in love.

“I’m a lady,” she tells herself. “He needs to text me first. Staring at her phone for the next half hour, Todd still hasn’t reached out. Thoughts race through her head — is he with another girl? Her blood is boiling at this point. Her phone — which has never been so silent before — might as well be on airplane mode. She downloads the app on her iPad thinking there may be a glitch and his message just wasn’t going through on her phone. Nope, silence.

Finally, after minutes and minutes and minutes of arduous deliberation of what to do, she sends, “Hey you.” To her surprise, an immediate response from Todd. They’re talking, they’re joking, they’re vibing. She feels like a Princess and Todd is her Prince Charming. He even expressed that he’s a dog lover and would love to meet Sperry. And after their texting rapport reaches it’s peak, it happens.

“Dinner Friday?” Todd asks.

“He does realize Friday is Valentine’s Day… right? Oh. My. God.” she thinks. Barely able to contain her excitement, she waits three minutes (which felt like three hours) and shoots back, “Can’t wait.” .

Image via Shutterstock

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Will

Will (Twitter / Instagram) is the host of The Sunday Scaries Podcast.

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