Today I deleted Tinder for the third time in the last whirlwind of a year. Tinder was an experiment and a lazy effort to put myself out there to explore what else the world had to offer while I was taking a break from my junior high sweetheart. An article in Cosmo intrigued me about Tinder. Before that I had heard of Tinder but it was that article that piqued my curiosity.

It wasn’t until the spontaneous “I didn’t think this through,” person inside of me moved to New York and I actually put the app to work. I moved to the Big Apple knowing no one but the roommate I bought with me. So what better way to test the dating pool than to go Tinder Fishing in New York City?

It was a bad idea now that I think about it. My first catch had a nice profile. From what I can tell *Max was well cultured, a dancer, and a teacher so he couldn’t be crazy right? I swiped right and after warming up with favorite colors and musicians we decided to meet and I picked one of the three places I knew how to get to that wasn’t an airport. We met in Bryant Park. I picked it because it was always crowded and we’d have an audience if he turned out to be crazy.

We walked around the park and stopped for Starbucks (we both liked the Blackberry mojito tea). He explained that he was from Honduras but he was adopted by a family who renamed him *Max. We talked all night while walking around the city that never sleeps. For an internet match and my first go at it, I felt like I did well. I could probably write a novel on terrible first dates and this wouldn’t be included in that collection.

Me and *Max agreed to go out a second time. He was supposed to meet me and my roomie at a nightclub we discovered in our neighborhood but after hours of talking back and forth we discovered he had been waiting at the wrong club. He assumed because he brought up his favorite club in previous conversation, that we were going to go there when I specifically said me and my roommate wanted to go to a hip-hop club. His assumptions were wrong and he was pissed. My roommate also ended up meeting an online date and he brought the worst wingman ever. In this ridiculous turn of events, my roommate’s date wingman *Carlos wanted to follow me around the entire club and got genuinely upset that I was getting to know other people. It was weird you would’ve thought he was looking for me I didn’t send for him. I didn’t even give him my number.

After a bizarre miscommunication me and *Max agreed to go out again. We went to see The Purge: Anarchy and he talked the entire way through. I thought I was a movie talker but I was wrong. He asked a billion questions during the movie and gave more narration than I wanted to hear which led to me going to go see the movie again the next day. The dinner afterwards was a bit awkward. He dropped the word “marriage” more than anyone should on a second date. And the line “We would have cute mixed babies,” turned me off. We didn’t work out because he came off way too strong and too needy for someone like me who was only home half the month.

I swiped right for *Grant because he was an actor and dancer. His profile screamed metro to my friends back at home but I figured I never dated an actor before. We talked about the basics to make sure conversation was possible and after a few days, we agreed to meet in Times Square. We talked a lot about how much Times Square was overrated and after a while got frustrated with the human gridlock so he held his skateboard and we agreed to catch the train to my place because I had a roommate and there was no way I was going to his place.

He met my roommate, we watched a scary movie,  and I made tilapia and veggies for the three of us. After this encounter, we met one more time before I realized he wasn’t as interesting as I thought he would be and his schedule and my schedule just didn’t work out. He was awesome to look at and other parts of his life was interesting just not in the ways I needed him to be amongst other things.

After going through my entire savings account from living in a $1100 walk in closet sized mediocre apartment in Queens, I threw in the towel on my New York life. My roommate had “lost” a great deal of my money and I decided to go back home and regroup.

One of my many trips back home I Tindered a bit and clicked with *Jordan. He looked nice and from his profile I could see he had a nice job, an aspiring rapper (if I had a nickel for every aspiring rapper I clicked with, I would be very very very rich) he grew up on a farm and had nice dreads. He was smart and polite and us having nothing in common besides our conversation led to our quick demise.

Our first date was a Mexican restaurant where we had Margaritas and talked about our dreams and aspirations. I liked him. He seemed a little too good to be true but I was going in optimistic. For our second date, we went to the movies and that’s when it hit me that I might be settling. He said there was chemistry but I felt like it was forced.

I figured the third date would be enough to get a feel for this guy to see if I should continue dating him. You never really know if you like something unless you try it three times right.

On our third and final date, we went to his house for a movie night. I met his roommates and we talked all night not paying attention to the movie. He fell asleep on me literally before the movie ended. We didn’t work out because he was moving way too fast. He was ready for a relationship right then and there. I also frowned at the fact that he insisted I catch the bus home because he didn’t feel like dropping me off at home beforehand. Call me old fashioned but it took me two buses to get to my house that morning. I was not a happy camper. He was also a smoker so he was liable to die before me anyways.

Pittsburgh is so small that a lot of the guys I encountered on Tinder were people I already knew. Most of the times I wouldn’t swipe left or right and would just restart the app to avoid making that decision but when *Christopher’s profile popped up on my screen I had to swipe right. I had met him a few summers ago while campaigning for Obama. I thought he was awesome and we clicked and I trusted him enough to ride on the back of his motorcycle. I was shocked to find out that he was interested in me too. Last I had heard of him he had the girlfriend from absolute hell but he was a free agent now.

After procrastinating about it for a bit we agreed to go to half-off wine night and we did for a few weeks actually. He would come pick me up and I would hang out with his friends. It seemed cool. We texted every day and I didn’t see anything wrong. He was consistently the same person I had met summers ago. After like our third wine date, things got a bit complicated. I think I had something to do with that. The previous week he wanted to meet my mother when he dropped me off and after a bit of talking me into it, I let him in my deathtrap of a house, (my dad was fixing the floor at this time in life) he got to meet my mom. The next week, he dropped me off and drunk me smiled before leaning over to hug him only to kiss him. It was a nice kiss and he even kissed me back! That kiss was the kiss that made things awkward though because he literally fell off the face of the Earth for like a good six months before I heard from him again inviting me to one of his infamous house parties that I passed on.  I think he friend-zoned me though because the kiss was never to be mentioned again.

I would like to say that I don’t have a type but that’s untrue. I’m attracted to people who are the opposite of me and *Ryan was just that. He had gorgeous green eyes, nice hair and seemed a little together from his profile. Unfortunately his profile forgot to include he had a kid, a suspended driver’s license for drinking and driving and sold bootleg DVDs for a living. Unknowing those things beforehand I decided to continue my dating roulette by meeting him at a bar in Oakland. After meeting, we decided to walk around enjoying the unusual sunny weather. The fact that he was carrying a bottle of Peach Amsterdam vodka around in his backpack should’ve been a red flag but I went with it to get to conversation. We ended walking around sipping spiked sweet tea that we made with reusable cups form CVS. We talked for two hours and he was a gentleman with lots of stories but lots of nightmares also.

Our second date was a burger spot near his house. He showed off said house and it was disaster. It was reminder that I could do better and that sealed the deal for me. It also shocked me that it was his son’s birthday and he was choosing to spend time with me instead. My spiked milkshake and turkey burger was the best part of said date. *Ryan being delusional didn’t believe in colorism or understand why young women were waiting to have kids instead of having kids young. “When you get older you can’t do whatever you want. You’ll be old.” I was armed with lots of sarcasm throughout our whole conversation. I don’t like to admit it but I ghosted him. After this encounter I called my friends laughing to the point of tears and quickly dragged the Tinder app into the garbage pail on my screen. This couldn’t be real life.  I don’t mind dating people with different views because my junior high sweetheart is the complete opposite of me but we respect each other’s views and agree to disagree on lots of things.

Last week I was sitting at a bar and I noticed the young woman next to me was messing with her Tinder app and I leaned over and asked “Having any luck.”

She seemed super embarrassed but I smiled as she shook her head from side to side. “I know right,” is all I could say.

Apparently, her best friend had met a great guy on Tinder and she had to try it out. My best friend is currently dating a guy who’s a great catch and they met on Tinder. I on the other hand can’t help but to think that online dating isn’t a me thing – that or I have very bad decision making skills. This Tinder expedition reminded me that maybe Tinder is for Mr. Right Now and not Mr. Right and some guys swipe right for every girl just to see who likes them. I don’t know what I thought going into this experience but Tinder is not Build a Guy Workshop.

*All names have been changed because life.

Note: This is a super rough draft I wrote in my phone. 😊