I Bashed Dating Apps for Years – and Then I Tried One

So if we were getting personal last time, now we’re getting, uh, really personal.

I’ve always said the only way my parents screwed me up was by meeting in eighth grade, starting to date their freshman year of high school, and never stopping. Because that meant that I always expected to meet the love of my life in eighth grade. 

Well, friends, that didn’t happen, and I’ve felt a little behind ever since.

I’m not going to pretend like I don’t have high standards and also like having alone time, so I’ve always been perhaps too picky about who I date. As such, I’ve always dismissed dating apps as a waste of my time. This was especially true in college, when there were guys everywhere. Whether or not they were good options is questionable (and I didn’t think most of them were), but they were at least there.

And I thought that if couples met without swiping right for a couple thousand years before someone came up with that idea, I totally shouldn’t have to swipe.

But I mentioned that I had been feeling kinda lonely – I do live alone – and my coach suggested trying Bumble BFF to make some new adult friends, ones that weren’t from work and weren’t from my teenage years. I said, “Oh, yeah, sure. That’s an option I guess.”

I didn’t really view it as an option.

Later that night, I was a little bored and the idea popped back into my head, so I decided to suck it up and do it. But here’s the thing: we all know a mean girl, one who bases her opinion of other girls based on their appearance and a snap judgment. Swiping on Bumble BFF felt like being a mean girl. I made it through two swipes (both times I swiped right because I couldn’t think of a good reason to swipe left and didn’t want to be mean) before I realized that wasn’t going to work.

I’ve swiped for a friend’s Tinder account before and I remembered it being fun. I mean, it was low stakes then because I didn’t have to be the one to talk to anyone; I was just swiping. But I was apparently feeling a little bold on the night I downloaded Bumble. So, about three seconds after I put my phone down to give up on Bumble BFF, I picked it right back up to switch to Bumble Date.

Getting started

Let’s not overanalyze what it says about me that it felt less bad to judge guys based on a few pictures and a line from The Office in their profile, but it did. Actually, it was a lot of fun.

You know the feeling when someone hearts your Instagram picture, likes something you’ve posted on Facebook, or retweets you on Twitter? Matching with anyone on a dating app feels like that, times about 12. Give or take.

It’s also like realizing the person you like is also into you, but divided by about 3. Logically, it should be a smaller fraction, because neither of you know each other and he could be posting pictures of his more-attractive brother or just be terribly obnoxious. But there’s no real logic involved, and also those numbers are totally arbitrary.

Anyway, it was kind of a high. I don’t know if I wasn’t expecting matches, but I certainly wasn’t expecting so many so quickly.

And then it hit me that because it was Bumble, if this was actually going to be worthwhile, I actually had to say something, or all the matches would disappear.

So, I stayed up way too late Monday night swiping. And then the next day my Google search history got really embarrassing, as I tried to figure out what I was supposed to say.

I don’t think I used anything I found, because they were all lame, but I tried every variation of, “How do I start a good conversation on Bumble?” I could think of. Again, I’m fairly sure I didn’t use them, but if I did it was because I didn’t really care if the conversation went anywhere but still felt like I should say something. Hell, I said, “Hi,” to one guy. I felt bad about it, but he responded despite me giving him approximately nothing to work with.

Tip: If you can’t find something to comment on in their profile and you aren’t willing to offer a date without any back-and-forth conversation, don’t bother messaging them.

But by the second evening – still under 24 hours after I started – I had managed to start reasonably interesting conversations with 20 different guys. I don’t really recommend this. It’s rather overwhelming.

This leads me to the major lesson I learned on Bumble: the stakes aren’t that high. It terrified me to have to send the first message – until I did it once. If a guy wants to respond, he will. And if the conversation flows, it does. If he doesn’t want to respond, he won’t. And then you probably won’t even care because you totally don’t know him and aren’t attached at all. It’s fun and emboldening, at least to me. Conversation was really easy for me and those 20 guys, but there are probably 10 hanging out at the bottom of my inbox that fell flat. I’m not heartbroken about it.

By Thursday, I had dates scheduled for almost every day from Friday through Saturday of the next week, including a day with two dates, and was still talking to all the other guys. I also don’t highly recommend this – I was stressed just thinking about it. The first three dates I set up were with guys who happened to have very similar names and I avoided addressing anyone in case I screwed up. I triple-checked the recipient before I sent any texts. That’s the kind of stress I’m talking about.

The dates, in broad terms

Okay, let’s just jump to the first date. It was bad. I mean, at first it was okay and I was just aware that he was rather obnoxious and aggressive and a tiny bit… off. But I should also know better than to ignore my gut feeling. When I ended the date and texted him saying, essentially, “Thanks but let’s not do that again,” he asked me why not, and then when he realized I actually wasn’t going out with him again, he asked for my Venmo to charge me for drinks. I’d offered to pay for mine earlier and he had dismissed the offer, so I didn’t give it to him.

That was obviously not a good way to start off my Bumble dating experience and I 95% wanted to cancel the next night’s date. 

Actually, I wasn’t excited about my Saturday date at all. It had nothing to do with the guy and everything to do with the circumstances. First, it was during the OSU vs. Penn State game. Who does that? Second, this guy had told me from the start that he would be out of town and essentially unreachable for five months starting less than three weeks after we started talking. I had actually just given him my number so he had it when he returned, but he texted me immediately and asked me out before he left. Third, I had the bad date the night before. Fourth, I very much wanted to curl up on my couch with ice cream and not deal with people after running errands all day. Fifth, seriously, who in Columbus asks someone out during the OSU vs. Penn State game unless you’re going to a bar to watch said game?

I mean, at this point maybe you’ve guessed because I made such a big deal out of how inconvenient it was, but it was great. (And we did end up at a bar watching the OSU game after dinner.)

The next day, my thought process went like this: “We’re already talking about dating through those five low-contact months, but to really know if that’s going to be worth it, we need to spend as much time together as we can for the next few weeks. I can’t spend that time with him if I’m working and he’s working and I have friends and family to see and he has friends and family to see and I’m going on those other six dates. So… I guess I have to cancel those dates.”

After I confirmed that he did want to go out again (things can change overnight), I canceled the other six dates. Including the one for later that day. I felt bad. Those guys mostly took it well. A couple didn’t respond. Oh, well.

Anyway, we’re still dating. He’s not around. He won’t be for a long time. It’s harder than I expected, especially given that we only knew each other for a few weeks before he left, but it’s fine. We’re making it work, and fortunately the holiday season, followed by a busy few months at work, should make the time pass quickly for me.

The takeaways

I’d go back to dating apps. I mean, not in an ideal world, but my short time on Bumble opened my mind. Plenty of guys I talked to seemed sweet and interesting. And that could totally be fake (my first date, for example), but it isn’t always.

Go with your gut. I was pretty sure my first date wasn’t going to be good in about five minutes. Totally should’ve made a lame excuse and left.

I hadn’t planned to go on my second date until after the guy was back in town, but I did want to meet him, so when he asked, I agreed to give it a shot. After our first date went well, I tried to get anyone I could find to tell me dating him was a bad idea. It seemed so impulsive – it kind of was – but it felt like a good idea. Also, to my surprise, almost no one told me it was a bad idea. I must have talked to fifteen people about it, ranging from friends to family to the coworkers who always ask me about their love lives, and only two even hesitated (both were guys my age).

It’s good to get out of your comfort zone. You already knew this. So did I. And between the experience of being on the app and the vulnerability and risk-taking required by starting a relationship (and a long-distance one) so fast, I’ve been way, way out of my comfort zone for the last month-plus. I’ve also been really happy.

Your turn:

How did you meet your significant other?

How have you gotten out of your comfort zone lately?

What’s something you’ve been opposed to that you’ve changed your mind about? A number of vegetables. And pickles. And mustard.