I am writing to inform y’all that I am embarking on the dreaded return to the online world of the romantically unhinged--the dating apps. After spamming my friends and family with borderline obsessive requests for compliments, declarations of love, and names of prospective lovers, it’s time I take this tragic state of non-affairs into my own hands. Anyone that has access to my private Snapchat story is probably breathing a sigh of relief right now. Ever since lockdown I’ve been reading even more about love and relationships and, dare I say, sex.
I talk about all three of these topics so much that my older brother had to ask me, “Are you ever going to date someone?”
My brother is dating and owns a house with Bella Hadid’s doppelganger so maybe he knows a thing or too. I should also mention that his girlfriend Shannon went to PA school and works in a hospital. So not only does she deserve 2020’s regularly scheduled applause for our “healthcare heroes” but she is also very funny. She told my brother to shut up after he asked me that.
Enough about the happy successful people in my life--it’s time to return to a topic I’m much more familiar with--my personal failings and earnest attempts at marrying rich.
My stand-up class at the Brooklyn Comedy Collective started up again on Wednesday. One topic of conversation was deciding how we wanted to present onstage. AKA we were asked to think about our comedy personas. Because I don’t know how to have a hobby and not read a million books about it, I had spent the previous weeks pouring over Judy Carter’s The Comedy Bible. Carter’s book includes a list of adjectives to draw from when constructing a comedy persona. Because I believe in democracy and giving voice to otherwise ignored communities (my friends and the advice they give me) I ran a poll on my finsta asking people to share what adjectives describe me.
The responses that followed should not and did not surprise anyone. People said things that were a mix of sexually-obsessed, earnest, rebel, trickster, cheerleader, and mom-friend. Those all sound like how I see myself. I’m currently in that totally unique and never before experienced stage of young-adulthood where “I’m not sure who I am or what I like.”
It is not lost on me that dating apps also require you to construct an image of yourself. My friends have outlined all the necessary steps to curating an attractive Hinge account. I’m the queen of social distancing so almost all of my pictures from the past year are solo shots or grotesque selfies with my roommates. Thank God for 2019 because I have a picture with my baby girl Emily Lavalle and a selfie from early quar with my mom. That’s enough to convince people I’m not a friendless loser...right?
As I said earlier, I am addicted to reading about the dynamics and ethics of sex. So I read a New Yorker article that reviews Mandy Stadtmiller’s memoir Unwifeable. I rented the audiobook of Unwifeable from the library and spent the next three evenings listening to it while coloring in my bed. (This sounds relaxing, but I think all that screen time is giving me a chronic headache. Don’t tell me to buy blue light glasses. I already get enough Instagram ads as it is.) I learned that Mandy had a sex and dating column in The Post. (She is insistent that her life is nothing like Carrie Bradshaw’s. Mine isn’t either but I still call myself a Carrie. I have a blog and at least three friends so there’s major parallels between my life and Carrie’s.)
Mandy is also a stand up comedian and friends with Hannibal Burress??? Small world/Cool Girl alert. Obviously I am finding a kindred spirit in the tale of a funny woman defining herself by the people she dates (the gag for me is that I don’t date anyone thus I consider myself to be no one). Mandy uses her dating column to “gamify” dating. She tells herself that she has to follow very specific advice whenever she goes on a date with a suitor. Think a real life version of How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days. If you haven’t seen that movie...DM me and we can watch together.
Reading about Mandy’s life (you should seriously read her book I kind of gave a horrible summary) and thinking about the recent CDC lifting of the mask mandate (I’m pretty sure the CDC is also inviting me to unpack my nonexistent love life), I have decided to get back on the dating apps. So now I am here to write about it.
I have kind of made plans to grab coffee with someone this Friday. Caffeine right before sundown is a little gorgeous isn’t it?
It isn’t lost on me that I’m moving in two months. I’m not looking for love but I do miss the butterfly body high of having a crush? It’s naive of me to think I’d find this feeling on Hinge or Bumble but I’m the kind of girl that believes in magic!
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