Bumbling Through

I decided to rejoin a dating site called Bumble. To my surprise, quite a few men responded to my messages to them. Not surprisingly, most fizzled out pretty quickly too.

While I don’t grill men with questions on these sites, I do prefer to have a bit of conversation before agreeing to meet for drinks or a bite to eat. I have learned that if they cannot converse online, they consistently cannot converse in person either. And I don’t have time for that garbage. I have shows to watch, sweatpants to wear and a dog that need patting.

One guy responded to me with “How do you feel about flirting on here?”
“I’m not much of a flirt with strangers” I told him. And later he said “I’m Lebanese and French, so maybe we can have a French 101 course in French kissing!”

Ew. I do not know you and what makes you think I need lessons and also did you not read that sentence I sent about not really being much of a flirt with strangers?

When I asked a second question he responded “Are we going to keep going on with these questions, sweetie? I don’t like talking about myself much”

“Well, I don’t like to be called “sweetie” very much”

“Hun? Darlin’?”

“They’re all pretty demeaning unless I know you, actually.”

“So are we meeting for drinks or what?”

That’s a hard pass. Moving on.

Another man has been very good at answering questions and not really asking me any – par for the course. Now meanwhile, I do feel that if a conversation naturally flows, I don’t feel a need to be asked questions. But, if you’re trying to get a conversation going, asking something is always a good start. It also creates the illusion that you’re interested to know the other person. This man asked me if I wanted to meet for drinks. I told him I could do Monday or Tuesday and he responded “sorry Monday is a bad night. I feed the homeless on Monday’s.”

I thought to myself All of them? Because he’s kind of making it sounds like he’s feeding all of them. Like, SPOON-feeding them. I feel like that makes for a very long night for him. Lots of work.

He must have a magic Santa sleigh or something or a Harry Potter Time-Turner. Had he shared, “I volunteer with Rosie’s Place on Mondays” Now THAT makes sense to me. But no, he is definitely not available on Monday because there are many homeless people in the world and he’s feeding them.

I do have a date this week with a guy who seems promising. How do I know this? He doesn’t seem like an idiot and he asks me how my day was in the evenings (he has time to ask because he’s not feeding people). I haven’t had a man ask me how my day was in, literally, years.  So, keep your fingers crossed for me.