My Dating Year Wrapped
Joining on the Tik Tok trend, but blog style like a true millennial.
Have you peeped the latest Tik Tok trend in which people (women, largely) are giving PowerPoint presentations on how their dating life went this year? For the uninitiated, I've curated a couple of choice examples, here and here. Basically, the trend’s a play on Spotify Wrapped, just more in-depth and arguably less enjoyable to share (yet here we are). It’s not about bragging so much as it is a cry for help. It’s a way for frustrated single folks to commiserate together, aka, my wheelhouse. So, why not join in on the “fun”? Well, here goes nothing. I present this month's newsletter: My Dating Year Wrapped.
Author's Note: I've tried my hardest to be as thorough and accurate as possible. I combed through text messages going back to January and even re-evaluated all of my dating app matches from this year. I’m sure there may be a person or two left out, but it’s safe to say this is pretty comprehensive. I mean, it’s not like this shit has to hold up in court or whatever. So for the purposes of this article please accept these stats as factual. Now, let’s get into it.
A Remarkably So-So Year:
Over the course of 2022, I matched with: 183 men on Tinder, 57 men on Hinge, and 29 on Feeld (this since redownloading it two weeks ago). I also briefly used Bumble and OkCupid, but didn’t want to reactivate my accounts just for stats and I didn't go on any dates from those apps anyway. I still have Hinge for whatever reason, despite never going on Hinge dates. On Hinge, Bumble, and OkCupid, I am overwhelmed by basic normies, start-up bros, and self-proclaimed “moderates” (aka republicans who want to fuck leftist chicks), which is what makes these specific apps much less appealing. That is really saying something, considering the extremely unappealing nature of ALL dating apps.
In terms of actual dates, the year started off slow, with some traction gaining in March, reaching a peak in June, and tapering off again in July. November actually reached a new peak and this trend is still going strong since redownloading Feeld.
This year, I went on 24 First Dates: 18 were from Tinder, 4 I somehow managed to meet IRL (analog), 1 was a DM slide, and 1 (recently) was from Feeld. I was actually supposed to have another Feeld date last night, with a new person, but he called in sick. Yes, from 183 Tinder matches, only 18 made it to actual date status. That is how bleak this shit really is.
So, out of those 24 first dates, 10 made it to a second date. From there, only 5 were in the ever-elusive category of “3+ dates”. The longest period of time I dated someone was approximately two and a half months. We still kind of kept hooking up after we stopped officially dating. The same goes for about three other people on the list, including one I’m still hooking up with now.
Reasons For Termination:
I think you already know why most of them ended. If not, here is a clue, I’m a single woman in Los Angeles and I’ve talked about this a million times before. Still unsure? Well, I'll just spell it out for you: The men don’t want to be in relationships. Whether it’s bad timing, or they just got out of something, or need to work on themselves, or whatever, “Not Looking To Be In A Relationship” was my most listened-to excuse this year (as well as all previous years). This excuse was given to me by 9 different, emotionally unavailable, men in 2022.
Believe it or not, there are other reasons things flopped in '22. Here are the rest:
6 were mutual fade outs/no follow up from either of us.
4 were men I broke it off with.
2 live in a different state or country and were just visiting (more on those later).
1 did not want to date a comedian. The twist: he is also a comedian.
1 ghosted me after we tried to have sex and he couldn’t get his dick hard.
1 was someone I formerly dated who still has the same commitment issues as last time, but we both thought maybe it would be different this time (it wasn’t).
Some Fun Facts:
I spent approximately 535 minutes being eaten out by 7* different men. That’s nearly nine hours of cunnilingus! (I originally posted 11 but that was a mistake/number for a diff category I didn’t end up including).
While 3 different men spoke about Steely Dan, only one spent an entire 35 minutes explaining to me their brilliance in excruciating detail. I still let him eat me out.
I listened to approximately 100 minutes of men complaining about their ex-girlfriends, one of whom was still living with his ex at the time. I let him eat me out as well.
Stand-Out Performances:
I met up with someone from Tinder who was just visiting/lives in a different country. After introducing him to Ranch dressing, and having sex with him, he met another woman two days later who he is now engaged to (they got engaged within the same week that they met). I only know this because I happened to be following her on Instagram, and she randomly started posting him in her stories, including announcing their engagement. Mazel.
Another someone I met here in Los Angeles, visiting from New York, would talk to me on the phone nearly every day leading up to a trip there I already had planned. The day after I arrived in the city, he impulsively decided to visit Canada. My dumb ass still talked to him for like two weeks after that. C’est la vie!
Honorable Mention:
Though we didn’t have an official date, shout out to the guy who canceled what would have been our date by sending me this text message. It went semi-viral, and a friend of his piped up to say this was his buddy and that he is currently “going through stuff”, which very appropriately excuses the act of fucking someone you don’t respect because they are geographically closer. My only hope in life is that the other girl also saw this and immediately stopped talking to him.
Now, The Serious Junk:
So, what is the point here? Why relive these memories? Perhaps because of what I said at the beginning of all this: we have to laugh through the pain. Sharing this shit is cathartic, both for me and for those who can relate to the drudgery. After sifting through the data, I was surprised by some of these figures myself. Going through all of my matches this year, and having to count each and every one, was the biggest shocker. If you asked me beforehand how many men I matched with on Tinder this year, I would have guessed something like 50. Definitely not nearly 200.
The whole experience really does put into perspective how much reducing someone to an image on a screen takes away their humanity. Conversely, how it must take away my humanity. What am I to these guys other than a collection of pixels, but with a hole you might maybe get to fuck? Part of me hates reducing my dating life to a series of stats and graphs. I see how it further adds to the dehumanization of all this. At the same time though, these are statistics based on real lived experiences. A real person mansplained Steely Dan to me. Multiple sets of real lips ate my pussy. Etc. Etc. Maybe this is the next phase of our evolution. Real physical interaction cannot be devalued or destroyed, but it can be mitigated by an algorithm first.
All in all, I met real people and had a few solid connections in 2022. As much as I, and others, joke about dating being a miserable hellscape, there are positive outcomes. Even if I’m on a bad date, I still like that I went out and gave it a go. I still enjoy meeting someone new and having that willingness to explore a connection if it’s there. I gain more strength and greater independence from these largely failed interactions. So, in that sense, they are rarely true failures.
I’ve written about my singledom before, and I might be repeating myself here, but I need it to be clear every time I write about this that even though I want to be in a relationship, I don’t hate being single. Well, for the most part.
A few weeks back, I was wallowing in self-pity, complaining to a close friend about how it seems to always be so easy for her, and so many of my other friends, to get into long-term relationships and stay in them for years at a time. Her response actually gave me an entirely new perspective. She admitted that she was codependent. She will try to make relationships work in ways that compromise her own priorities, and she cited a few other mutuals who are similar. That’s not to say they don’t love their partners or aren’t happy in their relationships, but they need to be in these relationships in ways that I don’t. They will make sacrifices they probably shouldn’t be making in order to stay partnered. I hear it from others as well. People I go on dates with often tell me they should have left their relationship a lot sooner but were afraid of loneliness, or didn’t want to upset that other person. In these instances, I am reminded how relationships are not the secret to a happier life. They aren't the antidote to sadness or loneliness. They can even exacerbate those feelings.
Yes, there are plenty of shit times when it comes to dating. What I’ve gone through in only a year is more than some people have had to deal with in a lifetime. There’s lots of dumb crap and many annoyances. Even some pain. But, at the end of the day, I still revel in my fortitude. All of it is preparing me for something special and right for me. Someday, someway.
congrats on all the eat outs!