003: hello, stranger
Long time no see! I haven’t logged into Tumblr in quite a while (I got an email that my account was logged into... that’s how long it’s been, Tumblr thinks this was suspicious activity) and I even deleted the app from my phone a while back.
The past year has certainly been very eventful. I’ve lost touch with a few friends. Though I would still call them my friends and would love to catch up with them at any time, we no longer have the same effortless and frequent conversations. But that’s okay. Circumstances change and people grow apart; I’m sure we will find each other again eventually.
At the same time, I’ve made some new friendships in the last few months that I perhaps didn’t exactly expect to make. But that’s just the beauty of friendship isn’t it. It grows in some of the most unexpected of times and places.
In the beginning of last year, I started using dating apps. I never really met anyone, except for one guy because we had mutual friends and I happened to be in the city. I was mostly using them out of curiosity and perhaps to seek some validation. Oops.
I went on two dates in the last month. The first guy was tall, nice, nerdy, and kind of cheesy, but I didn’t find him all that interesting. Going on that date made me realize that I didn’t want to invest a lot of time in getting to know a stranger; especially when I already have friends that I know and enjoy spending my time with. I am very happy and content with being single, and I don’t have the time or energy to spend solely on finding a partner. I don’t need a partner.
The second guy was shorter, nice, and less cheesy than the first. He actually lives down the hall in the same apartment as me and we have a lot of mutual friends. I thought the date was just fine, but because we haven’t spoken since we met, I have been second-guessing and replaying our conversation in my head. I’m not sure if it’s because I acted uninterested or because he was in fact uninterested. It’s a bit of a shame because I think he would have made an interesting friend, but we are now once again strangers too.
Dating apps have always seemed weird to me. You match with someone because you both find each other physically attractive. Then you decide that you want to get to know more about this person’s personality because you think they’re hot. I never liked the idea of approaching someone and attempting to get closer to them for the sole purpose of dating them. I also never fully wrapped my head around why so many people yearn to be in relationships; how does one single person with a specific title make your life any more or less fulfilling? How are friendships not able to fulfill the same role as a significant other? But that’s a topic of discussion for another time.
I’ve started to come to the realization that dating will inevitably mean meeting and speaking to people that I will find to be uninteresting or incompatible. That’s the whole point. The entire process is awkward and kind of sad. But we all go through it. I will eventually find a stranger who doesn’t feel so much like a stranger at all.
