What to Expect When Meeting New People on a Dating App
Newly single, one of my closest friends — who I just happened to work with — encouraged me to download a dating app to get back in the game. It had been a few months since the split at that point, and she was over listening to me repeat the same pity-party over and over again. It was time to get over the breakup.
I don’t blame her, I was getting sick of hearing myself talk about it, too.
So, I did it. I downloaded one on our first work break, and she helped me set up and write my dating profile. By our afternoon break, I had downloaded another and was copying and pasting my bio into it, uploading the same pictures that I felt I looked best in. By the next day, I had downloaded all the most popular dating apps; I really didn’t know what to expect, but I was ready to talk to some new people.
However, I went over four years without physically meeting up with someone for a first date.
The thought of going out with someone I had never met before was daunting. For one, I watch a lot of true crime documentaries, listen to a lot of podcasts on the topic; although I know how to take care of myself and the safety precautions to take when dating someone new, there’s always a possibility of something horrible happening. Plus, I wasn’t sure if I was ready to start physically meeting new people.
This isn’t to say that I wasn’t talking and flirting, or going on dates with people I hadn’t met online. There were friends of friends (more on that in a bit), and at one point, I even considered dating a co-worker. Primarily, I was looking for someone interesting to talk to, who was intelligent and had a sex-positive attitude. In the midst of me getting to know myself better and learning to practise self-love, I had no room for arrogance, close-mindedness, and misogyny.
In my search for good conversation through these apps, I found myself matching with some fascinating people. While (admittedly) some were just fun and flirty, others had me genuinely thinking and discussing deeper topics. Unfortunately for me, most of the latter conversationalists were found while travelling abroad. I picked up a few matches that I kept in touch with in the weeks and months after my various European trips — Paris, Manchester, London, Rome, Helsinki, Tallinn, and even on a layover in Zurich. After in-depth conversations spanning these varying lengths of time, I would eventually have a new trip coming up and recognize that I couldn’t handle so many conversations with so many different people.
“Sorry,” I’d lie to them, “but I found a serious relationship, and I’ll be deleting the app now. It was great talking with you!” Then I would unmatch them, and they would be none the wiser, as I was no longer in the same city, let alone the same country, as they were.
Eventually, I agreed to go on a blind date with a friend’s friend.
The long-time boyfriend of one of my closest friends sent me a text telling me that he had shown my picture to one of his co-workers and that we should go on a double date. My first instinct was to say “no.” Instead, I asked for him to send me a picture of this work friend. He was actually really hot, so the slightly vain part of me had me replying that I wasn’t sure. After being assured that he was the “male version” of me and that we had the same sense of humour, I agreed to go on the blind date — well, ‘blind’ in that we had never met before and I was blindly relying on my friend to judge the situation well enough to see if it would be a hit or a miss.
On the evening of the date, at this cute pizzeria, it initially seemed like it would be a win. Until I realized that all we had in common was our sense of humour (and even then, that was a pretty big stretch). He asked about my travels and found something negative to say about all of my favourite cities, made offensive jokes, and gave me the feeling that I was talking to a pre-pubescent boy, rather than a grown man several years older than myself.
When he invited me over for a barbecue at his place, at some point in the foreseeable future, I didn’t give a definitive answer. Eventually, I took the easy way out: I ghosted him and told my friend to break the news to his co-worker for me.
But that didn’t mean I was giving up on dating.
Finally, I went on a first date with someone from a dating app.
Having never actually met up with someone I started talking to online, I didn’t know what to expect. He seemed incredibly nice over our messages (which had gone on for nearly two weeks, eventually moving from the app to text messages) and gave off all the right indicators that it would be, at the very least, a good first date.
Leaving the location up to me, we met up at a bar downtown with a $5 food menu and a never-ending loop of alt and punk rock music — a genre we both loved, according to one of our conversations leading up to the date. When he arrived 15 minutes late, I was equal parts annoyed with his tardiness and shocked that he looked nothing like his pictures. Not to mention that he was at least five inches shorter than he said in his bio (to be fair, I’m 5’11” and he had claimed that he was 5’10”).
Whatever, I told myself, just see how it goes.
After settling in and ordering our drinks, I realized he had no idea what to talk about on a first date. He spoke with equal passion about politics, his ex-girlfriend, his alcoholic mother, and supporting his single sister and her baby. He asked me how much money I made and got annoyed when I didn’t give him a straight answer (because hello, it wasn’t any of his business), and seemed irked that I didn’t agree to stop travelling as much when he flat-out asked me to (I travel a lot for work and was clear about that from the get-go). It also came up in conversation that he was five years older than he said he was on his profile, something I only figured out by doing the math when he mentioned his birth year.
Thankfully, the waitress came by to settle our bill before a shift change, and I jumped on the chance to end the date. He asked for one bill, waving off my protests to pay for my drinks. When the bill came, he slid it over to me and said, “Thanks so much, I appreciate it” as the waitress returned with the credit card swiper. Needless to say, I texted him the day after saying I had no interest in seeing him again. I’d have done it in person, but as I said earlier, I watch too much true crime to take a chance like that.
I deleted most of the dating apps on my phone, narrowing it down to just two that seemed promising.
The morning after that horrendous date, I hopped on a plane and visited my cousin for two weeks. While I was there, I told her all about what had happened and realized that there was no point in keeping a bunch of second-rate dating apps on my phone. After all, certain ones have a bad reputation for a reason, and at that point, I was hoping for something more serious. At the very least, more mature than what I was getting.
Of the six that I had on my phone, I narrowed it down to just two, thus re-focusing my time and energy where I felt it would have the highest return. Honestly, if there is one thing I can recommend, it’s honing in on what you want right from the start. Have a (relatively) clear idea of what you’re looking for and only stick with apps that tend to connect like-minded people.
It seems like I’m giving financial advice, but trust me. From personal experience, it’s true.
This story has a good ending: I (re)met my boyfriend on an app.
By chance, I came across my ex-boyfriend while swiping through one of the two apps remaining on my phone on Christmas day. For fun, I swiped right on him and we matched shortly after, sparking up a conversation that became flirty more quickly than I had anticipated. He was clear from the beginning that he wasn’t looking for something serious, and although I had been looking for a serious relationship, I wasn’t looking for one with him. So, it worked.
Although it was a friends with benefits relationship, it was only a few months into it that I had deepening feelings and realized I did want to make things ‘official’ with him. There was a sense of familiarity, of comfort. Everything seemed as it should; all the red flags there had been in the past (when we dated five years prior) were no longer there, and I had come into this FWB situation feeling more like myself than I ever had before. That is, I was in a really good place in my life and of sound mental health, unlike when we had first started dating.
Eventually, our friends with benefits relationship turned into something more, and we started dating. Speaking for myself, it felt like a natural transition; though it had initially been casual, it created a foundation for us. Being open and honest about everything was a given (including having those difficult conversations when you first start dating someone or sleeping with someone new). Now, I find that we can have better conversations with each other, can talk about what’s bothering us, and are more receptive about things in a general sense.
Though perusing a dating app to meet new people doesn’t necessarily mean that you are ready for a serious relationship, it’s a great place to start. So long as you’re clear with your dates of precisely what you’re looking for, it can be an ideal way to get out, make friends, and possibly even find a long-term partner.
While I really didn’t know what to expect when I first signed up for these apps half a decade ago, I definitely did not anticipate that it would end the way that it did. Then again, I would have never imagined all the little (and big) things in my life between that day and today, as I write this article… including an ‘interesting’ blind date and shocking first ‘app’ date.
Ultimately, looking back, I have to say that it was a very curious experience, but one that I’m glad I had. Would I recommend meeting new people online? For sure! If not to find the love of your life — if that’s what you’re looking for — then to get to know some cool individuals locally and around the globe.
