I don’t online date, because I can barely read social cues in person. I’m utterly crippled when a screen and prompt are involved.
Despite successfully having a column read by 15,000 people and offering half-wit advice to people with and without supporting requests, I cannot fathom socially interacting online in any romantic sense, because I am horrible at it.
You’re on your MacBook, I’m on my Remington. This is truly what online dating feels like to me. I feel like I’m a dinosaur, changing out my print ribbon spool, and wadding up messages I thought I wanted to send, and throwing it into a wastebasket in the corner.
I don’t know the lingo. I don’t want to send naked photos of myself to someone who could very well be my neighbor 3 houses down on the right that stumbled across my profile. I’ve seen Catfish, and I learned from Neve.
Yet, it appears in my unwillingness to hop online and drop my panties, I have been moved into the column labeled “undateworthy”. I won’t snapchat or TikTok. Why? Because I have nieces and nephews. Do you know what they talk about? Snapchat and TikTok.
If you are looking for dates on the same platform that my 13 year old niece is looking for her next boyfriend…
we are apparently in different dating places in our lives. I don’t want to be messaging a guy I’m going to have to teach to be a boyfriend. He’ll be a futile exercise in training. He’ll need to be educated on the general rules and decorum, because he is accustomed to saying “hello” and 54 pictures of vaginas are in his inbox.
Let’s go ahead and safely presume that’s not how it’s taking place over here.
I have grown concerned with the matter, and rightfully so, because I have noticed the following trend:
I’m just moseying along, writing some snarky article here, leaving some semi-charming advice there, then Bam! Out of nowhere, some guy from some place on some completely disrespectful roll decides to pop up and ask that I send a video using dildos so that he can “truly understand me”.
Look, I’m all for understanding one another. A deeper connection, if you will, but I’m nearly positive that this was not the “deep” everyone was referring to. How did we allow it to become a prerequisite to dating that someone need to view every single naked inch of us?
So, after much thought and internal debate, I have decided that I will continue on my traditional search for Prince Charming. I will not trade nudes with people who are simply a screen name to me. I will continue to have some respect for myself, and not allow myself to feel pressured into the “you’re not interesting if you don’t” platforms every slimy dude on OKCupid is pushing with all of his might.
If my choosing to remain classy and respectable offends you, by all means, don’t pursue me. In a world of rapidly declining social graces, I choose to remain a classic. Our value increases with time. I’m a patient woman.
Perhaps I’m not waiting for the right guy. Perhaps I’m waiting for the return of the classic guy. The guy who really does want a little something left to the imagination. One who is entranced with my words, because duh, I’m a writer, kind of a big deal to me. If I wanted to be just another naked body in a photo gallery, I wouldn’t waste my time with all of this English language I consistently butcher for my own entertainment.
I recently started speaking with the guy I thought was the return of Prince Charming. British. Beautiful. When I said, “you have trouble written all over you and it seems I’m bound to wake covered in ink”, he told me he hadn’t ever been intellectually turned on in that way before. It was as though my whole online dating life had culminated in this final message to me that read…
“Send me a pic of you…naked”.
Fuck.
Same. I had a few gals demanding dick pix on various places (Twatter for one) and what they got was a pic of Tricky Dick Nixon.
We are classy classics, and thus we shall remain.. Evermore and despite whatever NBFU** silliness the media sites may come *chortle!* up with!
**NBFU from a sales engineer means Newer Better Faster Upgrade but we service engineers know, and we can unequivocally and categorically PROVE, that it actually means Now Bigger Fuck Ups!!
I've actually heard NBFU referred to as "Natural Born Fuck Up" & ever since, I personally use that acronym to describe the online dating community in whole!😂🤷🏼♀️Makes sense right? Most are trying their✋@ online dating bc somewhere along the line, they've managed to royally suck @ real life dating. It's risky af considering the dangers in the world today & how many catfish & wolves in sheep's clothing there are. We are taught to look for specific things & how can u through a screen? Might as well be called blind dating bc there is no 100% for sure way of knowing who it is ur conversing w. Catfish is an awesome show, but just like it shows US what to look out for, it's simultaneously showing these incognito douchebags how to evolve their scheming & teaching them the tricks of the trade. For example: Nev taught us reverse image search using Google search bar. So now they're stealing some1 else's pictures & then redacting Metadata (which is changing the information u get from the image to verify it's authenticity). OR screenshotting it onto their phone then editing it so it links back to their phone/account & can pass it off as theirs. So essentially being a web sleuth thinking we can detect when some1 is being untruthful is getting harder for us.
The dating world in whole is a huge joke anymore. In person will always be superior to any other form of dating.
I am an "old soul" as my grandma once said & for the life of me (@ 36yrs old) I can't bring myself to do the "norm" that most do this day & age. My close friends & family are thee ONLY ones that are on my socials & they're lucky if I post an actual pic once every few months. 🤷🏼♀️Noooo Becky, I DON'T wana be ur FB friend & pretend I actually like u in real life. I don't want fake friends just for the sake of vanity & internet "clout".
Cousin Leah ova here sending me a new invite each month for a company I've never heard of that she swears by. Sorry, I don't want to buy into ur new employers MLM schemes bc u decided that was the better option btwn going out & contributing positively to society or sitting @ home behind a computer screen to avoid actually doing work.
And I'm not mocking WFH ppl when I say this, bc ik some successful ass ppl who make it work & some who make a decent living might I add... but the "get rich quick" schemes are in abundance on these socials anymore. I'm actually a pretty private person so I don't jump @ the opportunity to add some1 I may or may not have known back 20yrs ago who I would have the pleasure of seeing on my feed.
Lastly, I don't even like looking @ myself naked, why on God's green Earth would I want a stranger I barely know looking @ my body any time or day they want doing Lord knows what. I feel like that's giving them the green light to objectify u & well where do morals, dignity & self respect come into play? Our bodies are our temples & should be treated as such. I don't like to judge others for the choices they make in life but @ the same time, where does the line get drawn? Most men today expect it & don't work for shit bc they can just move onto the next unsuspecting woman when they don't get what they want...natural selection at its finest IMHO.📢Rant ova!!😅