I have been chronically single my entire life. I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing, but it’s something I’ve wanted to change this year. 

So I did what any twenty-four-year old does in a new city: I joined a dating app. Well, I joined two dating apps. 

Okay for a while there it was three. 

To be honest, growing up cloistered in purity culture and Calvin’s dating scene, I wasn’t much looking forward to it. Or rather, I was looking forward to a rom-com kind of first date, but not to the prospect of wedding bells after three months of dating. The pressure always seemed so intense: to get everything right the first time (stressful), to find the right guy who my friends and family would approve of (impossible), to be emotionally available (ick) and vulnerable to heartbreak (no thank you). 

But nonetheless, I faced the gauntlet of making a profile: finding photos, thinking of cute things to say in my bio, and even (though I’m loath to admit it) answering a voice prompt. 

Why did I subject myself to this particular hellscape of being a single twenty-something?

Well, the prospect of love, of course! Somehow, despite the absurdity of swiping right or left on a profile someone’s friends made for them, reading too many bios that just had an instagram, one blurry photo, and the text “Any questions just ASK ME,” there’s still that little faint hope that someone else just like me (well not just like me) is on this app for the same reason, and some magic force of nature will cause us both to swipe right. And then to message. And then to keep messaging for an awkward amount of time. And then maybe go on an awkward coffee date where he shakes your hand goodbye. And maybe go on another date because what have you got to lose? And eventually, somehow, despite all of it, you’ll figure things out and finally delete the dating apps. 

That’s the hope, at least. 

I’ve been on quite a few dates this year. Partly practice, partly because I’m bored on weekends, and partly because I feel like making a man buy me dinner even when I know I won’t see him again is a tiny means of reparations from the patriarchy. One of my personal favorites was with a man who halfway into the conversation revealed that he “doesn’t like being outside.” Apparently at all. Outside is basically my whole personality. I remember literally gaping at him and thinking to myself how did I get here?? Needless to say, we did not go out again. 

But on the other hand, I suppose finding the love of your life on a dating app isn’t much more absurd than hoping the drunk guy next to you at the bar is “the one.” We people, desperate for connection, cling to that wan hope that it could be something. 

My own dating app story has something of a redemption arc, I suppose. After many bad first dates, and a few bad second and third dates too, I had just about decided that dating apps weren’t fun anymore and I was content to return to the land of close friends and cute dogs. 

But then this punk, the guy I’m now openly obsessed with and actively dating, decided to stand me up on our first date. Honestly, not the most annoying thing to happen to me on a first date this year. But for some godforsaken reason even I can’t put my finger on, I went out with him again. And again. And again and again and again. And this week I even deleted my dating app(s). So maybe that crazy hope we’re all clinging to isn’t so crazy after all. 

Still, dating apps aren’t for the faint of heart. To be honest, I hate them. I hate that they reduce whole people to a few quips and bad photos, I hate that they make me put myself and everyone around me in little boxes, and dear God I hate having to think of a cute opening line. It’s horrifying. 

In our world so starved for connection and affection, maybe dating apps are better than nothing. Maybe the hope of a hot one-night stand, a wedding date, or a long-term partner is worth the—let’s be real here—trauma of this ridiculous social experiment we subject ourselves to. We were built for connection, and sometimes beggars can’t be choosers, right?

Nah. Dating apps are the worst. First dates are exhausting, and the “talking stage” is enough to  make me throw a chair through a window. Would not recommend; it’s too late for me, but if you can find a way to avoid it, save yourself!

I give dating apps one star.