HELL IS A DATING APP IN A DEAD-END TOWN

abandon all hope

I’ve never really used dating apps in sincerity—I always felt like they were kind of silly and I never enjoyed the kind of attention I generated on there (mainly racist). At one point in college, my friend and I created accounts to troll men in their 30’s and 40’s. The bit was jejune and a little mean-spirited, laughing at older men who had their settings on women who were 19, looking for love. Is that what people are on those apps for—love? I know nothing about that. Really, I know very little about love. There’s a serious shame in admitting that. I don’t think I’ve ever really been in love, maybe I’ve been close, but I’ve never had a real taste. Which is okay, my lack of experience is mostly supplanted in my personal avoidance. 

Things have been different for me lately. The majority of my thoughts these days are about the way I look, my digital persona, the person I actually want to be. I have a strong difficulty reckoning with what I see in photographs, just a real, solid distaste. Which, duh, is rooted in deep childhood wounds (WAH WAH WAH) but propagated by white supremacy, misogyny, the works. I was ugly. Maybe a better way of getting my point across is that I felt ugly. I had an eating disorder which was exacerbated in college after I experienced a traumatizing event and then I dug myself deeper into a hole that only very recently I have dug myself out of. It’s weird to be considered sort-of pretty these days, although it feels conceited to even consider that. I know I’m supposed to be empowered by beauty or whatever but I just don’t. I simultaneously feel empty and obsessed. Most importantly, I have trouble acting on my desires because of my past, and the thought of anyone finding me attractive feels preposterous. It’s what I want and yet I can’t actually fathom it at all. 

Adjunctly, for a while I didn’t want to be alive. But now I do, I want to live my life and I have all these desires and wants and goals and I have no idea what to do with any of them. As I continue to push this stupid boulder up this stupid hill, I find myself interested in dating. Like really, genuinely interested in foraying into real intimacy, which is great, but because I am on the brink of moving out of my parents house, I don’t feel like engaging in it seriously—and I am led back to my roots…

…In pursuit of being a troll again, but only with men my age, I downloaded Hinge. It seems like the best option out of many bad ones. There’s always such a specific kind of guy who is attracted to me. He’s typically White and dorky and too earnest. It’s the bloated authenticity that really throws me off, makes me want to crawl out of my skin. Nothing as off-putting as a man who really wants some pussy. I hate desperation and yet I reek of it too. 

The first thing I hate about Hinge is that there is no race/ethnicity option for me. There’s East Asian, Southeast Asian, South Asian and Middle Eastern. What about the entire region from Mongolia to Turkmenistan and then all of Russia? Do you know how many ethnic groups populate that region? Literally so many. Where is the option of “Asian?”  So I end up clicking “Other.”  Fuck North and Central Asians I guess. 

[IN SELF-RIGHTEOUS NEOLIBERAL VOICE] Hinge, do better.

Every interaction makes me want to kill myself a little but if I’m being honest, I’m inviting such answers. The account is ridiculous and I feel like an idiot. I continue anyway. If you’re not familiar with Hinge, it’s the dating app “designed to be deleted,” a good sentiment. On a normal dating website, you’re able to write a brief statement about yourself. On Hinge there are prompts, which I had a field day with. You can also add videos, photos, voice memos, polls. Hinge is a shallow pool brimming with degeneracy. I’m so fucking excited. 

Here are the prompts/polls I chose and my answers:

I did use good photos of myself, I will admit that. But when you fish, you bait a hook. 

Here’s one interaction: 

The prompt: “Dating me is like stapling your penis to a wall.”

Him: A cute wall?

Me: no. it’s just me stapling it over and over and there’s blood everywhere

Him: you’re not fitting that many staples in mine to be fair

(????)

Me:  you have no idea what i’m capable of

A man that likes my profile has a prompt that says: “A life goal of mine: to meet your dad.” Good pick-up line. Of course, I respond with “what if my dad is dead” (he’s not) and he answers in a serious capacity. Then I feel kind of bad for fucking with him. 

One man messages me for my phone number at 6:44 AM. I guess I have no choice but to respect the hustle—the hunt for pussy NEVER rests. I suppose it’s very serious for him. He’s locking in and going straight for the kill. The app also makes me feel incredibly juvenile, I wonder; how do women my age date men 15-20 years older? Even texting guys who are 28-ish makes me feel like I’m speaking in riddles. It’s like learning an entirely new language. I hate the guys who double text and use the laughing emoji. There’s so much societal flack for women who indulge stereotypically feminine hobbies like makeup or shopping but when are we going to redirect some of that loathing towards men who can’t seem to shut up about smoking marijuana! “You can’t outsmoke me,” YOU don’t know me or what I can do!!! (I have smoked weed maybe twice in my entire life)

The messages I feel the most ambivalent towards are the responses to the sex dungeon answer, which are like okay, I could have predicted those answers. Some make me laugh though. Just imagine the most NPC-looking motherfucker you’ve ever seen, like sureeeee…Brian who majored in finance wants to hang out in my sex dungeon. The messages that irritate me the most are the responses to the Karl Marx shrine. One guy tells me that Karl Marx was “misquoted on the whole communism thing” to which I say “what do you even mean by that” (because I was genuinely curious, he’s saying that the founder of communism was misquoted on, if you can believe it, communism) which launches him into “Lol I won’t get too deep into it but essentially his works are thick and complicated and have been translated over and over again…” BLAH BLAH BLAH.

OH BROTHER THIS GUY STINKS! Obviously the poll is a joke but who’s to say I don’t know who Karl Marx is? That I’m not familiar with his work? That I’m aware his work has been translated? That I know what a translation is? Sigh…nothing like a man absolutely FROTHING at the mouth to reiterate the sentiment of “man smart woman stupid.” Thank you random guy from Hinge, without you I would have never known who Karl Marx is! Thank you to all the men who are quick to bestow their superior male knowledge onto all the pathetic uneducated women. As they say, “women be shopping!” I guess that’s why we don’t know anything about communism. 

I actually reread The Communist Manifesto about a month ago. And I’ve read Das Kapital along with other communist literature. But I guess if you wear makeup and a bra (at the heavily suggested request of the patriarchy), then no you didn’t. Whatever. Let’s continue with my findings.

Another prompt is “A goal of mine:” and one man answers “to be happy,” I groan in response. I catch myself—naturally I laugh because the nature of these apps is so farcical and contrived I can’t take it seriously—but what if that was a genuine response? What if that’s something he really wants, and who am I to ridicule that? I have such a serious problem with vulnerability. I feel so alienated from my own desires that I can’t even entertain them enough to list them on a goddamn dating app. 

I tried engaging truthfully with some of the men (the ones who were funny and played along in a less-egregiously-horny way) and I ended up wading into new territory. I’m fine existing with no male attention. I’ve done it pretty much my whole life. If beauty is currency then I’m Connor Roy from Season 4 of Succession: 

“We should grab a drink. You seem fairly interesting.” Okay why don’t I put the barrel of a shotgun in my mouth instead? Fairly interesting. It’s stupid that it bothers me right? I start sinking into a swamp of vapid insecurity and frustration as all interactions lead me to a dead-end, a destination I already predicted I was going to be in. 

So the logical next step is: why don’t you try dating other kinds of people? 

Surprise! I contain multitudes. I know, it’s very brave of me to be bisexual. 

The little snippets I’ve had of pursuing women (and non-men) were so intense that I don’t think I could handle being a full-blown homosexual. Perhaps I should thank God for not making me a lesbian. (kidding) Rather, what I mean is that if I seriously committed to dating women, it would be too much. I couldn’t be vulnerable like that. Too much pressure and I would shatter under light touch. Who would be willing to pick up those pieces? Who will clean me up and put me back together? But also that would mean totally reconstructing my life. What is a life in this world, in this culture, where I don’t center men? What does that permeate? How would that change the way I perform gender? Can I handle that? I don’t know, I don’t know if I’m ready for that. 

Venus, planet of love / Was destroyed by global warming / Did its people want too much, too? / Did its people want too much?

• “Nobody” by Mitski

I don’t care about any of these guys—I don’t want them and I don’t want their attention—I know what and who I want and it’s not available. I chase what isn’t there. Which is my main frustration: I always run down one-way streets. The men I’m attracted to never want me. What is it? I recount interactions over and over again or tear myself to pieces…it must be this or that, or my face or my hair or my legs or my arms or or or or or %^&%@^&@&gdhjsagdsahjbsqjshdw%^@#^%<. 

It’s usually never that complicated and always as simple as I just don’t do it for them. It’s just the way things go, the pull of the moon, the sway of the tides. Now I keep to myself. Why would I act on my desires? Why would I pursue what I really want? I’ll just keep myself trapped in this hamster wheel of misery until my skin slides off and my bones turn to dust. Happiness doesn't feel feasible to me, and thus, the boulder rolls down the hill again. 

But how much of desire comes from wanting to be desired? Everything I’ve been taught about sex or love has been transmitted through the machine of misogyny and I can’t extract fantasy from reality. What am I chasing? An image or a feeling? The most malicious sentiment about beauty is that we’re told that a specific standard is achievable, it’s just one product away, just a couple pounds away. It’s a paradox: restrain and consume at the same time. Furthermore, beauty is not something achieved—it’s attributed to women by men as social status. It’s not power, but it’s the closest women are allowed to it. I’m so sick of not being beautiful. I can’t bear it. Is that such a silly thing to admit? I’ve never been one of those girls who were always told that growing up, or that other girls are just jealous of you. I’m lucky. My mom always sought to teach me the importance of intelligence and creativity first, and that the body always came last. My body is a prison. I don’t want it anymore. All bodies for all marginalized people are. Being born with a certain body is practically a death sentence. Everything about me feels unforgivable in the eyes of the West. The Orient, dark skin, dark eyes, dark hair. Full face, round cheeks, wide nose. Sand yourself down until you become something entirely new.

Feel the shame of being a societal obstruction weigh heavy on your shoulders. It burns and aches. It cuts into your skin, you cry out to God, who says nothing in return. 

CONSUME SANITIZE DESTROY. CONSUME SANITIZE DESTROY. CONSUME SANITIZE DESTROY. 

Of all the studying I’ve done, the pain I’ve experienced, the frustration I’ve witnessed, I SHOULD be past this. I should be past the indoctrination. And yet, I’m serving myself up on a silver platter for consumption. I want to be cut apart, devoured and shit out. I swing hard between men are such pathetic stupid creatures and I’m okay with being no more than someone’s feces. I probably deserve that. I still want to be an object. I’m still surveying myself, I’m the guard AND the prisoner, I’m the simulation within the simulation and I’m a “woman with a man inside watching a woman.”

Even though my little experiment was funny, it still operates within the Male Fantasy Bubble. Margaret Atwood mentions in that quote: “​​it's all a male fantasy: that you're strong enough to take what they dish out, or else too weak to do anything about it,” and even when I’m doing a bit, there’s still the lingering scent of they like this and I’m not being transgressive. It seems like nothing is transgressive or rebellious under the iron fist of the patriarchy, and even when I have their attention or I feel like I have the upper hand, well—no I don’t! I’m still performing the fantasy of being different or not like other girls. Once I snag their attention, I hate it. Take it away take it away I don’t want it!!! I don’t want anyone's eyes to fall on me. I have captured gazes before and then after, with my bloody thighs, had to walk home in the middle of the night. God forgive me if I’m angry about it all. God forgive me if I turn into the beast the world has long believed me to be. 

I don’t feel liberated by the actions or thoughts of other people or the actions I commit based on what other people think. I wouldn’t do half the things I do if men didn’t exist.

The biggest takeaway is the game of it all. The online dating atmosphere exacerbates that heterosexual courting is all about the game of cat and mouse and I’m beginning to understand why all my lesbian escapades (albeit few) didn’t work out. There’s a very easy framework to flirting between men and women, so when you apply that to people of the same gender, the mechanics become faulty. I’m still playing the role of Girl. Sometimes I’ll have a costume change and I get to be some variation of whatever I’m allowed to be as an Asian woman. Obviously when you’re a girl who dates another girl you’re both Girls so then you sort of end up like: okay now what…

But as I said, I’m sick of this. I don’t want to play Girl anymore—I’m embarking upon womanhood—and more than anything, I just want to be a person. I don’t want to play these games of heteronormativity in order to be validated about my existence and appearance. It’s pure idiocy and against everything I believe. Am I better than that? Who knows. There are a thousand voices screaming in my head. What if the compulsions win? What if I can’t extract myself from the game? What if I give up the fight and one day become someone’s property? I don’t believe it’s a coincidence we’re seeing an internet-based influx of the “tradwife” as our country rolls back on reproductive rights. In ten years from now, I could be spending every waking moment chasing children around the house, cooking, cleaning, hosting College Football get-togethers on a Saturday. Holy shit. I’d rather put my vagina through a woodchipper. 

Unless of course, that’s your thing. Which is cool. It’s just not MY thing. No shame in the domestic game. 

I know this isn’t a new discovery. Feminists have been documenting and theorizing all of this for ages. I’m puking up all my feelings into my laptop. I never claimed to be a revolutionary, just slightly funny from time to time. Which is mainly why I started the whole thing—just to have a laugh.