Binging Bumble For The Holiday’s

The holiday season always has a way of making my habit of helpless romanticism go into overdrive. Maybe it’s an endless number of cheesy Hallmark movies where the big business person goes to a small town, for business reasons, but falls in love, with a small town country person of course, and stays forever. Or maybe it’s every person I know posting cute pictures with significant others that make my gag reflex go wild. 

So basically, the holiday season reminds me of love and how much I am not it. In love, that is, which leads me to transform into an embittered grinchy person bingeing romantic comedies. I may be in a constant love affair with a lot of things: my bed, my laptop, my endless collection of books, and the wonderful men that live inside them, but physical human people? Absolutely not.

It’s not like I haven’t tried. The very nature of a helpless romantic is being in love with the idea of love. I love love and with the accessibility to the internet you’d think I could find love outside of pining over James McAvoy in Penelope or Dev Patel in literally everything. 

Pushing my celebrity crushes to the side for a moment though, let’s talk more about online dating. Specifically, the apps. 

During one of my seasonal binges of romantic comedies, I found myself sifting through pages on Netflix. Trying to decide between Julia Stiles or JLo. In my endless search for the “right” movie, I got distracted by an Adam Sandler film and then another. Until, eventually, I gave up on watching a new movie entirely and fell onto familiarity. 

The endless shuffling on Netflix, reminded me of dating apps. Yes, many people find success in digital dating but why is it then that love still feels so inaccessible? 

If I wanted to, right now, I could reach into my pocket, download any number of apps to my phone, and be entered into multiple conversations with multiple men in a matter of seconds. That, right there, is the definition of accessibility. There is no limit on my ability to access, so then, what is it? 

Are my jokes really that bad? Should I have picked more flattering photos for my profile instead of choosing the one of me hanging upside down like Spiderman at a climbing gym? I mean, I thought I looked pretty cool. 

Spider-Chloé, Spider-Chloé does whatever a Spider-Chloé does…

Going back to my Netflix example though. When you are looking for a movie, you generally spend more time searching for things to watch than actually watching. You’re overwhelmed with choice. Am I in the mood for a heart-throbbing romance, an intellectual stimulator, an adventure for the ages, or an Adam Sandler movie? (And yes, Adam Sandler gets his own category.)

All of your choices are equally valid in their own way, even I’m prone to the occasional idiocy of Mr. Sandler and his plethora of ridiculous characters and equally ridiculous friends. Who am I kidding, I may write eloquently (sometimes) but I’m more than a little prone to stupidity. My default humor is that of a 10-year-old boy’s but that detracts from my main argument, which is that dating apps have become the newest inhibitor for finding a proverbial “movie.” 

The theory seems counterintuitive to their purpose of existing but hang with me here.

Obviously, I’m talking about men not movies (and by men I mean partners, I use the gendered term only because it started with an m and I am a sucker for alliteration; though in my case I am referring to men but that’s not important…ya know, someone should consider removing my parentheses keys on here so I can stop falling into the trap of tangents. (boom, more alliteration.)). 

When you log into Bumble, Tinder, or Hinge, all of which I’ve used, you end up spending the majority of your time filtering through searches and adjusting your requirements for “the one” or, at least, the one for tonight.

They ask you questions when you set up your profile like: Can they drink? Can they smoke? Do they believe in God? Do they want children? (And by the way, who in their right mind is thinking about children on a hook-up app?) 

You then get to objectify these people with intense scrutiny as you look through their profile or lack thereof most times. Do you prefer the one holding a trout in their profile picture or the one that took an awkward car selfie? Or maybe you’re into the guy that’s so confident or insecure that he just has one picture of himself (either attempting to look sexy or standing very far away or with a group of people so you have no idea which one he is) with something like “7’10’’ if that even matters” in their bio. 

Oh, shoot! You found one that checks all of the boxes but they’re not interested in a relationship yet they’ve listed that they want all the benefits of a girlfriend. Please, for the love of God, make it make sense.  

Well it’s not like it matters anyway, for me at least, as I will be promptly deleting this app in a matter of days when the dopamine hits from the matches I’ve received stop giving a kick. I find it impossible to stay on these apps for more than a few days mostly because a lot of the matches I’ve received end up being the stereotypical dating app pick-up artists who take their own lines way too seriously.

One of them even asked me if I wanted “some of those mixed babies” ASAP which I found both hilarious and concerning that that was his first choice of message. 

Now this isn’t to say that I haven’t met a few cool people on these apps. I’m actually friends with a few of them on Instagram and if you’re reading this you’ve passed the “I’ve read your blog” test. Unfortunately, the only prize I can offer you is a meme and a congratulatory text message.

Back to the point though. With the excessive filtering, it feels almost impossible to find “the one,” especially when you’re trying to tailor-make them. 

We filter because we’re so dead-set on selecting partners with qualities that we want but, let me ask you this, are those qualities that we actually need?

I began reflecting on this dichotomy of wants and needs when I got involved with someone who seemingly fit all of my criteria to a T. When I say this man was made for me, I mean he was made for me. He checked all of the boxes I had and then checked some that I didn’t even know I could have. 

On paper, we should’ve been a successful match but reality and paper are two different things. 

When push came to shove, I knew we weren’t going to be successful. It was a punch to the gut. At first, I was unwilling to let go, I convinced myself that it could work. It was only when my wanting for love began to push my personality to the side to make the match last that I knew I had to let go. 

I had been so focused on this idea that all my boxes had been checked that I neglected to think of the things I actually needed. For example, I’ve always said that I want someone who can talk and, while true, what I actually need is someone who can be present. There’s a difference. However slight, it changes a dynamic entirely. 

My point with dating apps is that I didn’t even know what I needed so how could I possibly make a decision as big as deciding who gets a swipe left or right? Unless, I was fully leaning into male objectification and just swiping right on abs and I’m not goin to lie, I kind of was. Another downside of these apps is that surface-level attraction is the name of the game most times.

But, who’s to say I haven’t swiped left on someone spectacular? Who’s to say they haven’t done the same to me? Missed connections and paths left uncrossed niggle at the back of my mind quite often.

Dating apps provide a convenient solution to loneliness but, when you don’t know yourself and your needs all that well, that’s all they are: convenient. 

That’s not to say that people don’t find love on dating apps, I actually know plenty of people that have but I would then argue that they’re the minority not the majority. This is also not to say that my take on this is absolute. Like everything else I share, it’s merely one side of the story. 

Also, I should mention that my use of “the one” is based on the unrealistic idea that is perpetuated in media that you’re going to meet someone and everything will just magically fall into place. The person that fairy tales fabricated. A person so perfect, that they have no bad qualities (or at least none you can see or care about) and everything in your relationship is effortless. 

I sure as hell never saw Cinderella arguing with prince charming over spending too much on extra crockpots they didn’t need but, remember, fated lovers never argue. 

All of this though, makes me think of phrase I’ve been holding onto since I happened across it in, wouldn’t you guess it, a Netflix rom-com called “Set It Up.” In it, a character during a speech at her engagement party starts listing the flaws and quirks of her groom-to-be just to say, “You like because but you love despite.”

You like someone because of all of the wonderful qualities that they possess and you love someone despite some of the not-so-great qualities they may have. I think we all want love in the way we expect it to be but expectations hardly ever measure up. Reality is far more interesting too.

It’s also far more heartbreaking and exhausting though so I’ll stick to Dev Patel for now and maybe I’ll watch Penelope again. Who knows, maybe I’ll watch an Adam Sandler movie instead. My options, just like the number of tangents in this blog post, are endless. 

Yes, I did take the time to make this because…why not.