When Tinder Makes You Question Everything You've Ever Wanted

When I was 10 years old I met Benny Disco.  We had a mutual family friend and were invited to swim over at their family's pool.  It was love at first sight.  Benny was 12 (swoon).  He had rosie cheeks and a chubby body and I was smitten.  It was destiny.  That is until he and the older kids went to play basketball in the driveway and I went home with my mom because I wasn't about to be the chubbiest, shortest girl on pavement.

Years passed and Benny floated in and out of my life (I'm totally lying he had no idea who I was). Benny went to a private high school and then some college, I assume.  I drunkenly friended him on Facebook one night in college on a dare from my BFF. She did it, too, in solidarity, of course.  The funny thing about my schoolgirl crush on Benny is that I rarely remember his name (which obviously isn't actually Benny), so I always need confirmation from my friend when we potentially see him out at a bar, or someone mentions a group of his friends.  "Jane, it's Benny and it's so weird that you always say that you love him!"  Whatever.

A few months ago I was doing my classic nighttime ritual - wash face, brush teeth, put on pj's, swipe through Tinder - when the most amazing, serendipitous match flashed before my eyes. There he was, Ben, 23, first pictured walking in some tropical location. Next, holding a fish or a dog or something (I actually can't remember, but everyone on Tinder fishes or has a dog, I think).

This. Was. Fate. 

I swiped right. He swiped right. It's a match, we were meant to be! I imagined he would message me eventually. Noticing our mutual Facebook friends, connecting the dots, realizing he has always (randomly, without reason) had a schoolboy crush on me, too.  We would meet, hit our stride, and be together forever ....or for a beer..... but that was not the case.

Benny and I have been matched for 5 months now, and you know what?  I totally forgot about it until the other day when Benny did the unthinkable! He posted a Tinder moment - for those of you who don't know, a Tinder moment is a photograph that can be seen by all of your Tinder matches for 24 hours.  I, myself, have posted a moment or two (or 15... 3 of which have been liked by Super Bowl Champion, Legarrette Blount, thank you very much!), but Benny's was nothing like my basic "hotdogs or legs" photo on the beach.  Benny's photo was much, much more than that.

I sat there, in my driver's seat horrified, staring at Benny's, what I'm going to call, Little Benny ready for the Disco.... right there on TINDER for all to see with the caption "someone come help me with this?"  BENNY, ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! My cheeks flushed.  Benny was supposed to be sweet and innocent and not putting his package on the internet! My hopes, my dreams, my everything came crashing down.  How could I have been so wrong?!

And that was when I got to thinking, I'm probably wrong about a lot of things. We make these snap judgments and let our first impressions of people stick - good or bad - and then sometimes we are unwavering in our convictions and opinions.  While I'm obviously exaggerating my Benny epiphany, I am sort of serious.  I think it's healthy to reevaluate our goals, our dreams, and truly take a look at what we want and why we want it.  It's like when you see a blue dress on JCrew.com and you are so obsessed with it until you walk into the store and try it on and you look like Violet from Willy Wonka (no? just me?). We are terrible at predicting what we will want or feel in the future, so be ready to change your mind, have a change of heart, and swipe left on what you thought you couldn't live without.

There Is No Revenge Better Than Happiness

The best advice I have ever gotten after a breakup was from my aunt.  I was two weeks into my senior year of high school and my boyfriend of two years dumped me...hard.  "How would I know I want something, if I've never had anything else?" ...oh. So for weeks I over dramatized the situation.  I cried and cried about how he would rather meet other girls, how he thought there was something or someone better out there, and how I felt so betrayed.  My aunt finally said to me one day, "You know what, Sweetie? There is no revenge better than happiness."  Looking back, she was absolutely right.  Why live your like letting other people define your happiness?  At eighteen, I thought my heart was broken, and I wanted him to feel like losing me was a mistake.  Since then, my friends and I have been broken up with by a countless number of ultimately unworthy suitors.  Each time, I make it a point to remind myself and my friends of my aunt's advice. 

But this time feels different.  Revenge isn't what I'm looking for.  My boyfriend didn't walk away from our relationship, he was basically never in it.  And what makes this separation so difficult for me is that his contentedness with our break up validates my prior assumption that he didn't want to be in a relationship in the first place.  At least not a legitimate one.

I remember last New Years Eve when he refused my offer to spend the night with my friends, and waited until December 30th to counteroffer an invitation for me to spend the night with him and his friends.  I recall each time I asked him to meet me for dinner and before committing he first found out what his friends were doing - just in case they were going to have more fun without him.  I remember each time he ended a phone call with me regardless of what point of the conversation we were in because he had arrived home from work, and why keep talking to me when there was the prospect of talking to someone else?  And I recall each time I wished he would offer to come to Massachusetts, walk over to my dorm room instead of myself walking there, invite me to sleep over, wait for me to watch our favorite TV show instead of watching it with someone else, and so much more.  It's like dating me was an addition to his day that he didn't want to do.  Like a sixth class with too much homework, when he'd rather be watching Pokemon with his roommates or drinking on a Tuesday with his friends and their girlfriends.  So,  I walked away.  I gave him what he wanted, he has all the time in the world do the things that really matter to him.  He no longer has to think about what I might want, what I might feel, and what might be a compromise for the two of us.  He wanted to think only about himself, what makes him happy, and what takes little to no forethought about me.

What does this have to do with my aunt's advice? I should be happy... and sometimes I am.  But I don't feel like it's "the best revenge."  In a way, happiness validates that he was right.  That this is better for both of us.  That we both have what we wanted.  That cannot be any further than the truth.  Rather than him loving me enough to give more to our relationship, he wants to do way less, and I am supposed to be happy now?  Happy that I had to walk away from someone I loved because he did not want me anymore, but didn't have the decency to tell me that?  He let me decide... As if to say, "if this isn't enough for you that's your problem, I shouldn't have to WANT to spend time with you."  I feel like I was easily disposed of, and like he is relieved to be single, and it is entirely disheartning.

I know that my aunt's advice rings true here, but not in the way I had always thought it would.  I am not looking for revenge, rather I am looking for something I deserve.  I was a good girlfriend.  I was understanding of his values, of his wants and desires, of his flaws, his shortcomings and his worth... but I could not be understanding of his lack of commitment and respect for what me - for my wants, my values, my shortcomings, and my worth.  And that does not make me a bad person, it makes me deserving of happiness. 

So, I am not trying to be happy as a form of revenge in hopes of making him miss me or think that this was a mistake.  Honestly, if he wasn't willing to let me be happy with him, I sure as hell deserve happiness without him.

The First of Many

A friend of mine suggested that every time I am feeling sad about my former relationship, I should write a letter and tear it up.  I understood where she was coming from, but the problem with that plan is that it doesn't hold me accountable for what I have to say.  Every thought and every emotion - be it sad, angry, hurt, relieved - are all my own and not only crave expression, but need to be expelled.  I'm pissed.  I'm saddened.  My mind and heart and everything in between is twisted and crumbling and being fueled by every day.  Every instance.  Every moment.  So, why write a letter and tear it up?  These notes are a reflection of myself that should not be destroyed, but should be celebrated.

It would only be appropriate to give a short bit of background about my relationship, since feelings and emotions do not, or should not, come from thin air.  I am a senior in college and my former boyfriend is a junior.  We attend a small Catholic college in New England.  After meeting at an event highlighting student-leadership two summers ago, we dated for a few months more than one year.  Most recently, we spent the summer apart, as his family lives a few states away, and I did a lot of traveling to see him.  A. Lot. Of. Traveling.  Unfortunately, as I came to find out, I was more interested in seeing him than he was in seeing me, he thought little of making this relationship long-term or long-lasting, and he believed the plans I was making for my future following senior of college should not include him... at all.   He also cared more to spend time with his friends, male or female, than with me, thus spending Thanksgiving, Spring Break, and visits over Christmas vacation together were not in the cards for us without a conversation which typically ended with me in tears and him looking more and more annoyed each time.  Sleeping in the same bed quickly shifted from three-five nights a week last spring, to one-three times a month this fall.  Eventually, I became insecure in a relationship that I once believed made me the luckiest girl on the planet, and found myself doing things not because I loved him, but in hopes of making him love me... and that was a terrible feeling.  I laid it all out there for him one last time, he told me that he didn't value the same things in a relationship that I did, and that what I wanted was too much pressure; so, I told him that I didn't want a relationship at all.

Keep in mind there are two sides to every story, and I do not have an account of his side.  In his eyes, I could have been too clingy, too forward thinking, too hopeful... who knows? And I am not in any way trying to demonize him.  My former boyfriend was, and still is, an incredibly friendly, upbeat, intelligent, good-looking guy.  Does that make him a good person? Yes. Does that mean he's a good boyfriend? Maybe for someone, but not for me.

This whole experience is overwhelming, underwhelming, disheartening, empowering, and a whole slew of emotions that I can't even define or articulate for myself.  A choice that I made feels like a punishment on some days, and a new beginning and introduction to my new sense of self on others. 

I am sad that our relationship has ended, that all of the memories we made together now taste bitter on my tongue.  That when I think of something to tell him, I have to keep the thought to myself or think of someone else to call.  I am sad that the love I felt for him wasn't cut from the same cloth that the love he felt was.  But mostly, I am sad for what could have been... that I could have been complacent.  I could have wanted for nothing more, and I could have molded myself into the kind of person that he wanted to be with: blindly happy, baring no request, living in the here-and-now, and moderately content with a half-hearted juvenile desire to be close to one another.  It feel like it might have been possible.  Sometimes I wish to myself that instead of asking for one more conversation about our feelings for one another, that I could've just climbed in and accepted the single time that week that he had wanted to share a pillow, a blanket, and bed as enough.  

And then I remind myself that I want more.  I want feelings of certainty.  The feeling of knowing that no matter where I am, in happiness or tragedy, that person will come running.  That when I am lost, he is looking... and that when he is lost, he wishes we were lost together.  I want aligned values and the desire to be with one another whether you are four states away and a ferry ride away, one mile away, or laying in the same bed.  Is that too much to ask? Maybe... actually, probably.  But if it is, I hope there is someone out there who asks for too much, too.  Because I am willing to give everything, to love unconditionally, and to make someone else's needs my own, but only if they can do the same... since I'm willing to give so much, I need a partner who is not so selfish as to take and take without the desire to give in return.  

So, I think this is what heartbreak feels like, and honestly, he is probably only the first of many to break my heart. But, more is out there for me.  Even when I am feeling downtrodden, hurt, and cast aside, I know that I am not meant to feel this way forever.