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.

(Insert Tinder Pun Here)

Anyone who knows me in any capacity knows that I've had the same dream since I was a teenager.  One goal that I've been working toward each and everyday; an aspiration that consistently presses in the back of my mind whether I'm studying for an exam, sipping pinot noir on a saturday night, or completing the lightest agility workout you can imagine... I cannot get this one idea out of my head. 

I want to be on The Bachelor. 

Before you begin passing judgment, let me stop you right there and redirect you to another thought: have you ever heard of Tinder?

If you haven't, you clearly haven't been a single twenty-something recently and neither have any of your friends.  Tinder is, in essence, the quintessential expression of how overtly shallow our generation's vision of beauty has become.  It's an iphone app that demonstrates how technology has enabled us to not only embrace a depthless idea of what is beautiful, but it also allows us to forfeit all human socialization and courting that once was "dating."

Don't get me wrong, I have a Tinder (yes, I am that desperate).  I went on my Facebook, picked out what I thought were the most flattering pictures of myself that also reflected who I am as a person - a photo of my sister and me at her wedding, a picture of my niece and me on Easter, one of my mom and me- and I created an account.  I even thought of a funny yet sweet bio for under my photos, you know, so that guys could really get to know me:

Lover of carbohydrates, sunshine, and ice cream for dinner. Currently studying to spend the rest of my life helping seventh graders get their shit together.

Perfect.  And ya know what, I think it's going great.  Look at this super sweet message I got today. 

Ahhh, romance! Like, is this guy serious?  Indeed he was.  So, here's my annoyance.  I have always made comments about wanting to find love on The Bachelor, half in a kidding way, half in a serious I've-already-filled-out-my-application way, and people are constantly telling me how stupid that is.  They meet me with unrequested and unwelcome opinions of how fake the show is, how dumb the girls are, and how I'm "so much better than that."  But I invite all of the people of that opinion think about this:  the men and women who meet on TV on any reality show, be it The Bachelor, Dating in the Dark, For Love or Money (I could go on forever), these people are ACTUALLY meeting.

So, yes, the bachelor himself has twenty-five girlfriends and narrows it down to one that he supposedly wants to marry after six weeks in romantic, idealistic beautiful locations; does that sound worse than checking out a thumbnail size photograph, maybe checking to see how many mutual Facebook friends, and then swiping right because "you're hot?" 

I don't know, something doesn't sit well with me.  And maybe I'm being dramatic.  Maybe reality TV, iphone apps, online dating websites... maybe they're all the worst possible ways to meet your other half.  They probably are, but we're living a world of inorganic interactions where texting is the primary form of communication, emojis are worth a thousand words, and read receipts are one of the easiest ways of letting someone know you're just not into them.

So forgive me for fantasizing about meeting the love of my life on television, it's pathetic and I should have more respect for myself.  Instead, I'll just Tinder message all of my matches the following emoji combination until one of them takes me up on it.