Swiped: Looking for Love in the Time of Bumble
Written by Jenny Wonderling ©2020
He is grinning, tanned, shirtless, thrusting a can towards me. In his one infinitesimal chance to grab my attention, this man has chosen to share these details: his thick muscular body which he is not shy about and might consider a kind of calling card, he likes beer, he wears a baseball cap and reflective sunglasses to conceal his gaze and any hint of vulnerability or longing. He has a goofy, crooked smile. Is he feeling the effects of his drink in the sun? This man’s priorities are clear even within the confines of my tiny glowing screen and the only picture he shares on his Bumble profile: alcohol, sex, and well... let’s just not get too deep. This man could be my neighbor, this quintessential embodiment of American masculinity. I quickly swipe left in less time needed to blink for I already have all the information I need: this specimen and his very hairy chest will never find a way into my bed or heart. Clearly this is a guy who lives to have fun, but complex as I am, I need much more than that.
There is a man laughing, tucked anonymously among six other rollicking men he enjoys the company of. This stranger has not introduced himself properly; I don’t even know which one he is. Does he not feel confident or enticing enough to stand upon his own merits, needing to cast his own reflection in the faces of his cronies who he must consider more handsome or interesting or successful so that by association I might realize his true inner appeal? Alas, I have already swiped left, and any essential details about this soul’s unique imprint on the world, or potentially my life, have been left within the comforts of his crowd’s revelry.
Hair plugs, visible in their unnatural falseness seem to have been planted primly within the borders of a hairline that looks drawn, as do the darkened, magnified roots of each cluster of follicles artificially blooming. In contrast, I think of my father’s scraggly tufts of hair that exploded wildly in his middle age like small scrappy islands amidst a shiny sea of unabashed balding, the roundness of his bare scalp unfettered by the cloak of youth. How I loved his embrace of life’s changes with utter humor and acceptance. This other man on my phone’s screen smiles brightly, revealing chalk white, too-humanly-perfect teeth, while he drapes an arm over the shoulder of a buxom female in a revealing dress. Much of her face has been crudely, almost violently scribbled out in black marker, her shiny red lips parted in what seems like a final plea before she has been obliterated. In the man’s other hand, he brandishes a thick cigar, its fumes spiralling into the air. Swipe. Yes, definitely left, then left again, past more hair transplants and other men who have surely botched their ages here, more fake teeth, more cigars, more images posted by other men who also can’t exert the energy to take a new photo, preferring these disconcerting images with scantily clad women whose faces they have also scribbled over. Apparently, the marred evidence of these vanquished women seems to infer that their ex partners had sufficient appeal to have this good time immortalized, and so they will again. Swipe!
One handsome dark eyed man in a comfy plaid shirt is holding a baby, seemingly in an effort to show his tender side right out of the gate. Yet I am wondering- has he already left a woman with such a young child? Couldn’t he set aside his need for autonomy for the greater good of his family just a few more years? But then a deeper glance into his profile reports this child bearer doesn’t even have children, and he isn’t sure if ever he wants any, confounding my initial concern. I swipe left to find many other men genuinely delighted that they are fathers. Some of these dads and their kids are smiling sweetly, yet some kids’ faces have also been scratched out or concealed behind a “sticker”. By presenting images of themselves with their kids, these men are perhaps saying they prioritize their children. But I can’t help but note how this approach seems to also say, if you fall for me, I can offer you this bonus prize, as if they are commodifying their progeny. And then I wonder also, if women were to try this approach to dating, would men be inclined to be enticed by such a package deal? As a proud mother of three boys myself who identifies with parenting as my most vital role in the world, personally I would neither betray my kids’ identities from the get-go, nor my own need to connect as an individual in relationship, before bringing my kids into the mix.
And I am left with an ever-increasing concern about my apparent penchant for judgment in the world of online dating. I actually like to find the glaring mishaps of manhood, as if years of tucked away frustration is now rearing up, displaced towards what seems like a sea of too many lonely weirdos. Or is lonely weirdo what I have become in a mere two weeks of recurrent swiping, sometimes up to an hour or more a day, hoping, hoping I may find him, that surely he is looking for me too, and if it’s meant to be, then even here in this hay stack of fractured love lost souls we will find each other. Sure, there are still many attractive men smiling my way, outdoorsy men, those who look creative or quirky, those who I would probably enjoy the company of. But the one? Not yet, but would I even recognize him if I saw him, especially swiping this quickly?
All this swiping has elicited a new ironical compound to rise up: sadfun. I realize the process of looking so fast at all these possibilities for partnership is a lot like shopping in a discount store for something exquisite and rare. Yeah, mayyybe it’s there, some unique example of authentic beauty, but it would be highly unlikely and unnecessarily draining. I can finally admit to myself, swiping for love is sadfun indeed: both painfully sad, but just entertaining enough to keep my focus until I feel exhausted and a little guilty.
Looks as if I may need to resort to some more radical means of finding a partner in 2020, namely, to leave my house more. I, Jenny Wonderling, aka JennyBird, 50, resolve to make more of an effort to (at least) haul my computer to more public places because I just may not meet the man of my dreams working at home or at any of my various women’s circles, occasional yoga classes, or on line at the health food store. Still, my 9-year-old is asleep, my eldest boys are away, and so I indulge another ½ hour of sadfun swiping til I actually make it to the end of the line and get this message:
And then I think of the word swipe, what it means beyond moving “in a sweeping motion.” Here is what a quick exploration on the web procures:
swipe
/swīp/
INFORMAL
Verb
hit or try to hit with a swinging blow."she swiped me right across the nose"
steal.
"someone swiped one of his sausages"
Noun
a sweeping blow.
an act or instance of moving one's finger across a touchscreen to activate a function.
Does this mean I have been trying to find love by “hitting it with a swinging blow” OR TRYING TO STEAL IT? How could I ever guide fate or inspire Cupid’s bow that way, and would I even want to? I decide to resist my new nightly ritual, dust off Braiding Sweetgrass which has been left unattended for many weeks on my bedside table, and drink in the exquisite wisdom therein before falling off to sleep.
*** *** ***
Well, I’m back. I had indeed taken a little reprieve from the online dating world, but... it’s a long cold winter in the Hudson Valley, I’m alone in this house, it’s late and, well, what if he’s out there, just a few swipes away?
This man is wearing a pink full body rabbit suit, in mock sexy-time recline. Chin dipped almost coquettishly, he stares at me through a camera’s lens. Who might have been complicit in his photo shoot and also thought this was a great idea to help me consider what kind of man he is, what kind of lover and partner, this man with his floppy ears. He has a sense of humor, I give him that, while my index finger instinctively swipes left and on past other many men offering selfies from their cars, (the back seat cluttered or carefully immaculate.) There, a grin that seems too forced. That one seems lascivious, yes downright creepy; I can’t imagine anyone wanting to be in a car with that man. A few men are scowling, clearly not excited about the process of selling their personal wares online or exerting any effort to find someone who may love them. Their dull eyed stares seems to tell me I should expect to swipe left and so I do, on to more selfies at the gym, selfies on a beach, and then past other men who also wear costumes, some laughing, others posturing, lips pursed, seriousss about their look. There is a bear. A clown. A disco dancing king. An unspecified superhero with outlandish, hulkish muscles sewn into shiny polyester. There is a man dressed as a bearded version of I Dream Of Genie. Left, left, sadly, as quickly as I can, more and more lefts til I have actually fatigued my pointer finger as well as index finger, along with any hope that I will ever find love through a screen.
I think about indigenous peoples’ early perceptions of photographs and their fears that cameras could steal a person’s soul. Maybe in all that flexing, posturing, and falsehoods summoned to create an image that is merely a fractured construct of a person, could those musings of those who have lived closer to the earth be true? I am angry I have wasted yet another good and rare spare hour to indulge this strange voyeurism, maybe just feeding an instinct for longing and disappointment, rather than nourishing my creativity, spirit, and brain, or the many other beautiful forms of relationship in my world.
That’s it, Bumble, you and I are breaking up. I am committing to anything other than this vacuous activity, whether millions of others may have found love here or not. I turn my light off and finally recognize that in my pining for authentic partnership, as well as hoping to discover what reflections of masculinity there are in 2020, I have learned a bit more about who I am- my own likes, picadillos and complexities that may in fact be harder to match than I thought.
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