This exchange typifies 98 percent of my former social life, and you know what I’ve realized? I spent too much time trying to mold myself to fit the romantic ideals of humans who proved themselves unworthy of that effort, and I regret it. Never again will I be with someone who is unwilling to accept me as I am, or who has any desire to mold me into something that makes me uncomfortable. Mostly this is because I’m too anxious and overwhelmed to meet new people and try to make my interests sound more fun. I have unsuccessfully tried to be a girl who is into obscure collage. I have unsuccessfully tried to be a girl who is into the electronic music that just sounds like a bunch of bleeps and bloops. I have unsuccessfully tried to be a girl who reads graphic novels. And experimental fiction. And David Foster Wallace. I have stayed up late watching bootleg kung fu movies on shitty laptops; I have grimaced through expensive meals that were little more than adorable art projects on a plate; I have shivered in an icy stadium seat cheering for a team I have no stake in, and I have cooked lobsters (which I don’t like) for someone who wouldn’t dare eat a burger from McDonald’s (which I do).
Before I gave up on life and meeting people in public, I used to let my friends set me up on blind dates, mostly because I hate myself. I don’t really feel alive unless I’m actively wishing I was dead. This is how your friend, who loves you, sets you up on a blind date: first, she browbeats her boyfriend into exhaustively scrolling through the mental Rolodex of every man he’s ever worked for, talked to, or shared an elevator with until he can come up with one who has a job, isn’t married, and might be convinced to eat dinner across from a woman she’s only willing to describe as “very smart” and “super funny” with “an amazing personality.” Then, she forces you to cannonball into the middle of the dating ocean holding an inner tube with no flippers or oxygen tank. And I appreciated the consideration, I really did. It warmed my cold, dead heart every single time I got blindsided by people who had no idea what they were in for and had a difficult time masking their disappointment. I really did want to tug on a Spanx and sit awkwardly across from that dude your husband met in the grocery store parking lot after he backed into your guy’s Volvo who just broke off his engagement and blather on about television shows he pretends to never have heard of over a plate of midpriced pasta. Yes, please. Sign me right up. Oh how I love to fatfish the unsuspecting!
This is why the Internet is a miracle. I mean, I don’t care about watching real-life murders on the dark Web or angrily tweeting at CNN anchors, but it is a magical thing that I can just open up my computer and cultivate superficial relationships with people who may or may not have stolen their profile picture from an Instagram model without having to pluck my mustache hairs first.
You can just take your tiny robot out of your pocket and see that, no, I don’t really have an interest in modern architecture. Or, if I’m pretending to, I can take twenty seconds to figure out which buildings I like best from the googles and impress you with my ability to deftly copy and paste. Don’t get me wrong, I am horrified by most of the Internet, but I am happy it’s there. Because having a beer with some kid you met on the Internet isn’t really a blind date. I mean, you’ve seen some blurry, faraway, dimly lit pictures, haven’t you?! And you know she likes foreign films and quiet evenings cooking together at home, don’t you?! Well, then that asshole who won’t text you back next week is not a stranger. Or is maybe less of one. At least you know that when you jump out of the Uber they’re not going to be like, “OH, HAI. Are you the person the girl I’m supposed to be meeting brought along as her bodyguard?”
I know my blog is hilarious, but I’m not that smart in real life! If you run up on me in the grocery store, YOU ARE GOING TO BE DISAPPOINTED because (1) there is probably diet peanut butter in my cart, and (2) it sometimes takes a lot of staring at the wall in contemplative silence to come up with these jokes and my off-the-cuff stand-up could use some work. And I’m pretty funny on Facebook, but you can erase and edit shit on the computer, then read it out loud to make sure you aren’t embarrassing yourself before you post it, and if there is a machine that does this for you within casual friend gatherings, I will give you all my money to pick one up for me and leave it on the back deck and go the fuck away.
I just wanna Gchat about the hidden messages buried in the 160 misspelled characters that new dude you’re dating just texted you, not rub a palmful of almond oil into my skin at the end of the evening to loosen up all the silicones I piled on my enlarged nasal pores so you wouldn’t know the toll thirty-six tumultuous years on this earth actually take on a human face after you make me talk about it at a restaurant. I just want to fast-forward to the part of the relationship when I don’t have to buy fancy bottled water in an attempt to trick you into thinking I really care about myself or peel my body out of the overpriced underwear with an extra panel I bought to make this poorly chosen sweater dress look more appealing. At what point in this nascent friendship can I let my eyebrows grow back in and admit that I regularly cry to the animated version of Beauty and the Beast? Forget figuring out how many dates until it’s appropriate to have sex—I want to know how many we have to get through before it’s acceptable to stop.
I don’t wanna talk on the phone, I just want you to text me. That way I can look at it and answer your question when my show is over. I once dated an asshole who, every single time I called, would immediately text, “Are you in a burning building?” Um, no? If I were, and I still had the ability to breathe and see the numbers on my phone while choking to death on smoke, my first call would most certainly not be to a dude who says LIE-BARRY and is afraid to try artichokes.
There was a brief period in the mid-to late nineties when all I ever wanted to do was call people on the phone. But, like the periwinkle stirrup leggings and snap-crotch bodysuits I preferred at the time, dialing a person’s telephone number in an attempt to have an actual conversation with him is now horribly outdated. I will never harass your ears with a list of the mundaneness of my day, nor will I expect you to pause The Walking Dead to try to string an interesting sentence together for my benefit. Before we were able to bore each other in person every day, Mavis used to call me at the end of each night. I would break out in a cold sweat trying to come up with a way to make Wednesday distinguishable from Tuesday; it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life. I mean, I just don’t do that many things. I was living the same unremarkable life every single day, and trying to put a new outfit on Friday when it was exactly the same as Thursday was exhausting. How many times can I say “Brooke and I ordered hot dogs for lunch, and I read another chapter of [enter the title of any John Grisham novel] on the toilet”?