Charlene Morrison shares her take on dating in your late 30s, which is a funny take on swipe culture and sticky bar floors.
South Africa (02 October 2024) – Navigating the dating game in your late 30s is one hell of a rollercoaster.
We are living in a world of swipe culture where we stay home, exercising our thumbs, swiping left and right in the hope of finding either a date or true love.
We swipe based on a couple of photos and a badly written bio with some personality prompts, yet we would never deem ourselves as superficial.
Matching with someone nowadays gives you as much excitement as swiping your Checkers Xtra Savings card. You have a vague idea of what you’re going into but I can assure you the only discount you’ll receive is an empty one.
The chats are pitiful, to say the least; where it starts off with “Hey beautiful” and then a quick exchange of pleasantries, but before you know it, he wants to send you pics of his actual pleasantries. Ones that weren’t requested, nor was any interest shown to receive.
I mean, imagine these scenarios were replicated in real life. Girl meets a guy at the bar; guy buys girl drink, girl flirts, then boom, out comes your pleasantries. Come on, people. We are all in this bizarre dating world together; some of us are slightly bitter, some are looking for fun, but most are looking for a little love and romance. Let’s clean up our acts.
When it’s time to give your thumb a break from swiping left and right, you convince yourself to get out and mingle with actual humans without having to look through their photos and read made-up bios.
Welp! Entering a bar, loud music, tons of people, some are which have forgotten their names or their dignity however it’s time to be positive, who knows you might meet someone?
The most action received that night was being mushed together with a bunch of strangers at the bar whilst waiting 45 minutes for a drink. The floors were as sticky as they were at Billy the Bums 15 years ago. My shoelace came in tied twice, probably because I’d forgotten how to walk in public since leaving the couch, but all I could think of was the laces touching the sticky floor. Gosh, I’m getting old.
There were a lot of people, a lot of good-looking people at that, but man the wedding rings were out in full force. I don’t recall this many people been married when I was, maybe I wasn’t paying attention lol.
Now the issue is when venturing out; I tend to bring my resting bitch face, otherwise known as RBF, which makes me totally unapproachable. I wonder if this is how I come across dating apps, too?
Needless to say, as much as I was pumped to go out and have fun, which I did, I was mildly disappointed that I, myself, would have rather been slothing about on my couch, drinking wine alone, tiring my thumbs out thinking there’s no one out there for me.
Everything is confusing, from meeting people online to meeting people outside the digital world. At least no one showed me their pleasantries at the bar.
To wrap this up, I’ll say this: you cannot see the bottom of the dating pool, find your happiness within you, then maybe one of the plenty bar hopping, dating app swiping techniques may just present you with a suitor.
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