I am the idiot

In which I am punished for dipping a toe back into dating

Hello! This is the first paid-subscriber-only installment of Idiots, Continue. I have been musing since I started this newsletter about how I might orchestrate a structure to entice some worthy readers into paid subscriptions while honoring the dumb-commentary-for-all spirit of the newsletter, and sadly (it always comes at a price,) I have found the moment. My paid-subscriber-only installments will be stories of me encountering idiocy in my personal life, and the commentary on publishing and media will stay open for free. Yay. 

I have, for the most part, intentionally taken myself out of the dating game. I am not getting over a failed relationship, I am not nursing a nascent crush, and I am not even working on myself. I am lazy and tired. When I open the apps, I see trash. I see the vermin of the street and the incels of the internet and the uggos that I have slept with a million times before. Not literally I have already slept with them (okay, sometimes I have literally already slept with them,) but figuratively. Everyone is someone who I can see giving me hives. Sure, I could ‘give them all a chance,’ but then where would I be? Wasting away on a date every night with someone who is staring lustfully at me with their creepy beady eyes? 

And yet! I do still have hope, or at least, I have the half-awake dream of my sweet Aaron Rodgers lookalike finally appearing out of the mist, and I say, fine, we’ll roll the dice once more. And for that, for my sweet blind hope of a better future, I have been punished. 

Last Friday I went on a date with a man from Hinge who seemed in some regards to fit the bill of someone I might enjoy spending time with: older, editor at magazine, and, um…okay actually I don’t remember what else his profile said because it has become obscured by the actual date.