‘Will it ever cloy
This odd diversity of misery and joy‘
–Mad About The Boy, Dinah Washington (1952)
Spring seemed to offset a summer of romance for me this year. I spent a portion of my summer evenings busily fastening shoe straps, spraying perfume, and umming and ahing about which earrings best suited my outfit whilst time marched steadily ahead and against me. As I’d text my date about my updated arrival time, I’d remind myself of my cousin’s advice, that the man should always anticipate the woman and never the other way round.
My lateness added to the chemical cocktail of excitement, buzz, and anticipation that a first date induced. If anything, being slightly tardy would supersede my nervousness as my mind would be too focused on my walking speed to preoccupy itself with something insignificant, like whether my date would think my bag matched my shoes well enough.
Sitting across a modest square table tucked in the back of a small restaurant of my suggestion, I was somewhat stupefied by the good looks of my date. When he went to the toilet, I rushed to retrieve my phone and alert my friends of this luck, trying my hardest to conceal a giddy giggle. We spoke about our music tastes, of favourite films watched, and other conversational topics that arise when you realise a whole new world of a person has presented itself to you. When we realised we were the last two people in the restaurant and the staff seemed to grow inpatient of our presence, we went on to the next venue.
Stumbling across what seemed to be an impromptu karaoke session that roughly seven patrons were in attendance for, we looked at each other alarmingly, not sure of where to place our feet. A woman far too drunk for a Sunday evening charged towards us, demanding my date take the stage next. “There’s nothing I could sing that wouldn’t give her the ick” he offered back, tilting his head towards mine. I laughed in agreement. We jokingly hinted at a duet to keep the overbearing woman at bay. Luckily, neither of us committed.
The woman, now distracted by her wife’s performance allowed for our swift exit to the beer garden. It was here, just a few moments later that we were accosted by the head chef of the pub kitchen. He told us of his passion for good food, of giving to others, and of the importance of a sturdy roast. He hoped we come back again and earlier to try his cooking, in between giggles we nodded. “Where have you taken me?” he teased.
By the third venue I was tipsier than anticipated and foolish with attraction. Our shoulders rubbed against each other’s as we sat on a velvet loveseat that rid us of the touch barrier. We did so in that typical awkward way you do on a first date, or with anyone you like. When their knee rest against yours and it is clear by the amount of seconds touch has been maintained that you are purposefully not pulling away. When their hand brushes yours and you let it linger. When your arms are ever so gently touching and you can feel their standing hairs fold against yours. Those little electric treasures.
Until August by Gabriel García Márquez, pg54
As our servers spoke of their respective last train home we took this as our queue to leave. With half a large glass of white wine to finish, I took measured sips before pouring the rest of its contents into my dates glass, aware that I’d be unable to walk home if I finished it. He joked I was getting him drunk, and to this I gave a coy smile.
Sending him off with a goodnight’s kiss and a promise of another evening of mine, I clumsily hurried my keys into the lock, cognisant of the fact I had to be up for work in six or so hours. I opened my phone to a flurry of messages from two friends who I’d mentioned the date to before I left. I replied back with a photo of me looking smug, lips plump from the kiss, eyes sleepy from the wine, and cheeks rosy from a combination of both.
We’d see each other for about a month, until, unbeknownst to me at the time, a Saturday afternoon in which I kiss him goodbye would be the last time I saw or heard from him. After an evening passed and my text remained unanswered, I hoped an early night might have been the reason for radio silence. The next morning, when I awoke and my phone bore no notifications under his name, my optimism for the situation sharply dampened.
That afternoon, hungover from the night before, feeling especially emotionally taxed, I made my way to a friend’s who lived on the outskirts of West London. It was during this arduous journey, on the carriage of an air conned Elizabeth line train that the reality of being actively ghosted became apparent. I felt embarrassed and teary, lowering my face into my book and trying with all my might to take in each word, resisting the urge to let a tear escape.
A few days after, when the situation had thoroughly cemented itself (there’d be no text), I messaged a friend about the happenings, or lack thereof. Defeatedly, I ended my dissection with “is this just modern dating now?” to which she replied, “I’m telling you, it is”. She shared an analogous situation that happened to her just months before. She was dating a guy, met his friends, things progressed at a lovely natural pace, and then communication came to a halt.
In her situation, reply times stretched from minutes, to hours, to days—a process men often enlist that I have termed ‘the pull back’, a phenomenon I can now spot from a mile away. A feeling that also leaves a sour taste, but compared to a clean, hard ghosting, I’d much rather. The latter was something entirely new to me, and I didn’t like the feeling.
We discussed the psychological warfare that is our current dating landscape, resulting from our worlds, including the intimate, being increasingly permeated by the digital. It begs the question of whether such a divide still exists between the offline and online and if we can analyse these separately from the other? What is evident is the resounding affect this has had on our relationship to communication, more specifically, our declining aptitude for it.
Have online methods of connecting made us risk-reluctant and inept at clear communication because we can so easily mute, unmatch, and ignore those we no longer wish to engage with? Have these technological shortcuts bread a generation of conflict averse daters? Perhaps digitised modes of dating à la DM slide ins and, specifically, the Dating App Industrial Complex have dehumanised others to the point that a person remains a profile even after we meet them flesh to flesh. What will remain of our hearts once we fully digitise them?
*
A week or so later, I found myself getting ready for another first date. This time, with someone I had matched with around the same time as my summer ghoster but had fallen out of conversation with. This was despite the fact he was aggressively my type—how I love an artist. I sent an outfit picture to my friend for predate approval, and the location of our date (safety first). She replied instantly with comments that would make a grown man blush.
As I made my way I was shrouded in excitement, a familiar whirl of anticipation stirring within me. We spoke at length over a round of cocktails and full-bodied burgers about what moved us. At a pub after dinner we played a game of dominos, and I thought it the most Jamaican thing ever. It took me back to games played after Sunday dinner as a child.
My nan always said you have to have money to make money, and it might be that the same rule applies to dating: have dates, get more. On a particularly mild July evening, I found myself sitting across a striking man in a familiar bar with a mouth that ached from laughing. He was most debonair and entirely no good, so I decided to let our charming first date be our last.
He had, albeit tiny, a face tattoo, and was strangely elusive about his star sign (he only revealed his rising because it was the same as mine, Leo). I joked to a friend later that this was my short lived bad boy phase. He was gentlemanly enough however to let me wear his leather jacket when the evening summer breeze turned sharp.
*
There is an inherent joy to dating, more specifically, the act of going on dates. In lingering eyes, in mutual discoveries, in evenings spent over varying types of white wine and conversation, often inadvertently teeming with lust. Words filled with charm, kisses filled with promise. Even the ones that lead to romantic dead ends offer up valuable experience at the least, and bursts of life’s wonders at best.
Two years ago, I started this blog with a post on the dire state of dating. More specifically, Gen Zs disenchantment with it. Through the reinstallation of Hinge after a three year hiatus, and a general investment in online dating discourse, it is safe to say the sentiments barely budged. We are in a communication crisis, often exacerbated by the unceasing carousel of profiles within our reach, and the illusion of perpetual choice this engenders.
Just shy of summers end I deactivated my profile, and realised that for good, I was done with digital dating. It’s methods don’t align with my romantic philosophy. Plainly, I no longer wish to be a player in The Game. I also believe there is some truth in the statement that dating apps disrupt the natural order of people you are to meet. On the flip side, it takes you to neighbourhoods you had hitherto heard of, aboard train lines that sound fictional, but are unfortunately a lot nicer than your own.
In matters of dating, feelings of disenchantment regrettably persist. But equally, for me, in the spirit of ensuring my heart is unhardened, so does hope.
Chloe x
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