“If you’re single, it’s not about boo-hooing the fact that you can’t find someone good or half-heartedly forcing yourself to go on a million dates. It’s about keeping your desire strong and your faith unwavering, brushing your hair and teeth, leaving the house, flirting your ass off, joyfully going about your life and being grateful that not only is the person you are seeking also seeking you, but that The Universe is conspiring to bring you together.” Jen Sincero “You Are A Badass”

Have you ever seriously sat down and thought what the hell is going on with dating these days? The dating world has lost it’s mind. Tinder was fun for a few months, but two years later, I find myself thinking “I think I have met this person some where, they look so familiar”… and then realize I recognize them from the app from last year. I have swiped through the Tinder archives and have now landed back at the beginning.

Don’t get me wrong I have actually met some incredible people on these apps, some of whom have become very close friends. But I have found myself super jaded about dating, relationships and guys in general and Tinder is not doing me any favors. Honestly I am ready to whistle a different tune.

I really cannot count how many times have I joked that all the good ones are taken. Really Jess? ALL of them? Then how come you meet so many babes at the climbing gym? How come you have plenty of incredible guy friends that are still on the market? How come all my single friends, are no longer my single friends and have awesome partners? I jokingly boo-hoo my single-dom with an undertone of truth of how i really feel about it. Dating is hard these days, but I can’t help but think maybe I have made it hard on myself.

Dating on Tinder was fun at first, I took people seriously, I put in time, I was nervous, it was new, and exciting and I did meet really amazing people. Fast forward two years and I recognize my own bad attitude surrounding it. It’s a low risk dating environment. Because if it doesn’t work out with this one, that’s fine I matched with 8 people last night. Like WTF? I don’t know where this attitude found me, but it is definitely affecting the way I show up about dating.

This is my favorite example of how I think Tinder has affected dating. Dating 5 years ago as relating to Jam looked like a little something like this.

You go to the store, you have your loaf of bread and decide some jam with your toast sounds like the perfect combination. So you go to the jam section and they have three options. Strawberry, Blackberry, and Peach. You pick one and you go home and make jam and toast and you are satisfied with your jam selection.

Dating now a days, you spend months figuring out what kind of bread you want, how it works with your digestion, in regulation with what your health coach says, and how many grams of carbs vs protein. Gluten free? Whole wheat or whole white? Do I want the little grains that I am pretty sure is bird feed? You end up deciding it’s bread, most of the bread tastes the same, can’t go wrong. Except Dave’s Killer Bread, king of bread, if you pick other bread you did it wrong.

Once you dig  yourself out of the bread isle, you decide you want some jam, so you head to the jam selection. Since you’re probably shopping at Whole Foods with your resuable bag, because you are a fucking millennial, (just joking so am I, I definitely do this) anyways, you discover there is a specialty jam section of the store.

Now you are contemplating 50 different options of jam. Do I get the Habenero Mango cause it’s sounds exotic? Or the one with the pretty jar but the flavor I am less excited about? Or good old fashioned Strawberry? Or local? Or do I actually just want jelly instead of jam? You take an hour to decide what flipping jar of jam to get and you go home and are thinking about the 5 other jars of jam you left at the store. You are so distraught and distracted by all the jam you didn’t choose, making a plan of how you will go back tomorrow to try the other jam, that you forgot to enjoy the jam on your toast right in front of you.

That is dating in 2017 in a nut-shell. You are welcome.

Once we finally decide to pick a jam, or I mean a person to meet up with you are thrown in to this bizarre meet-up/date. Sorry, you are just “hanging out” in a situation where you are forcibly looking for things you like about this person that match up with items on your “list” that you insist you don’t have.

Then once the spark isn’t there, you go on a pee break to the bathroom where you go swipe for a few minutes and reach out to the person you ghosted last month just to make yourself feel better.

Oh this is just me? 🙂 Don’t lie!

Frankly I am sick of spending my time searching for some magical being some call a boyfriend, and I’m sure as hell not finding them on Tinder. I am surrounded by beautiful couples in my life and all of my best friends have incredible partners. I am human sometimes I want what they have, someone to cuddle and tell my day about, a forever belay and adventure partner. Then I take my head out of my own ass and realize I already have that. I have 12 of those people to go home to and cuddle, and tell about my day, who I trust with my life as my belay partner, and who I plan big adventures with.

Being surrounded by beautiful couples proves at least three things to me, one I am capable of attracting incredible people who love me in to my life, two I am never alone, and three if all of my closest friends have found their counter-parts I doubt I am so special as to not have one at all.

The truth is I actually love being single, and when I am not having a pity party that I seem to be part of some big cosmic joke, I remember that whole-heartedly I have a truly beautiful life.

I don’t know where along the way I became so jaded about dating, or where I lost my inner flirty badass, but it’s time to let go of the low-stakes game of Tinder and step in to being a real human again. I am nervous as hell but also excited to flirt with my crush at the gym, to introduce myself to the guy who caught my eye and smiled and looked away but then was too nervous to actually approach me. Rather than wasting my time swiping, I am going to use my time to climb, to cook, to laugh with my friends, and to give myself pep talks in the moment, to pull up my big girl panties and go say hi to the hottie across the room.

So this is my re-commitment to my own life. I am deleted my dating apps. I am keeping my desire for an incredible life fully ignited, and I am getting out there and flirting my ass off and enjoying every damn minute of being wildly uncomfortable stepping out to connect with people face to face.

Call me old-school, vintage, or old-fashioned, I am pretty sure hipsters will just call me ahead of the curve. ❤