It’s the Saturday before the first day of classes,
My friends and I are laughing and hanging out like usual, but
It doesn’t take me long to figure out why I feel so left out
even though I’m surrounded by people who care about me.
I realize…
I’m the only one here who doesn’t have a boyfriend,
And the only one who never really has.
Three out of four boyfriends are there, the other on his way,
And I can’t shake the feeling that I’m alone in a sea of couples,
Entangled arms, hugs and kisses,
And I’m starting to float away,
With no lifeboat in sight.
My friends have been talking about me getting a tinder for a while.
It’s a joke to all of us, but recently it’s felt like pressure.
Not from them, necessarily, but from myself:
Be like them,
Be a part of the group,
don’t you want that too?
Didn’t you get the memo,
Or do all of them go straight to junk mail?
So I decided to do it.
And it took many steps because,
You see, I’m anxious.
I’ve never done this before and wanted to say the right thing…
Whatever that was…
And the steps just kept adding up and up and up….
So Let me explain my process to you.
1) Download Tinder and hope that it doesn’t show up on my mom’s phone that happens to be synced with mine.
2) Pick nine pictures,
3) start over, pick nine more, Add three selfies then get rid of two, and
4) Realize I’m wearing the same outfit twice and that it looks repetitive. Convince myself it’s fine so
5) Move on. Oh, wait,
6) I like this picture better. Swap it out and stop again because
7) I have to have a picture of my dog. And now
8) Put back that one picture because who cares if it’s repetitive, it’s cute, and
9) I’m done. But not really because there’s more and that was the easy part.
10) Not done. Move on to the “about me” section. Stare at the screen without typing anything
Ok. I give myself a pep talk.
I’m a writer,
I can do this.
I can do this. My fingers freeze and…
I can’t do this.
Noticing my look of panic, a friend tells me to take the biography from the back of my chapbook and use that for my bio.
11) Start writing
Jordyn Taylor is a creative writing and publishing and editing major at Susquehanna University…
No, that sounds too formal.
Try again. How about: Hi! My name is Jordyn Taylor…
Wait, it already shows your name. Try again.
She is involved in different clubs and activities such as…
and now this is a resume. Great.
12) Scrap it.
13) Start over.
14) Write a paragraph.
15) Read it to your friends who say it’s good and it sounds just like you.
16) Question if that’s a good or bad thing.
17) Click save and start scrolling and accidentally match with guys you definitely didn’t mean to match with because you don’t understand this app yet.
18) Realize every single person has a bio that is two sentences or less.
19) Go back onto your profile. Rewrite.
Let’s see…
I like murder mysteries!
I probably shouldn’t start with that. It sounds creepy, don’t you think?
I love to read and write…
Do I sound too nerdy here? Hmm, I guess it’s better than the murder thing.
I binge watch Netflix and conquer my anxiety every day.
And then I’m stuck with questions running through my head and I can’t seem to find the answers:
Will I not be attractive if I come right out saying I’m anxious?
Will that be the first thing they see?
Is that something someone should be eased into, even if being anxious is such a big part of who I am?
What if he hates my anxiety?
I mean, I do too, but I don’t want him to hate me because of it.
Should this be this hard to figure out?
You know what,
This is making me anxious.
Okay. Three sentences down. And now
20) we wait.
So I just downloaded Tinder.
It’s been a few weeks. I’ve matched with a few guys.
One communicates horribly,
(as in, two word responses or never responding at all, and I think at this point, I’d actually die if he asked a question about me)
The other two haven’t responded,
Another flat-out unmatched me when I messaged first,
And another only cared about sex, and when I wasn’t interested,
He stopped talking to me,
And nobody has matched with me since…
So it’s going great.
I just need a guy that doesn’t sound like an idiot in his bio, actually has a bio, and isn’t chugging a beer in every picture.
Someone save me from drowning in this sea,
But if you’re smoking pot in your profile picture, or worse, every picture,
If you don’t message back or are just looking for a hookup,
If you lie about your age or are being very friendly with a girl in your profile picture,
I’d rather drown.
Jordyn Taylor is a Junior Creative Writing and Publishing and Editing double Major from Bangor, Pennsylvania. She is the Head Editor of the Common Reading Internship, the Junior Director of FUSE, and a student ambassador. She is a lover of murder mysteries, poetry slams, red velvet cupcakes, and anything out of the ordinary.