Who Me?
I’d be like, wait. What? Why am I still single? You have the nerve to ask me that? Why are YOU still single, huh? That used to come up in every Tinder exchange or Bumble thread I had. Those goddamn dating apps really make it hard to tell the truth, right? Everything is a sales pitch that kinda falls apart halfway through the delivery. If I’m any good then why am I still single, right? Why am I even on this damn app? Do I need that much help? Why am I still single if I’m such a good catch? All my friends are getting married and here I am swiping away on whatever newest fuck app I think will solve the problems plaguing my soul is installed on my phone. Everyone on Instagram is proposin to beautiful women while jumpin outa an airplane into the mediterrean sea and I’m here on my mom’s couch checkin my DM’s during Sunday dinner?
It’s really a mindfuck. I gotta sell myself to chicks in their twenties on why a good fella like me in his thirties is a good find.
Oh you’re SO lucky to have caught me on one of my off days… a day when I’m actually single. You’re SO lucky. We should go out before it’s too late. Quick, swipe right before this offer expires.
But wait, why should I swipe right on you? What’s your deal? Any chick that’s still single in her mid-twenties must be fucked in the head like me. Just put the phone away maybe, try and find someone in real life. But where? Well, turns out I met my fiance at a sober rafting trip, HA! What a lame fuckin way to meet the love of my life. And I didn’t even fuck her on that trip, I fucked some other sober chick and asked the world who the redhead was for months after the trip ended until one day someone sent me her Facebook… So, I guess I didn’t seal the deal in real life, I did it via Messenger.
Now All My Friends Are Getting Married
But getting there is such a nightmare. Dating today is such a sleazy pitch cause nothing could be further from the truth for so many weeks. The first month is full of goddam shit-ass lies. Why am I still single? Cause I wanna pound as many twenty year old girls as possible before I’m considered a pedafile. Why don’t I have a girlfriend? Oh I did! I just broke up with her and you’re in luck, I’m finally in that headspace where a new relationship would be a healthy choice for me to make, and it might be you. Wanna go out on a date? What’s your IG?
So glad I went on that fuckin rafting trip. But I’m still not where everyone else is my age. Everyone else my age is married with kids. Now I gotta what… do that? No fuckin way. I already agreed to get engaged. That’s enough of bein a grown up for me. No more. Stop. I’m Peter Pan.
What a contrast too, right? The kids and the marriages in the background of all this adolescent-dating on apps that are made for desperate fucks like I used to be for some kind a cure to adulthood. The contradictions really blur my vision.
Not Only That, They Have Kids Too
Like two days ago I was at the park hangin out with people all social distanc-y and I look at my friend Liz’s Husband–I think his name is Jamie–anyway he’s playin with their kid and I don’t know what to say to this damn kid and I say to him, “Man, I’m like kid-illiterate. I’m not used to seein so many kids.”
So Jamie looks at me as he’s keepin Calahan entertained with all sortsa stupid shit that toddlers like and says, “Welcome to having middle-aged friends.” Then I start thinkin… Wait. He’s like my age. He considers himself middle-aged? Hold up, am I middle-aged?
See? That’s why I put off girlfriends and fiances for so long, and now that kids and marriage makes me middle-aged, I’m def not doin it. Kids.
Hmm…
Why don’t I have kids?
Cause I hate them. If I ever wanna take off to Idaho and roadtrip back I’m not about to find a damn babysitter to do it. I don’t want that shit in my life. Right? Or am I lying to myself like I lied to all those chicks on Tinder about how put together my life was. No, I really do hate kids. I hate commitments. I already have too many commitments as it is. I got an apartment, a fiance, a dog, a job. I mean, I can’t take one more responsibility. That’ll destroy everything I’ve worked so hard for: utopia. Do I live in utopia yet? I used to. Did I? I’m thinkin too much. Point is I looked at Jamie and was like:
You consider yourself middle-aged? How old are you?
I’ll be 40 next month. So, maybe.
I sat on that last line for a bit.
That’s when I started thinkin about my boss and I said:
Well my boss walked in the other day and I looked at him and I thought… hmmm.. now that guy is middle aged.
But I was sayin that half because I do indeed think my boss is middle-aged, but also cause he’s further in age from me than my friend’s husband was and it made me feel younger. My friend’s husband. That shit is weird. My friend has a husband and a kid and I’m engaged. Wtf? I was just a child, and now all my friends are married with kids and I’m joinin the party by pickin out engagement rings? When did life speed up?
How old is your boss? Jamie asks me.
He’s like 52.
Okay, so yeah, that’s bordering old, he tells me… Or maybe my friend Liz said that. I can’t remember.
But is it? Is 52 old? See, to me I think that sounds middle-aged.
They shrug as if it’s not a big deal. The conversation ends.
I’m Getting Old But My Girlfriend is Young
So I walk home with my 23-year-old girlfriend and my dog thinkin about how I’m hangin out with people that consider themselves halfway done with life. My girlfriend is 23 though, so that makes me feel young. I worked hard to have such a young girlfriend. People probably hate when I say that shit about how I worked so hard to have a young girlfriend. Guys like it sometimes. They laugh every now and then. I can imagine that’s a real shitty thing for a chick to hear though if she’s not 23. “I worked hard to have such a young girlfriend.” Why do I even say it? Cause I think it’s funny. It’s a good line at least. It used to be at one point. Maybe it just got a laugh one time when I said it and so since then I’ve deemed it a “good line.”
So we make a right on Main Street and walk past the waterfall and up the hill and back into the apartment and then put on another goddam episode of Selling Sunset, a reality show about skanky whores in LA that sell houses and whine about being single and get jealous that their friends have better relationships than they do. We watch that shit until it’s too late to watch one more episode.
In three days we go and look at the rendering of the custom ring we picked out at the local jeweler.
The point of this story I guess is that all my friends are getting married (including me) for a reason: It’s easier in life to not sell myself on shitty dating apps every day to another chick who is just as fucked up as I am. Everything is easier with a partner I trust. As far as kids go… That’s for old people.
Now read this really offensive story about some chick that maybe got murdered…