{"id":2378,"date":"2015-01-08T11:06:17","date_gmt":"2015-01-08T10:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=2378"},"modified":"2015-11-01T12:18:44","modified_gmt":"2015-11-01T11:18:44","slug":"r-u-married","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=2378","title":{"rendered":"R U Married?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_20130815_202030\"<\/a>Let\u2019s get something out in the open. My name is Damien and I have joined Tinder. Tinder, for those of you in happy, long-term relationships, is an online dating site.<\/p>\n

Go ahead. I\u2019ll just hang on here a second while you judge me.<\/p>\n

Even if you\u2019re not judging me, I think you are. It\u2019s not that I don\u2019t see the pragmatism in online dating. I have made all of the rationales in the last weeks. I don\u2019t have time to meet new people, I\u2019m set in my ways,<\/em> etc.<\/em><\/p>\n

No matter how I try to convince myself that it\u2019s OK, I feel a bit sleazy. Like a guy who\u2019s slipping out the door of an erotic masseuse with a stain on his trousers and a deliberately vague receipt.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Tinder is pretty straightforward, sort of like dating window shopping. I am only shown a woman’s picture, her proximity to my location, and her age. If I am interested in contacting her, I click on a Heart at the bottom of the page. If not, I click on a big red X.<\/p>\n

I sort of feel like the Emperor of Rome choosing harem concubines. But the catch is that in order for me to be matched to a woman, they too have to click on my Heart. So while I have clicked 100 hearts in the last week, I\u2019ve only been matched to six women. Since the sole catalyst between interest and disinterest rests on the value of one picture, I can\u2019t help but feel a little rejected. I’m not making most people’s harem cut.<\/p>\n

When it comes to pictures, I am at a disadvantage. In the first place, I am not classically attractive. I am funny, smart, and other things, but I can\u2019t really convey that in a picture. Moreover, I definitely can\u2019t convey that in a picture when I am to photogenic as Miley Cyrus is to reserved.<\/p>\n

Besides my fourth grade portrait, I have one good picture. It was taken at the beach a couple of years ago and it\u2019s in black and white. My belly is hidden by a plate of funnel cake and since it\u2019s not a 3D picture, my butt doesn’t seem to stick out far enough to block boardwalk traffic. Everything seems to work in this picture \u2013 my hair is cooperating, my mouth is (miraculously) closed, and I only appear to have 2.7 chins. It is about the only photograph of myself that I have ever liked. How can I lose?<\/p>\n

The first message I receive on Tinder:<\/p>\n

R U Married?<\/p>\n

I respond to the negative and wonder why on Earth this woman would ask that. Do I look like a married guy? Is she married and looking for a little strange on the side?<\/p>\n

The next one:<\/p>\n

R U Married?<\/p>\n

OK, there\u2019s a conspiracy. It starts to become clear that this Tinder is a place where people over the age of thirty come to scan prospective weekend dalliances. But then I get a third message.<\/p>\n

R U Married? R U German?<\/p>\n

This is a twist. Say anything you\u2019d like about my looks, but I don\u2019t look German. I don’t even look like a person who can do math, how can I be German? It\u2019s at this point that I look at my profile picture. In the picture, I am wearing what clearly appears to be a wedding band.<\/p>\n

Let’s review the data.<\/p>\n

In the only picture I have ever liked of myself (since 1983) I look married. In addition, I used this picture as my sole representative on a dating site.<\/p>\n

So instead of the relaxed funnel-cake eating gent I was hoping to convey to dozens of available women, I appear to be a cheating, scumbag married dude who was too dumb to take off his wedding band in his profile picture.<\/p>\n

I wonder if that erotic masseuse takes credit cards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s get something out in the open. My name is Damien and I have joined Tinder. Tinder, for those of you in happy, long-term relationships, is an online dating site. Go ahead. I\u2019ll just hang on here a second while you judge me. Even if you\u2019re not judging me, I think you are. It\u2019s not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-Cm","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2378"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2381,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2378\/revisions\/2381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}