I'm not stranger to dating apps, but it wasn't until a few years back when I moved into a new area where I began to lean onto them more heavily in an attempt to meet someone new. I've been disappointed by my new surroundings' lack of meeting new people IRL, so I'm kinda stuck with apps as my best bet. The pandemic obviously hindered a lot of progress with all of that as well, but 2022 was a pretty successful/optimistic year in terms of dating, even if the situations weren't the best fit. I was at least meeting new people, reigniting the sex life, and I didn't feel hopeless for what the future held.

2023 was like upside-down world with all of that. Not sure what changed (maybe the fact we were officially in a post-pandemic world?) but I got hit with such a bad string of experiences in my dating life. There were the dates I was excited about who'd cancel day-of (or sometimes hours before), dodging poly/ENM people who weren't honest about that, dodging people with shitty beliefs, discovering my matches had couples profiles on other apps with younger men half their age, the matches who'd string you along forever with conversation but never seemed to have time to date/were playing the field. One of my matches on Hinge I'm fairly certain got me banned from the app, which was the app I was most successful on, after I attempted to gracefully exit when she started to display some red flags (well, I guess I was right about that part at least, but it sucks I can't even use Hinge anymore.) By the end of summer, I was so burnt out and admittedly had a really bleak outlook about the prospect of meeting new people.

I've taken breaks from dating apps, but every time I rejoin, it's really not long before the same garbage behavior reminds you why you deleted your profile, and at this point, I'm so half-hearted about it all. The irony is that I'm a pretty handsome fit muscular guy who is in the prime of his life both physically and in regards to "having their shit together," but whereas I used to be horny for new matches and the thought of meeting new people, I can't muster up the excitement I used to have a couple years back. Someone recently asked me how I manage to go without sex at least, and I just said, "It's not very hard when you know who's out there isn't even worth the time and energy..."

But it's still a shame and it's not like I'm content to be in this position. The people I have encountered on dating apps over the past year have cumulatively done a number of painting a really discouraging picture of the dating world as a whole for me though, and I wish it wasn't so because that's really the only area of my life that's unfulfilled at the moment. I'm sure there are great people out there, but when you're on Bumble and you feel like your matches treat you as merely disposable, it's just like, "Fuck off with all of that. I'd rather just do me than deal with these people..."