'I'm Really Into You But...'

I'm 23 and the number of conversations I've had online with people I do not know probably surpassed the three-digit figure some time ago. Hundreds of matches and meaningless conversations later, I finally find another human being that I want to sustain a conversation with. That is where the problems really begin because once you start to get to know a person, you want to know more and I want to know more. After having had numerous conversations with him, meeting up and deciding to hang out sometime again and finally accepting and being assured that he was in fact into me, it happened. "I'm really into you but..." That's right, he'd gone out on a date and went home with somebody else. But that is okay, right? Because what can I say? I cannot say that I'm unhappy, or hurt, or that he should not have done it, because we aren't together. What is worse, he told me he was so into me that he thought I deserved the respect and honesty he had given me by actually informing me that he had done this. Was I angry? Yes. Did I cry? Yes. Did I still want to get to know him more and spend time with him? Yes. Unfortunately, I did.

And this, this is our 21st century problem. We swipe left, we swipe right, we introduce ourselves in 10-word bios and obviously flattering pictures of ourselves. We play it cool. We act like any kind of commitment is wrong and like we want honesty and simplicity. We meet up with each other in cars on Sunday afternoons and kiss so heavily that we want each other so badly we can't wait for the other person to be free to hang out. So what do we do? We go on dates that are just "okay" with people we aren't into as much as each other, we stay over at other people's houses, and we tell each other about it with no thought to how much it will hurt the other person. So now I'll sit here after having given you exactly what you wanted, a strong, self-righteous girl who knows who she is and can be herself around you absolutely unapologetically. But it doesn't change a thing, because I didn't deserve your respect before you slept with her, and I obviously do not now, either.

There is a film about this exact endemic—the casual sex culture, the non-committal, playing it cool, "do I or don't I like you" chase. Newness. That is the name of the film. And as that film taught me, "bored is okay." Resentment is okay—that is what happens in relationships, that is what makes relationships real, and sometimes "we'll remind each other why we're worth it." I wish it were as easy as that. Instead, I'll get into bed, I'll go sleep with him in the back of my head somewhere, and I'll ache at the thought that I actually liked him. I'll ache at the thought that I believed he actually liked me. I'll wonder: was she hotter, was she prettier, was she funnier, was she smarter, was she more interesting? And tomorrow morning on the day we had planned to hang out, I'll stay in bed and sleep all day and when I wake up, I'll wish him out of my head and go back to the only way young people know how to meet other people. I'll go back to the app. I'll swipe left, I'll swipe right. I'll have hundreds of matches and meaningless conversations, but next time I'll leave it here, with him in the back of my mind as a warning to myself—GO OUTSIDE AND MEET NEW PEOPLE INSTEAD.