What's Left?!

Dating.

If you're over 30, I think they should just merge all the apps and call it "What's left?"

If you go on the apps, you get the impression that it's bleak out there. The Tech Overlords want to get you hooked, make love and sex a game. Love is possible only if you pay this extra to boost your profile. Market yourself.

It’s exhausting! Regardless of the app, I don't like the profiles you have to set up. It feels like a micromanaged snapshot into a person, leaving out essential questions like, "Can you make a stellar breakfast?" I'm less into knowing your self-diagnosed attachment style, as I'm more of a judge of a character by their behaviour. I’d say not everyone’s ghosted because they are anxious… If I had to be honest about my attachment style, I'm reluctantly calling it anxiously seeking financial security. Do you wanna split the food and water bill? Life is cheaper for a couple. You’ve failed at love. That's what I often feel this capitalistic society is telling me.

So you reinstall Hinge and start swiping through curated profiles, looking for that person. Photos of your personality that are always taken at a good angle. Here's your head on a pillow; can you imagine lying next to this? I like roast dinners, walks, etc. Or perhaps climbing is your whole personality.

You’ve told the app what your dating preferences are. Like, I don't mind if you have kids already, but it's a no to anyone who calls themselves a centralist or apolitical. I've set my profile open to all. I think love can show up in any packaging. I'm still more interested in the breakfast-making abilities. I do view my sexuality a bit like an American facing an election. I have a history of older men that haven’t worked out, yet I seem to be scared to commit to a woman. I think its because my female friends have their shit together way more than my male ones. It’s something my therapist said we’d leave to our next session.

I've been trying dating apps on and off for over a decade; some led to short relationships, and some never got past the first date. My actual relationships have not been from meeting on the apps, just from work circles. I am, however, not giving up on the apps. I do think there’s a chance of stumbling across someone compatible. Like, statistically, there is a chance. It may be small, but I have learned some things from online dating.

The biggest lesson I learnt is that the chat you have back and forth on Messenger and then WhatsApp doesn’t always translate into real life. Do not spend forever chatting before you meet!!

I remember chatting with one man for about three weeks before our date. I was out on tour, so it was impossible to meet earlier. He was a published author and professor over at Stanford. I mentioned Stanford because he kept mentioning it on the date. Anyway, our chat had been good, really good in the run-up. I was super excited about this date with the writer. He chose the restaurant, I knew the road not the restaurant. When I arrived, dead on time cos I'm like that (he was late). The bar was noisier than I'd have chosen, but I ordered myself and him a drink. When he arrived, he wouldn't look at me. I thought, OK, he's nervous. I also noticed he looked a lot older than his photos. I thought fuck it, chat had been good so lets see how this goes. He seemed extremely uncomfortable from the off. Like me, the venue was not what he had expected, and I felt he wasn’t trying to hide it.

We got sat on a little high table right by the speaker. He spent forever looking at the menu and ordered two chicken teriyakis. Between cutting up my one portions of sticky aubergine, I tried hard to get him chatting and get that flow we’d had on messenger. I asked him questions about his professorships and his writing. I said I enjoyed screenwriting; I felt he was dismissive of this. But hey hey, he was a published author at Stanford. I asked what he liked writing and reading. After giving all my energy, I was starting to fatigue. I felt insecure, as I’d studied the trombone, not English literature. The conversation started to stall, and I embarrassingly blanked on Margaret Attwood and Bernardine Evaristo.

As I sat in my (I got a BTEC shame), the conversation returned to him; He told me he'd written a book about jazz musicians. I said that's cool, and then he told me a lot about jazz musicians. I know jazz musicians; I play the trombone and have dated many. Trying to find middle ground, I tried to explain the ins and outs of the music world in the UK. You have to play across many genres when you're a horn player. Maybe in the US, the few can carve out a career for themselves as solely a jazz musician, but in the UK, you gotta be able to do it all. The aim is to be working. Also, day to day, we are just talking about work, bills, travel, who got what gig, who was responsible for that terrible chart and which promoter or tour manager is a creep. Are brains not filled with constant philosophical questions about whether our actions are meaningful? Like, you can’t overthink playing Mary Poppins. Rent and mortgages gotta get paid. Yes, there are a lot of addicts, but most are high-functioning till they’re not. Less Charlie Parker heroin and more like puffy, rossecca alcoholics.

He started asking me about bands I knew. I didn’t know the right ones. He seemed to like the post-punk revival era of bands in New York in the 00s. He then told me about all the music journalists and reviewers he would party with. He started paraphrasing their articles about popular cultural movements. He spoke a bit about Britpop, and I made the mistake of saying I think Britpop was overrated. He asked if I’d turn down a tour with Blur, and I said of course not, but I very much doubt the horn players on Blur's Country House were thinking of the cultural significance over the session fee. (This didn’t go down well.) I have found Gen X men to be very defensive about Britpop in general. I asked, "Do you or any of these journalist friends play an instrument? Or sing. Or do they just write about music?" (They didn’t.)

The speaker got louder. We abandoned the conversation after I failed to remember a Frank Zappa quote, split the bill and got doggy bags (for him because he'd ordered twice, who the fuck does that?!!!). When we finally got outside, it was still tense. I thought, “Atwood, you dummy.”

I then asked if he would like to go somewhere quieter for one quick drink so we could hear each other properly. "I've got to get that bus", he called over his shoulder as he skipped across the road away from me, displaying more energy than he had delivered all night. I was left holding his chicken teriyaki, thinking Christ, I was trying to be polite. I walked home, getting irritated with myself for caring because at the end of the day, I hadn't fancied him within the first 30 seconds, and really, that’s all I needed to know! I was annoyed because we hadn’t gelled, but the bruised ego was I wanted to be the one who called it. I googled his book. It was about a woman who fainted whenever she was overwhelmed by emotion, so it was not my thing.

The main thing was, it was disappointing that the man I'd built in my head the previous three weeks didn't exist. And in fairness, he'd done the same about me. I was not this fainting, emotionally repressed trombonist. The only thing we really had in common was emotionally absent mothers. We never spoke again.

I don’t regret that date three odd years ago, though, because it was the last date I ever stayed past half an hour if the spark wasn’t there. It was the last date that if the conversation faltered, I blamed myself or tried harder. We’re not all going to click. The thing is, I’ve done so much solo travel throughout my thirties that I really like my own company. My favourite place is the woods, alone. So if I have an evening off, I’m spending it well. If I find someone palatable enough to join me, it’s a bonus. Like last night, I went on a date with no expectations, which turned out delightful.

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"People who write articles aren't interested in how music is composed and why it's composed that way... Then when music is marketed, the attention shifts to the pseudo-personality of the artist, a blowing up of how that person behaves on stage." Frank Zappa.