Rhetoric

Not OK, Cupid: A vignette of digital dating to help you appreciate your Valentine.

Story by Rheya Tanner

It’s a beautiful day at the Crooked Can, and I am losing my mind. I’d agreed the week before to meet here with a guy from OKCupid (so, not a blind date, but the next worst thing), and now, to my introverted dismay, I am doing just that.

I arrive 20 minutes early, walk directly to the bar and order the first non-beer I see. Hard seltzer? Cool, whatever, it’s already in my mouth.

I sweep the area for a table and—shocker, at noon on a weekend—there isn’t one. I descend upon the only empty seats left and accept that there will be an audience to my suffering. I take another sip from my glass and hope the alcohol will help me unclench just enough that I may be capable of normal human communication.

It’s 12:00. I scan the parking lot. Nothing. It’s 12:01. I consider breaking my own femur to stage a believable escape. At 12:02,oh god, he snuck up on me from the other side of the building, but it’s too late to freak out now because we’ve already said hello and shaken hands. The date is on.

We exchange the usual pleasantries and nice-tofinally-meet-yous before he gets up to order lunch. He glances at my glass and says, “Do you want anything or are you just gonna have water?”

I look that man dead in the eyes and say, “Yeah, just water for me.” He walks off, and I take a long, long swig—you know, to hydrate.

While he’s gone, I scroll back through our DMs to pinpoint exactly where I convinced myself this was a good idea. It was a pleasant enough conversation; sparks weren’t flying, but we had similar worldviews and he didn’t offer to rub my feet, so I must have let my guard down.

But you know what? I think to myself. He seems plenty nice. Maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised?

Spoiler alert: I am not surprised. What transpires over the next two hours is the blandest date imaginable. There’s no chemistry and no common ground, so we endure short dialogue and long swaths of silence. (And listen, I know it takes two to tango, and not only am I not exactly amazing at small talk, I’m also the one practically brown-bagging a seltzer at the bar I bought it from. He’s not the antagonist here.)

Eventually, we run out of things to disagree on, so it’s time to part. He asks about a second date and I mumble something that might have been English before retreating into the anonymity of downtown.

As astute readers have inferred, I am indeed still single.