Single Parenthood & I: The Apps Won't Work
It's only taken a few days on the dating apps to realise that I'm probably not as cut out for them as I thought I might be.
Here we go again, then. Back into the dating pool. Come on in, the waters are… shark-infested. It’s been a while since I was last in it. Indeed, the last time I was in it, I wasn’t even paying much attention. I would sit from time to time and idly scroll on my dating app of choice, but in all honesty I wasn’t that interested; I had a 99% swipe left rate. I’d come to understand that I’d essentially boxed myself into a corner, that I’d come to see myself as a package of restrictions. Children? Tick. Not tall enough? Tick. Not rich enough? Too grey? Tick. I could go on. Internally, I do constantly.
There was a time when I drew a line in the sand, that I would only involve myself with people that I was really interested in. I would have to find them actually attractive. And there would have to be something about their profile that made me need to know more.
I swiped left a lot. But to my considerable surprise, I found someone who ticked all my boxes, for a while. But then what happened, happened, and so here we are again. Another year older, another year greyer, self-confidence back to where it was when I needed to work on it before, possibly further back still.
I’m making good progress. It’s been a couple of months, and I’ve learnt (holy shit I have done so much reading), I’ve grown already, and I’m actively growing more. I’ve set firm boundaries for myself, in terms of how I expect to be treated, and my self-improvement kick has already seen me physically grow—upper body, you perverts—and change my wardrobe into something more original, which better suits me. There are even times when I start to feel as though I could even be the right person for someone.
But that feeling of being restricted is equally back. My previous experience indicates that even women who say they’re happy with you having children often aren’t, when push comes to shove, and it’s reasonable to say that one of the things that has changed inside me is that I don’t trust as much as I did. But that’s a conversation I need to have with myself, silently and mindfully, as I traverse these waters yet again.
The early signs are mixed. Finding people who like the vaguest idea of me isn’t difficult. Believe it or not, I write an excellent dating profile. But while I would reserve the word ‘ghosted’ for someone who may or may not have had feelings for you in the first place, I’ve already had five or six brief conversations during which I didn’t say anything noticeably wrong, but was greeted by a wall of silence after a few messages nevertheless.
I can only postulate as to why this might be. Obviously, having kids is a major issue. I’m 52, and my survey says that the vast majority of women who are age-appropriate for me fall into one of the following categories:
They already have grown-up kids and don’t want to go through being involved in any way whatsoever with smaller ones again, having just found their freedom.
They don’t want kids, never did, don’t have any, and don’t want anything to do with anyone who has them. There's a number who seem actively hostile to them.
They think they might like the idea of me–or even potentially me plus the kids–in principle, but the kids will end up being an albatross around my neck from which I can’t escape but they can.
I should add that these are completely valid choices, although consistency is important. As somebody who didn’t really have much of an opinion on wanting kids until I had my own, I understand why someone wouldn’t want to get involved with them. But the point here is that it limits me, severely. It’s almost like scales from the eyes, the drip-drip-drip feeling that, actually, the person who loves me in the way that I need to be loved might not even exist.
This feels all the more impossible because of the apps themselves. The dating pool, you see, is completely unbalanced. Women who register on them find themselves suddenly bombarded by contact from men from whom they don’t want any. It becomes almost impossible to sort the wheat from the chaff, I’m sure. The vast majority of men have the opposite experience.
But at the same time, that vast amount of people gives an illusion of infinite choice, while our modern cultural inclination towards centring the self lends to the feeling that only the perfect will be good enough. We have to hide our flaws, and pretend to be someone we're not, and without lying. And I am… decidedly imperfect.
Then there’s that height thing. I’m exactly 5’8 tall, at the lower end of average, for a man, but not particularly noticeably a short-arse. But that isn’t tall enough for a lot of women, at least those on the apps. There is, of course, the distinct possibility that things have always been this way and that I just never noticed it before. Perhaps this is why they’re still on these apps. Perfection is, after all, the enemy of the good enough.
But I would estimate that something like 20%-30% of the profiles that I’ve seen have specified that they will only consider men who are over 6’0 tall. In some cases, this is literally accompanied by them saying, “Don’t even bother contacting me if you’re below 6’0 tall”. Charmed, I’m sure. I was even told that women assume that all men add a few inches to their height on the apps, which rather makes a mess of things for those of us who have been honest about it. How short do they think I am?
Perhaps the most striking thing about the apps is that you really do get to see why people are single in the first place. A sizable proportion of profiles are literally just lists of the things that they don’t want. Cheaters, liars and one night stands, especially, because apparently putting that on your profile will stop them from getting in contact with you in the first place.
Some—again, a surprisingly high number—choose to describe themselves as “fluent in sarcasm” or similar, as though that’s an attractive character trait, while others will make a point of mentioning that they want you to have your “life in order”, before reeling off a list of material things that they've accumulated, which is essentially code for, “no poor people”.
Others are very keen to tell you about the extent to which they don’t care whether they’re in a relationship or not, which is fine, though I have wondered why they went to the trouble of setting up an account, uploading photos to it, and writing a profile in the first place.
And there’s no delicate way of putting this, but once you get past a certain amount of scrolling, it becomes clear that the vast majority of women who claim to live in London or the south-east of England don’t actually live anywhere near London at all. It’s very common to see, “I changed my location to meet new people”, which is understandable in its own way, but also mildly annoying for someone who wants to meet someone at least within travelling distance for something approaching a ‘normal’ relationship.
I currently have 20 ‘likes’ on one of the apps, but not one of them lives within 4,000 miles of me. I neither know nor care how many–if any–of these are scammers who are ultimately more interested in the contents of my wallet rather than the contents of my profile, and it is what it is, I guess; a manifestation of global inequality. (It's also that the distance range detectors on these apps are almost always broken. I had it claiming that Dubai was 45 miles away, the other day.)
But I do know for sure that I have to scroll through a lot of people who live nowhere near me just to get to those who do, even relatively, only to find that those people aren't interested in me either. After a couple of weeks, I can already see how people find it dispiriting. I can see where the bitterness comes from, though I’ll fight tooth and nail to avoid ending up that way myself.
Of course, I’m aware of how damaged my goods are. And I’m also aware of the fact that the apps only continue to make money by keeping you both single and scrolling. I know that I’m searching a needle in a haystack, looking for someone who may not even exist.
But at the same time, I feel as though it should be easier than this. A vast number of the profiles have said that they value intelligence over looks, or connection and honesty over money and status. But I've seen little to suggest that is that this is actually the case.
Maybe I’m best off in the real world. Today is Saturday. It’s my day off. I thought about loafing around the house all day, not doing much, but then I realised that I have no right to complain about the isolation of being a single parent if I shut myself away on the days that I don’t have the kids and don’t have work to be getting on with.
So in an hour or so, I’m going to have a shower, get some clothes on, and have the day that I want. I might go into Brighton, have a wander around, and buy some new clothes. Having thrown half of mine away a couple of months ago for what turned out to be no good reason, I could do with some.
I might have a lunchtime pint and sit people-watching for an hour. It’s vanishingly unlikely, but you never know; I might even meet someone. I found my closure over my last relationship–not the closure I wanted, but the closure I’ve got, and that, very evidently, will have to do–and I’m in a place to move on. And the apps, it feels, aren’t going to work for me. If anything, they’re just going to make me feel even worse about myself.
So it’s time to embrace the future by embracing both the past and embracing myself. Rather than sitting in front of a screen, idly swiping through an infinite choice that in reality is no choice whatsoever, I’m going to ‘put myself out there’ by going out into the real world and seeing what happens. I suspect I already know the answer to this question, but sitting on my own cry-arsing about how unlovable I am isn’t going to cut it. “Be the change you want to see in the world” can relate just as much to your inner world as the one out there.