And so it begins

Almost as soon as I hit upload on my profile picture I started receiving messages from various guys on Beople. Soul Swype and Meld took a little bit longer to pop and that made me a little skeptical. Maybe it’s me being the tech obsessed millennial that I am, but instant gratification matters. After getting the hang of swiping left and right, figuring out the difference in winking, liking and matches, I was finally ready to start chatting. Once the messages began to pile up, I realized that a lot of these guys had similar characteristics. So much so, that I came up with 7 categories to describe the different types of dudes I’ve encountered.

Guy A is the egomaniac. He’ll spend a 30 message convo talking about himself leaving no room for me to share anything besides my name. I usually let messages from Guy A pile up and never reply because if he’s this self centered during an introductory convo there’s no telling how trash he’ll be IRL.

Guy B is way too controlling, almost obsessive even. A brief round of messages gives Guy B the impression that I belong to him. One guy, I’ll refer to him as the man from the motherland, took the cake. After sharing my name, age and location (A/S/L for those 90’s chatroom babies), Man from the Motherland quickly dished out things like “do you care if I be your man? I’m ready to be that” and “anything you want, I will do it for you. I like you so much. I want to marry you and have you live with me.” Guy B gets a gentle let down, typically an “I’m just interested in friendship” and if that doesn’t work, because in most instances it doesn’t, I just let his messages pile up and if he becomes too much of a pest, he gets blocked a la Serge Ibaka, with his fione self.

Guy C is the scoop of white chocolate hoping to find a Black queen, a sista, an Ebony Goddess (their words, not mine) that’s got an insatiable appetite for the swirl. Guy C hands out compliments like it’s nobody’s business but it comes across creepy AF. Like is dating women of color his legit preference or is he one of those guys with a weird Black girl fetish? Whatever the case, Guy C gets a curve because as previously stated, I signed up for sites made SPECIFICALLY for Black people with hopes of meeting/talking to/linking with/possibly dating other BLACK people.

Guy D he’s nice and super friendly but just like the New Edition song, he’s not my kind of guy. We usually have dope convos, have tons of things in common, but there’s always something missing. Something like the spark that separates guys you’d be interested in dating from guys that congregate in the friendzone. Guy D he doesn’t flat out get curved, I reply to all his messages and like his pics on social but as far as taking things further, that just doesn’t happen.

Guy E, he’s a complete waste of time. Looks good on paper (aka his profile is dope), looks decent in pictures, has good convo but after a few text exchanges he ghosts you. Somebody please cue SZA’s “Love Galore” because its the truest thing ever. Why TF you bother me if you know you don’t want me? What’s the point of reaching out to someone, engaging with them on an app, asking for their number, having tons of convos even talks of meeting up only to go MIA? Never hitting me up after saying he would, no more liking pics or communicating via social media, you literally won’t have to worry about curving Guy E, because he’s already curved you. (who knows, maybe it’s my karma for curving everyone else. LOL)

Guy F, he’s an epic fail. Not because he says anything out of the way, he actually says all of the right things. He’s nice, charming, offers amazing compliments but he’s either old enough to be my father (and, no I’m not into senior citizens. I’m giving anyone past 35 a side eye TBH) or completely misses the mark in the looks department. There’s this one guy who sent me the sweetest message (I’ll insert it here) but I couldn’t take him seriously because he wasn’t visually appealing at all and add in the fact that he lived outside of the US. So not only was he not a looker, he obviously missed the memo about my location requirement (eye roll). These guys get a gentle let down, if he’s nice enough we’ll chat randomly but nothing that gives him an inkling that things will go further than where they are.

Guy G is so bad I almost forgot about him. Like published the post before I remembered that I’d forgotten someone so bad. LOL. But anywho, Guy G is a complete miss. Everything from his approach to his profile to his picture is just unappealing. (CC the screenshot in this post for proof of how bad it gets) Messages, likes and requests from Guy G go unanswered because there’s just a certain level of trash that not even me and all of my baeless-ness are willing to entertain.

If you’ve made it here, you’ve probably realized that we’re nearly month into my “social experiment” and I haven’t found someone that I connected with to the point that I’d even consider them dateable. It sounds crazy but I’m not too bothered by it. One thing I’ve gotten reinforced over the course of the last few weeks is dating should be fun and I shouldn’t feel pressured. If a guy hits me up, that’s cool. If he doesn’t, that’s cool too. Expecting anything from random strangers you meet on the Internet is an easy set up for disappointment and ain’t nobody got time that. This entire online/downloadable dating app experience is all fun and games and should be treated as such.

Until next time,