There are plenty of dating apps in the sea.

Hey gang. Remember my last entry which proudly announced my return to OkC? Welllllll I may have deactivated again once the one week window in which newly reactivated accounts must stay public closed. But fear not. Influenced by an eligible roommate who had just started an account of her own, I became one more user in the Plenty of Fish sea.  I know I half-assed that metaphor. Would feel too cheesy if I did it full justice. But let’s dive right in.

POF, as it’s social media obsessed, short memory spanned users call it, is kind of a Tinder/OkC hybrid. Like OkC it makes use of a profile where users can share charming facts about themselves such as their music interests, how obsessed they are with exercise, whether they are an aspiring actor or screenwriter, or whathaveyou, but it’s less wordy and more image-driven with a touch of the the raw urgency of Tinder. My experience so far has been pretty lighthearted and fun. May have shamelessly flirted with a 21-year-old marine in Spanish with no intention of meeting up. May have also responded to some dreadful messages sarcastically to see if homies could hang.

Last weekend I decided to meet up with one Social Savant, who was a 30-year-old, new to the ways of the online dating game. I wanted to check out a music festival being put on by a local college radio station, and I asked Mr. Savant if he’d like to join, since the majority of our exchanges had been about music and because he was familiar with the station.

I got there long before he did, and passed out in the grass amongst the 18-year-olds and dulcet tones of Grmln. Woke up to a missed call from Savant and a voicemail that he’d arrived. I called him back and we search through he crowd for each other. I spotted him first, as I always seem to do, and may have considered hanging up and returning to my grass nap, but instead I waved to him, and embarked on my most recent first- and last.

Savant was alright. A nice person, just lacking in any identifiable sense of humor, and equally fascinated and bewildered by social media with a strong need to talk about it. To be honest, I was kind of running on fumes after a 65 hour week and I put little effort into the convo. Savant had a habit of interrupting each of my answers to his thoughtful questions with yet another thoughtful question. Maybe he knew our time was limited and he wanted to get it all in before he started writing my biography…or maybe stealing my identity? I don’t think I gave him my exact birthdate or ssn, but who can say?

Alt musicked out, we walked through the cozy neighborhood that surrounded the campus for about an hour. At one point Savant rambled something about not wanting to be my father figure. It seemed pretty out of context. I laughed as he trailed off and said I wasn’t sure what he was talking about. He didn’t laugh but said he didn’t know either…ELLIPSES cannot adequately recreate the awkwardness of the moment…

I was eager to cut things short, and said I had to get back to take care of some car maintenance stuff (true). He asked if he could walk me back to my car. I said yes. I am tired. Does my sentence structure show it? He asked if I wanted to hang out again, and mentioned that he’d love to take me to a restaurant were both fans of. And at that moment something amazing happened. It appears that when subjected to little sleep and high amounts of stress, my brain abandons it’s default ‘invent the answer they want to hear’ response and I said, without a second thought, ‘To be honest, I don’t see this going anywhere.’ Wearing sunglasses and not really having to see Savant’s face as we walked side by side probably helped too. There were a few more steps taken together, then Savant decided to abandon his attempts and left me to walk the remainder of the way to my car alone.

I may be mid text convo with two other fish right now. One whom I had tentative hang out plans with last week that fell trough (Science Guy) and another who I might be hanging out with sometime this weekend (Mr. Deeds). I’ll keep you posted.