Rather than make one mega-post with several different trains of thought, I think I’ll make a couple and try to limit each post so each is at least vaguely related.

For example, rather than writing a post that mentions thinking about my ex and recent developments at work and ongoing frustration with dating apps and, upon further reflection, probably other things, I’ll make another post in a bit about the recent work developments and this can be the, uh, non-work post.

There isn’t much! Surprising, right? All I do is work and relax and work and relax and work and…

Let’s see… my grandparents are getting older, which is hardly surprising, and there’s not much I can say about that. They’re 93 and 92, and as the recent passing of Queen Elizabeth (and just about any old famous person) reminds me, one day they’ll be the ones mourned.

I’ve been playing Rimworld again, so that has been fun, but it’s also approaching the point where I’ve burned out on Rimworld and am due to switch to, I don’t know, Dominions 5 or something.

As far as the ongoing frustration with dating apps, I don’t know just how much I can write that wouldn’t just turn into pointless rambling (as cathartic as it may be for me). I’m convinced that my previous relationship (being introduced by a mutual friend when my now-ex and I were both in college in a city) is like the easy mode, if not “easiest” mode, for meeting people (and perhaps starting a relationship in general), compared to these days. I’m not in college any more, I work at a convenience store in a small town, and while I could be wrong, I’m convinced that most of the people my age or within the acceptable age range for a relationship are either already taken or may have other baggage. I don’t think this is a bad small town, but I don’t think there’s much of a nightlife (and I don’t get out much, so I’m hardly to be trusted as far as knowledge of the singles scene around here).

Read more: Rumination

I did think it was funny yesterday to remember that today was the anniversary of my ex and I starting our relationship, but considering it’s been 4.5 years since we broke up and over 2 years since I heard from her, I’m not sure what the traditional celebration is. A few weeks ago when I was thinking of the anniversary of our starting to date I started drafting a blog post with a playlist of songs that reminded me of her, though I didn’t feel like polishing that and posting it tonight. Maybe another day (or I guess I could always save it for another day, like the anniversary of our breaking up).

As far as dating apps, I’ve never really used OKCupid much, but Tinder and Bumble continually frustrate me because people either write nothing in their profiles, don’t write much in their profiles, are unoriginal (e.g., “touch my butt and buy me tacos”, “I like beer and tacos”, “my dog needs a daddy”), or the pictures seem bad. Maybe I don’t have much room to talk, since I don’t claim to have great pictures on my online dating profiles, but some people don’t look attractive, I’m personally not interested in lots of body modification (piercings, tattoos, etc.), and the profiles where they don’t even use a picture of themselves seem less than helpful (as far as the whole superficial “judging on appearance rather than substance and then make a binary choice” goes). I have a theory that people who are more “open to experience” tend to be more present on online dating, since I’ve seen a lot of people with tattoos and piercings and I suspect people who aren’t “open to experience” probably just meet their husbands/boyfriends through their social networks.

The best recent thing I’ve seen on a dating profile was on Bumble, I think, earlier this week and it was a woman whose profile said something like “Men who are over 6′ who only go for girls under 5’7″- why do you want your kids to play JV?” I think her profile said she was 5’9″, but as someone who’s about 6′ tall I thought that was hilarious. Of course, I also just appreciate seeing something new instead of the same trite nonsense about “I’m terrible at writing bios” or “not looking for hookups” or whatever nonsense.

Resuming a train of thought from earlier, I suspect that trying to date amid a respiratory pandemic (and that’s not even bringing monkeypox into the equation) is probably a bit more challenging than dating pre-pandemic. Additionally, as previously mentioned regarding location, dating in a city of one hundred fifty thousand at least offers more choices in a smaller area than trying to date in a small town of around a thousand. Even leaving aside the local ramifications of gossip and social networks, based on what I’ve seen on dating apps, there’s a lot of people who are more than 20 miles away, which isn’t too far, but it does seem like it’d slightly limit scheduling (as opposed to someone who was actually in the same town, or at least within 10 or so miles). Additionally, as I’ve thought before, in contrast to my ex, who was a full-time student when we were dating that didn’t have many friends, I assume that any future women I date (assuming I ever do date anyone again, of course) will probably have a job and probably friends and some kind of social life.

Of course, in order to start talking to someone through these various apps, I’d probably have to start swiping right, wouldn’t I? Why would I want to do that?