A mellifluous ping, your phone illuminates, it’s a match! Racking your brain, you can’t recall the reasoning behind swiping right to the generic profile picture of lads on tour (which one is he anyway?) It must have been a bedtime swipe at a moment of insecurity or boredom.

We are the millennials, plunged into a world where you can arrange a date with a total stranger with the same ease and speed as getting a takeaway to your door.

Moving back home to London to live with your mother after four years reveling amongst a tight knit group of friends in Brighton is a bit like plunging into a horrible cold dipping pool after the comforting warmth of a hot tub. I decided that making a profile on a dating app could help expand my social circles and who knows, maybe meet someone I was actually into.

Fast forward a few weeks and I found myself exchanging messages with a man whose sense of humor seemed to be mildly coherent with my own and, based on the three available photos, was aesthetically pleasing.

On the evening we agreed to meet I found myself being that girl— the one looking painfully awkward, apprehensive and fidgety outside Brixton tube station waiting for her Tinder date to materialize.

Some thoughts which occurred to me while I waited:

Maybe I should light a cigarette? I pictured myself to an onlooker: gazing unassumingly into the distance, smoke framing my silhouette— I am the mystery Tinder woman. But what if he doggedly loathes smoking, a cruel addiction that cost his great aunt her life following a long and painful battle with lung disease? Maybe I should just put my hands in my pockets? S**t, this coat has no pockets. What’s the point of a coat with no pockets?

Hands on hips then. Maybe I look too sassy and unapproachable?

I could pretend to text or be on the phone, but what if it rings?

This continued for what felt like 20 minutes (in actual fact it was only two), until a figure approached from the opposite side of the road. He was headed straight for me.

It is worth noting here that I tried my very hardest to avoid judgement based on appearance, but, in this circumstance your means of choice are based on this, so it was almost impossible not to.

Prior to this meeting I did some (what I thought to be fool proof) analysis and formed a hypothesis: based on his height in comparison to various objects in his photos and friends around him, he would fall within the 5”11 – 6”4 bracket.

What I hadn’t factored into this was the possibility that:

a) His friends were incredibly small (even smaller than him)

b) His friends were all siting while he stood in the photographs

c) He was photographed in a miniature museum

How had I not factored in these potential loopholes? Annoyed, I realized my analysis was flawed.  At least he was intelligent enough to do that I suppose— that won him some points.

Things went from not ideal on the height front to really not ideal on the conversation and general personality front. He was haughty with a voice that can only be likened to Lord Farquaad (Shrek) meets Hugh Grant (and not in a good way).

He had chosen a hotspot for trendy Brixtonites and when asked what I would like to drink, I panicked and ordered a Guinness. I categorically hate Guinness. What was wrong with me? Too late to change my mind. I then discovered he doesn’t drink at all and refused even a soft drink.

In order to get a seat amongst the hipster masses, we found a stall with a small seating area selling macaroons. I sat and tipped half of my Guinness on to the floor before he returned with a flimsy paper plate filled with the sickly colored sweets. The couple next to me most definitely thought I was mad.

Before embarking on a formal interview, which required me to map my entire family tree, education and five-to-ten year plan, all while gagging on the Guinness I didn’t even want, he invoiced me my £2.50 share of the macaroons.

When the interview lulled, I learned that he is an ‘actor,’ which actually translates to playing an extra in a day time soap one time and reads the questions at his local pub quiz in his spare time. This didn’t match the artisan curator I had been dreaming of.

Even before I was informed that I am “more intelligent than I look” (thank you?), I decided 42.5 minutes is definitely a polite amount of time to wait before aborting this mission by reasoning that I have to catch the train home to let in my flat mate. I left out the part that my flat mate is my mother who was most definitely at home in bed. I was escorted to the station and I bid the Lord farewell with a sigh of relief.

As I nestled into the grubby, poorly upholstered Southern rail carriage, I felt safe and peaceful.

With a sigh, I looked out of the window and decided that actually, being single is not so bad after all.

Edited by Ivy Joseph 

The post Tinder Tale: A Date With Lord Farquaad appeared first on The Urban Watch Magazine.

I just graduated from Emerson College in Boston. Emerson is so liberal and LGBT-friendly that it has a half-joking, unofficial slogan of, “Gay by May or your money back.” With that being said, there was a wide variety of gay men to choose from. I just wrote that as if I actually took advantage and dated within the Emerson community while there. I didn’t.

New York is supposed to provide an even larger pool of gay men, scurrying between Westside bars on any given Friday or Saturday night. A new episode of Scream Queens is reason enough for us all to congregate and scream YAASS! in unison on a Tuesday night. These are social events in safety zones where we can be who we want to be. Actually, a man could wear a dress through the middle of Harlem and no one would raise an eyebrow nowadays.

For some, these streets and bars are far safer spaces than their own homes– especially if they’re still living with their parents. One would think I could sidestep this by pulling up a barstool and finding fellow cocktail enthusiasts for dates. But no, I have to go on the internet so I can find project men who just want to gulp a good ole IPA.

Once upon a time a guy named Lance and I matched with the magic of mutual right swipes on Tinder. The utter romanticism of it all started with flat messages to each other while I stood in line for three hours on Bowery to acquire access to the Drake pop-up shop and a sunburn. He would punctuate messages with the zest of, “Thanks, man.” Talk dirty to me.

I screenshotted his Tinder profile and sent it to a girlfriend: 27 years old, St. John’s grad, 6’0, and a cosmopolitan balance of Venetian vacay shots and shirtless bathroom selfies. Find you a man who can do both.

Not much gets past my sleuthing gal pal as she pointed out, “26 miles away?!”

Yup, Lance lived on Long Island.

Now, Manhattanites catch a lot of flack for not being open to dating off of our little island of perfection, the very axis on which the entire universe revolves. We may have to pay double for it, but we don’t even need to leave for Olive Garden! Of course, exceptions can be made for some Brooklyn exploring: a night of industrial pub-hopping with hipsters in Williamsburg here or a concert at Barclays Center there. Otherwise, no dates from Long Island, Jersey, Westchester, or… shiver… Connecticut.

Once I rode over the George Washington Bridge from my Harlem abode for dinner, a movie, and dessert with a guy, who paid for everything. That was worth it. But it isn’t always worth it. Part of why we don’t date outside of Manhattan is because we don’t want to go all that way to be disappointed and we would feel bad if they traveled for us.

So, Lance decided he would visit me in Manhattan: score. But other than strolling around Central Park, he seemed like he was at a loss for other things do in the city… Said the guy from a Long Island suburb. Museums! Bars! Restaurants! Shows! Tourist traps! All in Manhattan! But meeting in Central Park it was.

I sat on a park bench near the southwest entrance on a sunny August afternoon. I was numb off of mimosas since this was post-brunch on a Sunday. Lance kept giving me updates as to just how horrendously late he was going to be. An hour and a half later, we met.

He was hot in person, just under my height and his nose wasn’t as big as his unflattering selfie angles suggested. His normcore, monochromatic grey t-shirt and shorts pairing was a sexy kind of lazy. I liked him!

Conversation was a little stiff as we talked about his stable office job and I tried to explain to him what it’s like feeling like the floor is about to fall through a freelance writer and television production assistant. He had a lot of questions regarding moving to a place in the city, seeing as he was trying to escape living at home with his parents.

“How do you move all your stuff?”

“Umm… Packing light and multiple Uber and subway trips.”

We were getting really personal, guys. So much so that he wanted to have dinner over at AG Kitchen on Upper West Side. Actually, he was just hungry and I needed a cocktail to get me through this. After all, I was physically attracted to him. He was just nervous and dull.

He ordered a burger. I ordered chips and guac with a Manhattan. He even tensed up over my drink order upon finding out the whiskey and vermouth contents of it.

Then, as the server was collecting our menus, it hit me. It was an impulsive question and one that just shot right out of my mouth, impaling him to the back of the booth, unable to escape.

“Are you out to your parents?”

Blind-sided, but not missing a beat, he replied with a blunt no. He asked me the same and I repressed an eye roll to compliment my “Of course.”

“They’ve known since I was a child,” I easily explained.

“How? I don’t get how people can say that,” he exclaimed, frustrated.

“I liked Little Mermaid and they took me to my first Lady Gaga concert when I was 16,” I shrugged.

I deflected the tension by making him try a sip of my Manhattan. He couldn’t handle its strength.

In an effort to charge his phone, we next sat at a Dunkin’ Donuts and sipped coffee. At my suggestion of him charging it at my place he froze. Finally, I asked him just why he had swiped right. He said I have nice eyes. I then asked him his type. He said “athletic and masculine.” Ah, of course, and so goes the ideologies of a closeted gay man. #masc #DL

I expressed my wanting to go on a movie date with a guy, objectively. He said he’d be willing to do that as a second date, even suggesting Suicide Squad, a piece of cinematic excellence loathed by many, appreciated by me. I kissed him on the cheek and he returned to Long Island, never to speak to me in person again.

I wasn’t too bothered by it. After all, being closeted is a deal breaker for me. I’ve worked all my life, and have been out since 17, to live comfortably with my sexuality. I expect the same in a partner. Plus, Long Island. Ugh.

But Lance would still Snapchat or text me on occasion on Fridays, with always the same message, “Happy Friday.”

Whenever I would press him about when the movie date was going to happen, he would just respond with, “haha.”

I finally made the mature, millennial decision to delete him on Snapchat. I don’t keep guys from apps on there seeing as my uses of the dog filter and face swap features are my social media at its most intimate. Tell him, “Boy, bye.”

Then, a few weeks after no communication, he texted me, “Hey, Cooper.” I tensed up, but shot the breeze with him. Then, the next morning, I decided to beat him to the punch and apologize for deleting him on Snapchat.

He hadn’t even noticed. Did he not wonder where all of my flawless, first-attempt selfies had gone?! Anyways, I explained I had assumed he didn’t want to see me again and then proceeded to re-add him.

We still haven’t seen each other again. We don’t really talk. But then, out of the blue, about a week ago, on a chilly, fall Saturday night, he texted me from out of the blue that his dog had been diagnosed with a terminal cancer and given weeks to live.

Over the next couple days, I got Snapchats of the adorable Bichon. He told me the pup said hi. I told him to let me know if he needed anything. His response?

“Thanks, man.”

Edited by Brianna Arrighi

The post OUT in Manhattan: Straight Up or With a Twist? appeared first on The Urban Watch Magazine.