Being Emotionally Aggressive on Hinge

a field study in vulnerability, validation, and men who maybe (?) have souls

Trigger warning: if you are my mom or dad (thanks for the support!!) don’t read this. Or proceed with caution

I’m a little bit of a freak and what I mean by that is I like to reach inside of people’s brains and poke and prod and maybe scoop out a little piece with my fingernail and snort it up like coke.

Emotionally aggressive, open-book, heart on your sleeve or passionate hedonist - take your pick. I prefer a connoisseur of the human mind.

Dating apps are things I’ve used in the past as one does when they’re lonely and looking for validation, love, or a quick dopamine hit. But I had a strange encounter in which someone was……honest with me. Honesty? On a dating app?

In college, I made a Google form and sent it to my matches. Just because I wanted to understand the general perception of me from a stranger. Rate my profile, tell me what you think, what’s your favorite photo, do you like my prompts etc..

A thing that was both hilarious and genius (mostly genius). So many people filled it out, at least 40. I wish I could find it. I probably have it in my google drive graveyard where good ideas go to die.

Anyway, I’m doing it again but worse. Why? I love praise, I love compliments, I love people telling me I’m smart and funny and beautiful. Sometimes, I ask my lovers to write down everything they like about me and I store it in a box in my closet. (helloo praise kink)

Statistically- the men on dating apps would be the most likely to validate me, to tell me my writing is good. Who cares that the only thing in their brains is money and pussy. They’re one-dimensional beings (spoiler: they aren’t) and their one-liner about my writing would provide me with the fuel I needed. (why could I not be satisfied with the positive reinforcements from my family, friends and own brain? I’ll get into that another time).

And so, I decided to resurrect one of my favorite schemes and send my matches random shit. The first being, the contents of my soul, bled out of me on my laptop where I typed furiously about my state of being. The men on the screen on my phone weren’t real, weren’t capable of complex thoughts or the ability to perform a literary analysis. Therefore, there was no risk, no reason to be scared.

The first time I did it, I didn’t hear back for days. I didn’t care and the timeline is only important for context.

From Wedding Boy:

The first thing that stuck out to me was- he thought it was funny. Good. I am funny. The second thing that stuck out was “overall, bravo - I hope you continue writing”.

Unexpected.

He knew he wasn’t going to be able to ever physically see me. He didn’t seem to care. He actually read the article and took the time to write me three paragraphs/messages, whatever.

Andddd I was addicted. I spent the next 20 minutes sending everyone on my profile a link to one of my articles, “I want to be a prostitute when I grow up ” or “ I think I’m a carton of fruit”.

You’re probably dying to see some of the replies- I know you are because I had to throw my phone across the room after sending as though I had just texted my crush.

The Guy Who Was Scared He Was Talking To A Prostitute

Not all of them are winners. This guy was FREAKED at the prospect of potentially conversing with a sex worker….which threw me for a loop since I would be extremely interested in learning everything I could. Plus wouldn’t that be great for his meet up to smash ratio?

Cop-out for sure and not convinced he read anything other than determining I was indeed, not, a prostitute.

The Guy Who Loves Muffins

I have mixed feelings about this. The cheeky reply showed he read the entire article. But it lacks any sort of thoughtful analysis or brainpower. At least he replied?

The Hockey Podcast Guy

I’m not a sports girl and a strong believer that Not All Men Should Have Podcasts. This guy can have one- idc!!!

Praise kink = activated. Sharing a part of his brain = hot. Sadly, due to my emotional inability to receive well-intentioned words from men beyond standard compliments; this freaked me out a bit.

I showed these all to my friends and this was by far The One. “Carly he literally told you he likes your brain” “he seems so sweet” “I like how he wants to learn about you” “I vote hockey guy”

However sweet hockey guy was; he was not what one would call, assertive, and did not do much beyond the continued praise when I would send an article. (I would have liked some constructive criticism, but validation whores can’t be too picky)

I did have my friends bf who loves hockey listen to an episode and he said it was great! Good job Hockey Guy!

The Soulmate

I had met my soulmate (on paper). He had seen much more than I had anticipated, he had taken my words and absorbed them into his psyche.

Isn’t that what I wanted?

Why, then, did it make me feel sick to my stomach.

Beyond just reading, he had provided an IN-DEPTH analysis of my personal essay and related it to his own human experience. In fact, he had made me think more.

Did I even like myself, moldy pieces and all?

I replied back, “Should we get married?” as I appreciated the time and effort he had put into replying to me and that seemed to be appropriate seeing as he had given me what I had wanted deep down. However, in doing so he made me realize just how terrified I was of true intimacy.

Prior to this exercise, I had truly thought intimacy existed in a purely physical state; a kiss here, a touch there, seeing each other in a primal state (read: s-e-x) and feeling an even stronger pull to the other.

With “My Soulmate” I had felt like he had plucked my brain out of my head and started projecting my most heinous thoughts and feelings into an English 101 college class. I did not like this. I thought I would. My body shut down. My chest got tight and I closed out of the app and unmatched him a few hours after I asked him to marry me. (sorry soulmate!)

While he was a one-off in terms of replies; he exists as the biggest lesson learned.

My Brain could barely comprehend the variation in responses from the boys (men?) on Hinge. They had feelings? Depth? The ability to read? Maybe they weren’t cavemen, maybe they were more similar to me than I thought.

Unfortunately, this gave me some faith in men. Vomit. I know

Days passed after the Soul Mate incident and I got a little bit brave and wanted to have people read these in real time. To watch their faces as they read the words that poured out of my brain and into my fingertips.

And so, I decided to take my research into the field.

My first test subject was a real date. (procured on Hinge, to keep the variables constant)

The Guy who thought I was FAT

I was standing inside of the speakeasy we had agreed upon when I was enveloped by arms from behind. I freaked a bit, because that’s what you do when someone much larger than you has your arms completely pinned to your sides.

I could go into detail about this date but really all you need to know is that he asked me how much I weighed, told me he didn’t vote or follow politics but would have voted for Trump since woman didn’t know how to lead and then said when he saw me walking in he was caught off guard by my arms, “I can see you go to the gym but you should chill on the weights.”

I’m getting distracted from the main reason we’re here.

About halfway through, I found an opening to bring up my writing. He was interested. I allowed him to scroll through my posts and asked him to pick one to read and we could talk about it. This felt much different than “My Soulmate” since I didn’t take much stock in this degenerate’s opinions anyway.

He scrolled. I was fixated on his face, a smirk appeared and he looked up at me.

“You want to be a prostitute when you grow up?”

“You’ll see if you read!” coyly said by me since I could tell that’s what he would respond to.

But I read the situation wrong.

“Let’s stay off our phones, I want to enjoy my time with you.”

I rolled my eyes to the back of my head. Three minutes later with the light of his iphone shining into his beady little eyes, he said; “I know you have an early day tomorrow and the boys want to go watch the game. I’m going to get the check”

Don’t get me wrong. He was annoying, he wasn’t my cup of tea- but I didn’t feel uncomfortable or unsafe or anything like that. I was more hurt by the fact that I had tried to share of piece of me and it was completely rejected.

In fact, my click-bait-title had done its job a little bit too well.

As we said our goodbyes (good riddance in my case) his touching last remark was; “If you’ve grown up to achieve your dreams, I’d be willing to pay.”

Maybe I should’ve asked how much.

The Boy who got swept up in my antics

Sometimes when I’m out on the town- I radiate. This night was one of those nights where you know something is going to happen.

Standing at the bar, a woman walks up to me and says, “You’re the most beautiful girl at the bar. Let’s take a shot.”

Obviously, I said yes.

We chatted for a min- and then I went back to my friends. I looked up and saw her twerking on a family. A good girl, I rushed over and grabbed her, brought her back to our table. She immediately honed in on our guy friend. Whispering in my ear, “You’re out of his league but he’s into you.”

I was having fun at this point. “Oh yeah, what makes you think that?” She saunters over to him- whispers in his ear, and the next thing you know he’s bringing us both drinks. As he sets mine down he says into my neck, “You owe me.”

I smiled at him- big and bright and radiant. He stutters and turns red. I knew it.

After her departure, we get to talking. (we being a relative term, it was mostly just me. The tequila had gone to my head)

I had gotten him to read every one of my articles.

“You’re brave.”

“No, I’m not. I’m crazy.”

“I’m honored you shared this with me.”

We made eye contact and this time, I looked away first.

I could go through the whole conversation but I won’t bore you with our tipsy attempts at trying to not-flirt but flirt and still be cool. Instead, I’ll tell you that he made me feel beautiful, that my brain wasn’t as scary as I thought and that maybe instead of being something that needs to be analyzed it was something to be appreciated.

You might be wondering what I learned from all of this. And I am too. My biggest lesson is that intimacy is terrifying. And that it takes time, build-up, (foreplay, one might say). I also learned that I’m much more charismatic in person.

The most surprising thing I realized is that men maybe do have souls. What I didn’t see coming is that I’m more attracted to those who can only halfway see me. Being truly seen by someone with a good soul was enough for me to completely shut down. And I think I innately prefer the men who act like they’re soulless.

Anyway, i’m fine!!