“So, how bout’ I give this one a go, and do him a favour! What, no match? Get faaaaarked?!”.
Introducing my friend Carmela; a self-confessed real-life Bridget Jones with a flair for the dramatic. This is her describing her experience on one of the numerous dating-apps ‘Bumble’ while we were making fajitas in my kitchen on Sunday night. She gets out her phone and demonstrates, firstly to show how she can predict which men will be a match and which ones (as she would put it) “Already know Imma hot mess!”
She continues; “See look, I think this one is a dream boat, but it won’t be a match, yep, seeeeee, no match! Look at this one though, it’s a definite N-O from me, but he’s gonna be a match. Boom!! We have a match. Hooray. Lucky me.
So how bout’ I give this a go: I’ll swipe right on the next one that I don’t dig and we’ll see what happens, maybe we’ll start chatting, maybe we’ll start dating, maybe I’ll have his baby. What! No match either? Carly, what’s wrong with me?!”.
Yep, that’s me. Carly. Just as single. Just as tragic.
So, what happens when your friend has been single for so long that she believes she needs to lower her standards in the hope of having more of a chance with the opposite sex, but then finds out that even those guys aren’t into her? Well one thing’s for sure, no one’s holding her a congratulations-you’re-now-in-a-successful-relationship party.
So I suggest that maybe it’s not so much about lowering her standards, but perhaps more about adjusting them.
“Is it though? Am I adjusting them? I think I am just scraping the bottom of the barrel and hoping that one of these guys is the ‘one’ cos I feel like I’m kinda running out of options here Carly. And honestly what am I trying to prove? That I’m more open-minded? Or that I’m not the girl who has a certain type? Because either way, all I’m finding is that there is an even bigger pool of men that aren’t attracted to me.”
Well I do understand where she is coming from. Being a girl in my (early) thirties, who’s essentially been single most of my life, save a few clusters of weeks or months here and there in absolutely destructive relationships that were never going anywhere: my choice in men is poor at best. She’s right, we’d be fools not to re-evaluate our choices, right? I can’t think of a better way of being a well-rounded human, one who learns from their mistakes. So yes, how about actively trying to go for guys that are not our usual type? The guy who has just got photos of himself with his cat, or features himself in front of his computer with his head-set on, because this guy’s not gonna blow us off to hang out with his friends cos he has none, and he doesn’t have emotional baggage cos he clearly never gets out, and he’s gonna worship the ground that we walk on because we’re a hot piece of ass and he won’t know what hit him. Right?
“Well I guess I thought that if I gave the guy with a receding hairline a go, that maybe that would be the answer to my ‘no sex in the city’ problem, that this ‘charity swipe’ could be my happily-ever-after? But it turns out not even he wants to give me a ‘sympathy screw’”.
So we swipe right and the ‘it’s a match’ window doesn’t pop up. And we realise that even this guy we were being totally judgmental of and looking down on has standards, and – uh-oh – somehow we’ve lost sight of ours. Ouch!
Does this call for a bust-out-the-violins moment, or is it an unexpected moment of clarity? Because let’s face it, rejection hurts when it comes from that hot bearded tattooed guy, but it hurts even more when it comes from the selfie-in-the-gym guy who makes you want to vomit in your mouth a little. But in reality adjusting your standards doesn’t have to be a bad thing, in fact when I did so it resulted in a rather positive experience and I found that my reason for the ‘charity swipe’ was in fact just about not basing everything on looks. I met with this guy and we ended up getting on like a house on fire and due to his personality I fancied his pants off. It didn’t turn out to be a home-run, but it worked while it lasted.
“Is it always gonna be like this? It’s just so exhausting figuring this stuff out, when all I really want is a man who’s gonna eat pizza in bed with me and watch re-runs of Friends.”
So ladies and gentlemen, maybe it just boils down to this: you don’t need to lower your standards, but rather, just give them a bit of a zhoosh, because while the charity swipe can surprise you, if it doesn’t – as with all things in life – you need to be able to live with the decisions you make and know that you have not betrayed yourself or sold yourself short, and that your dignity is still intact.
Carly and Carmela are the #PowerBitches behind ‘So The Fairy Tales Lied’. They’re hoping that their experiences are just like the ones you share with your best friends; funny, warm, loud, raw, authentic, and that maybe you can figure out this funny-thing-called-life together. Yaaas Kween!
