---

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Do I “heart” this? My finger hovers over the outline of a heart beside a photo of a curly-haired woman grinning, her arms wrapped around two tan dogs. It’s a Friday night, a few months after I moved to Texas to attend graduate school, alone, in 2020, midpandemic, and I’m spending yet another evening home on my couch with my dog and my phone. A few minutes earlier, in a fit of longing for human companionship, I downloaded Hinge.

 

To set up a Hinge profile, all you need to do is upload and caption six photos of yourself, select and answer six “get to know you” questions and click through a few “dating preferences.” For most of your life, you felt as if everyone else effortlessly (or maybe instinctually) understood the intricacies of romance, but you had somehow missed the instructions. (To be fair, that was not the only thing you missed. You were often the kid standing on the wrong side of the soccer field, picking dandelions and daydreaming instead of chasing the ball.) Now, your friends have begun to pair off. You find yourself attending many weddings without a plus-one. You are still wondering: how do you know if someone is into you?

 

About Me

Age: 28¹

Height: 5’10”

Lives in: Denton, TX

Vaccinated: Yes

Drinks: Sometimes

Smokes: Never

 

¹ I used to assume that I’d have my shit together by thirty, and would have a cool job, get married, buy a house, have a few kids, and get a dog. So far, I’m one for five: a sweet, mischievous terrier mix. And I have significantly revised my definition of “having my shit together.”

---

[She uploads a photo of herself, half smiling in a way she hopes looks cool and confident. Her waist-length brown hair is down in long waves, a style it holds just long enough in real life to take a cute picture or two before going limp, becoming incorrigibly frizzy, or getting tangled around her elbows. As a result, she wears her hair wadded up in a bun ninety-five percent of the time. Maybe she just needs a haircut. But nobody would know that from the picture.

She reads her own face, trying to imagine she is someone else, looking at it for the first time. She likes her eyes, which are brown but flash green if the light hits at a certain angle. Deep creases in her lids, dark circles underneath. Average (and blessedly low-maintenance) eyebrows. The forehead of a worrier. A pointed, narrow nose (her dad’s). Delicate lips and teeth wrangled straight by years of orthodontics. The punctuation of two small brown moles on her cheek and the bridge of her nose that, for a few weeks in high school, she tried to cover with concealer. She stopped because no one else seemed to notice and because hiding them made her face seem slightly startling and unfamiliar to herself.]

 

Caption: Woke up like this

 

Well, mostly. But nobody’s dating app profile is perfectly representative, right? It’s supposed to be a curated glimpse of the most desirable version of yourself—myself. The trouble lies in figuring out exactly which version that is.²

 

As an essayist, you craft personas all the time. How is this any different?

 

² Sometimes, other people offer clues. Once, after consuming several generous glasses of whisky, a straight friend said to the writer, “I’ve seen your legs. You have incredible legs.”

---

[She uploads a photo of herself, smiling with teeth, surrounded by three smiling friends back home in Wisconsin. She remembers feeling a little self-conscious about her height as they leaned together to snap the picture—her face hovering, sunscreen-pale, like a full moon over the horizon of everyone else’s hair. It is not a terrible photo of anyone³, but the shot where she looks best is not the most flattering angle on her friend Emma. Though, Emma will probably never see it. And she would totally understand. The art of crafting a dating app profile has its conventions. Another friend (the one with the perfect boyfriend she met on Hinge) once said that it was important to include a picture with other people in it on your profile to show potential matches that you have friends. Evidence that you are not single because there is anything wrong with you.]

 

Do we look like we’re having fun? Are we having fun? Am I fun to hang out with? I think people invite me to parties a normal amount. Do they?

 

³ The writer has never enjoyed looking at herself in photographs. She has a habit of dwelling on all the tiny imperfections that no one but the owner of the face would ever notice or care about.

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My Love Language⁴: Quality time☺

 

At least that answer was easy. And true.⁵

 

[She uploads a photo of herself cross-country skiing two winters ago in Hayward. The rhetorical purpose of including this photo is to show her audience that she goes outside and does cool-ish stuff. Lesbians are supposed to like sports. She is reasonably athletic for a writer. She is wearing snowpants, which are not terribly sexy, but at least the hat is cute?]

 

Caption: As seen on my mom’s fridge

 

Maybe it’s better to leave my mother out of this.

 

[She uploads a photo of herself outside in the Texas summer, wearing a black tank top and shorts, sandals, sunglasses, ponytail. To balance out the snowpants. This much self-scrutiny is exhausting.]

 

My simple pleasures: Early morning walks, reading in blanket forts, dancing in the kitchen while I cook dinner for you

 

Too much?

 

[She uploads a photo of her dog, Quincy, curled around her neck like a bulky cow-spotted scarf. The number of dogs featured on people’s profiles reminds her of scrolling petfinder.com. The profiles aren’t as different as you’d imagine. Good with kids. Needs home without cats.]

 

Caption: Are you a dog person because

 

Sex is fun, but dogs are a ten-to-seventeen-year commitment!

 

[She uploads another picture of her dog, who appears to be smiling for the camera, ears perked, head tilted, tongue lolling, because he is adorable and frankly, more photogenic than she is. Besides, ninety percent of her phone camera roll is pictures of the dog. Lots of good options.]

 

Caption: My dog looks at me like

 

Maybe I should just adopt a second dog.

 

⁴ I have to look this one up. According to a 1992 book by Baptist pastor and talk show host Gary Chapman, the five love languages are receiving gifts, acts of service, physical touch, quality time, and words of affirmation.

⁵ Which is not to suggest that I’m being dishonest. It’s a curated snapshot, remember?

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It is not the first time you have tried a dating app. A few weeks ago, you downloaded Bumble and deleted it in a panic barely five minutes later, when the third profile that appeared on your screen belonged to a former student. What if a current student inadvertently stumbled on your profile? What if they took screenshots and texted them to the whole class? Look at our pathetic English instructor…. Worse, what if they messaged you? What if the student was upset about a grade and decided to use your profile information to get back at you with false accusations of inappropriate behavior? You can’t be the only one worried (paranoid?) about this. How do other college teachers keep their profiles away from students?

Your friend/dating app guru reassures you: “Just block everyone under twenty-five. These days, the kids aren’t really on Hinge.” (You don’t really like the implication that there are just three years separating you from “the kids.”)

You chose Hinge from among the many options because it included questions and answers, which seemed more mature and sophisticated than making snap judgments based on photos alone.

 

Next, I scroll through a seemingly endless menu of quippy prompts, trying to think of funny/smart/sexy/true answers.

 

Select a Prompt:

A life goal of mine

Is “publish a badass essay collection” too earnest?

 

A quick rant about

Ranting doesn’t sound particularly attractive. Gonna skip this one.

 

A random fact I love

The plastic piece on the end of a shoelace is called an aglet.

 

A shower thought I recently had

Not feeling it.

 

All I ask is that you

I definitely want more than one thing.⁶

 

An overshare

Isn’t all of this oversharing?

 

Apparently, my life’s soundtrack is

Taylor Swift’s album evermore

 

Believe it or not, I

This reminds me of coming up with “one interesting fact” while introducing yourself on the first day of class.

 

Best travel story

When I was twelve, my family spent a week in a haunted lighthouse.

 

Unusual skills

I used to work as a cake decorator, so I’m pretty good at writing with frosting.

 

We’ll get along if

Can you define “get along” more clearly in this context?

 

Change my mind about

Is this an invitation to start an argument? Do people really think that’s hot? Weird.

 

Don’t hate me if I

sometimes ignore your texts for a couple hours while I write.

 

Fact about me that surprises people

I’ve been vegan for ten years.

 

You should *not* go out with me if

you’re allergic to dogs or don’t allow dogs on the furniture.

 

Green flags I look for

include following through with plans and responding to texts. That seems too…basic. I want a date who is generous and wise and assumes others have good intentions most of the time, who enjoys food and adventures and learning new things and smells nice, who can be meticulous when precision matters and flexible when it doesn’t and apologizes when she finds herself in the wrong and accepts apologies graciously. Too nuanced? Should I just keep it simple and say “likes to read” or “keeps a budget spreadsheet” instead? Am I seriously horny for a good budget?

 

If loving this is wrong, I don’t want to be right

peanut butter and sriracha sandwiches

 

I’ll fall for you if

you play with my hair.

 

I’m weirdly attracted to

Not answering this one either.

 

We’re the same type of weird if

you agree that Chex Mix is the best way to eat cereal.

 

I’m looking for

I’ll know when I see it?

 

I’ll know it’s time to delete Hinge when

I meet the woman of my dreams?⁷

 

⁶ I am surprised at my own resistance to answering the questions. I want to present myself as authentic, but not too authentic, interesting, but not too interesting. I like to imagine that I am resisting the ways that these profile questions genericize people, flatten them into boxes. But I also want to be wanted. I want to fit.

⁷ My parents, who have been married for thirty-three years, met at church. I have always suspected that meeting “the one” at church was not going to work out for me.

---

Previously, you understood getting a date to involve the following steps:

1. Get dressed up.
2. Convince a friend or two to play the role of wingperson (optional, but recommended).
3. Go somewhere (in selecting a place to go, it is often helpful to consider the availability of dancing and booze).
4. Attempt to determine if anyone else there is:
   a) also a lesbian.⁸
   b) cute.
   c) available.
   d) interested.
5. Start a conversation that ends in going on a date.

 

In theory, dating apps make meeting people easier. You get to skip steps 1–4 and head right to step 5.

 

I’ve known I was gay since a fateful sleepover in the fourth grade⁹, but I hoped that if I ignored my feelings for long enough, I might grow out of it, like acne. In college, I even tried dating men. I once met a guy from my philosophy class at the campus coffee shop. His first question was “Did you bring a stapler?” and it turned out he had just asked me out so I would edit his paper for free. (To my eternal embarrassment, I did.) For a few weeks, I also dated a guy who shimmied his legs into a glittery blue silicone tail and donned a seashell bra to perform (renaissance fairs, kids’ birthday parties, just for fun in the dorm common room) as a mermaid.¹⁰

 

⁸ Methods of determining whether someone else is gay (such as “gaydar”) vary widely in accuracy. As a result, there is a rich and fascinating history of queer people using coded language and images to find and identify one another, arising out of the need to evade persecution. Personally, I’m glad monocles are no longer in vogue.

⁹ My friend Lydia’s basement, burnt-orange shag carpet, wood paneling, popcorn, Goldfish crackers, sour gummies, flashlights snuck in sleeping bags, whispering after lights-out, writing a list of cute boys in our class, my realization that I never felt butterflies in my stomach (the number one symptom of a very serious condition known as “a crush”) when I looked at any of the boys in our class, the worry I was somehow broken, the certainty that my real feelings needed to remain a secret.

¹⁰ Dating a mermaid is discussed in more depth in a separate essay.

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An Incomplete List of Ways Lesbians Identify Other Lesbians in the Wild:

1. She casually mentions a crush on actress Gillian Anderson (Dana Scully in The X-Files).
2. She seems exceptionally fond of cargo pants/button-down shirts/hiking sandals/flannel/overalls/men’s undershirts/carabiners.
3. You stare at each other’s hands.
4. She references an article from Autostraddle.com slightly too loudly and waits to see who looks over knowingly.
5. You have the same ex-girlfriend.
6. “How many times have you seen Portrait of a Lady on Fire? How about Ammonite?”
7. You text each other every day for two years.
8. She frequently tweets excerpts from Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West’s letters.
9. She introduces herself as a lesbian.

You sometimes wonder if all this would be easier if you just got a more queer-forward haircut. Or started wearing more button-down shirts. Or more lipstick. Or more button-down shirts and lipstick at the same time?

 

Do I look queer enough? Do I look like I’m trying to hide?

 

What exactly am I looking for anyway?

 

Dating Preferences:

I’m interested in: Women

Age range: 25–50

Maximum Distance: 11 mi

Religion: Open to all

Ethnicity: Open to all

Preferred Preferences (Upgrade for Access)¹¹

Height: Open to all (sure)

Politics: Open to all (obviously not)

Smoking: Open to all (nope)

Drinking: Open to all (in moderation)

Drugs: Open to all (hard no)

Marijuana: Open to all (not my jam, but you do you)

Education: Open to all (it depends?)

Children: Open to all (yes!)

 

Is love simply a matter of picking the right answers?

 

¹¹ I am too casual a Hinge user to pay money for access to these choices. It reminds me of all the annoying stuff airlines try to make you pay extra for, like legroom and the whole can of ginger ale.

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Scrolling through profiles, it seems like every other woman on the app has a picture or three that features herself:

a) wearing a bikini.

b) holding a fishbowl-sized, neon-colored, presumably alcoholic beverage, often with a small umbrella protruding from the slushy surface.

c) in a hot tub or pool.

 

There are no pictures in existence of me in a bikini holding an enormous margarita. Do women take these pictures for each other to help attract dates? Do they exist in any other context? Is it a Texas thing? Is it a straight people thing? Did I forget to get my preferences set to queer?

 

I don’t own a bikini.¹² Do I need to get one?

 

Where are the women who prefer comfortable bras and mostly drink beer?

 

I think I find the photos unsettling because they seem designed for a male gaze. Women don’t find images of other women that flatten and objectify their bodies sexy, right? Or am I just extending the same kind of judgment at the self-presentation of these women that I hoped to avoid having leveled against my own? What am I looking for anyway?

 

¹² In the future, the writer (who up until that point believed herself very much a one-piece swimsuit person) will wear a bikini to the beach with her girlfriend (whom she did not meet on Hinge).

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I am not afraid to be alone. I like living by myself. Coming and going as I please. Eating what and when I want. Being responsible mostly to myself.

 

But how to name my longing?

 

I want someone to watch TV with me when we’re too tired to do anything else. I want someone to stroke my hair. I want to cook dinner together and run boring errands together. I want someone to rest her hand on my thigh while I drive and turn up the radio whenever one of our songs comes on.

 

I scroll through half a dozen profiles. Dogs. Yoga pants. Margaritas. Rainbows. Long hair. Short hair. Dresses with cutout backs. Suits. Crop tops. Leggings. Cargo pants. Button-downs. Rock climbing. Mountain climbing. Surfing. Rugby teams. Softball teams. Lots of swimming pools. Friends smiling over trays of sushi. A photo featuring someone’s grandma. I like a few pictures. Someone sends me a message that begins, “Hey cutie!”

 

You close Hinge and rest a finger on the app for a few seconds. A small trash can symbol appears on the screen. You click it. “Are you sure?” it asks.

 

But what to do with my longing?

 

I’m not sure of much. Many questions of longing and attraction remain unanswered. But I delete my profile anyway.

 

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ANNA CHOTLOS’s essays and poems have recently appeared in Pinch, HAD, Split Lip, Hotel Amerika, Sweet Lit, and River Teeth’s Beautiful Things. She holds an MA from Ohio University and now teaches and writes in Denton, Texas, where she is a PhD candidate in creative writing at the University of North Texas and the editor in chief of American Literary Review. Find her on Twitter @achotlos.

 

Featured image by Domingo Alvarez, courtesy of Unsplash.