35yoSeeking... a date

Word Count: 495

If I didn’t have my cute formula for titling my blog posts, I would have called this “the five kinds of photos you find on guys’ dating apps in the Midwest.” I realize I’m wildly over-generalizing here, but hey—it’s supposed to be snarky. So, without further ado:

1. Guy with his friends
   It’s nearly always impossible to tell which guy’s profile it is from this photo, which is just obnoxious. I’ve swiped left for less.

2. Guy with a baby
   If it’s not his baby, he will definitely say so somewhere in his profile. If it’s his very first photo, or if he doesn’t say anything about the baby in his profile, then you can bet that it’s his.

3. Bathroom selfie
   These are generally the worst photos. At best, the guy is fully clothed and wearing a button-down or polo shirt, likely on his way to work. At worse, he’s not wearing any clothes and also showing off his tattoos and body piercings.

4. Guy holding a fish he caught or a deer he shot
   These are the second-worst photos after bathroom selfies. Welcome to the Midwest! I’m sure other parts of the country have their own version of this—but I only ever see fish and deer—so I couldn’t say for sure.

5. Guy in an exotic location
   It’s often difficult to see the guy’s face in his travel photos. About the only thing you can really learn is that the guy went somewhere cool at least once in his life.

Yep—dating apps (and websites) are weird. The search filters always make me feel like I’m online shopping for a man. But the sheer volume of guys online is so overwhelming that you have to narrow your options somehow. And if you have to set parameters to narrow your choices, shouldn’t you go for what you want? Sure, Christian is fine—but Catholic is ideal! And wouldn’t it be nice if he was at least my height and within a 20-minute drive? You end up knowing too much too soon. When you meet a guy out and about in “real life,” you don’t necessarily know if he smokes or wants kids or believes in God. Is it better or worse to learn this stuff in advance? Am I saving time and potential heartache by scrapping these guys from the get-go, or am I writing them off without giving them a chance? I’m not looking to change anyone or to settle. Still, dating apps can eliminate the part where you might explore a quality you’d never found attractive before or discover you can live with a previous deal-breaker after all (not in a settling way, but in a compromise way). But how else can I limit or filter the seemingly endless options online?

For the record, these are all rhetorical questions. I don’t know the answers to any of them. If you do, please enlighten me! In the meantime, happy swiping!