10. It's A Match! (Made In Hell)
It's A Match!
Dearly beloved readers, as the autumn/winter season of this show was filled with small portions of happiness, big chunks of sadness, scenes beautiful and horrifying, unforgettable events, and most importantly, this infamous emotional damage, the beginning of the new spring/summer season has turned out to be truly disappointing. Yet, this author shall purchase much more ink, since he is simply unable to stop dating the most annoying, fascinating, irresistible, dull and headache causing creatures - men. They could have discovered fire, but women and bottoms discovered how to play with it. The party is still on.
I've learned some things in the last few months. We are all waiting for something. We are all healing from something. While running away from the problems and my past, I ended up making the same mistakes over and over again, getting lower with every new crush and crash. Being in the rock bottom is painful, but ruin is a gift, to quote Liz from Eat, Pray, Love: Ruin is the road to transformation. If we realise our mistakes, if we admit our own fault. I got some bad experiences, but I've tried to reason with it at first, told myself all the bad situations are just my new lessons. They're hidden gifts that could help me improve myself. But the uncomfortable truth is, not everything in our life is a lesson. Sometimes we get to be the lessons for other people, and sometimes things just happen for no apparent reason. Still, I was trying to get the most out of every bad situation.
I had to ask myself the same question that self-centred bitch Carrie from Sex And The City was asking herself: Why are we in such a rush to move from confused to Confucius? Do we search for lessons to lessen the pain? Well, obviously. It hurts less, if we could get something positive out of the bad situation. If we looked at the problem as some kind of investment in our future. But even if you try to find a lesson in this pain, and even if it's really there, it's easy to get confused with what you were supposed to learn. You burn yourself once, so you're not playing with fire the next time you see it, that's how it should work. But in my case, I was just trying to play with it taking some precautions in the future, or thinking I'm finally equipped to deal with fire and I won't get burned the next time I put my fingers into it. That's my stupidity. We can't expect to get different results while doing the same thing. Einstein said it's madness, I believe him. Evolve or repeat.
But I got the new material to work with. Hundreds of new matches on Tinder, unlimited new options for dates. Unfortunately, so far they all turned out to be a series of unfortunate events. Met one deaf guy, a photographer with some talent for taking great photos, possibly for my Instagram and Tinder. But when I went on a date with him, for a walk, all we could do was text each other on Instagram. That's how we communicated, and as we were doing it, I saw the idiocy of it. Now he is still texting me from time to time and I keep seeing him randomly at my supposedly formerly favourite gay club and whenever he sees me there, he is literally eating my face in the most uncomfortable way, while trying to kiss me, I suppose. Then I got myself into a textationship. Yes, it's a new word for something that I think was present for many years in the dating world. Basically you talk to a guy, you text with him on a daily basis, but he never makes any effort to meet with you again or at all, and keeps ignoring you when you try to plan the next date.
Good morning, good night, how was your day, I'm doing this, that, oh, something funny just happened, gotta tell you. Finally, I was bored and annoyed with it, so I got rid of him. And then I jumped into another textationship with someone who reminded me of Mattias (formerly known as Mr M., yes, new season, fewer feelings, no reason to avoid naming him and making him special). Jack was very tall, or so he said so - bigger, simple, from a village like Mattias, laughed and laughed at anything I said, but got nominated for elimination and left the programme, since I didn't have patience to continue this ridiculous endless chats thing. Later on turned out he was also a bottom, so maybe that was the reason. Then got myself a stalker, a guy who comes to my club whenever I'm partying there or visits me at work (as Valentin did once at some point, with some guy, mind you), or just tells me: Hey, I just saw you working, looking cute! Next time I'm gonna visit you. And keeps sending me his selfies almost every day.
Then I met the most selfish and full of himself guy, some real estate agent. Started our chat by saying I just won the best Tinder bio of 2022, and we clicked virtually immediately, just like that. He travelled the world, had great pictures, loved to party and made me feel great and uncomfortable at the same time, like I was afraid if I say something wrong he will lose his interest in me. When we met, he was saying to me how intelligent and charismatic he is, turns out he has borderline disorder. We went to the pizzeria owned by the same guy that owns my favourite gay club. He saw me there, as he saw me a bunch of times at his club before, and surprisingly smiled to me. I smiled back, my date saw it, immediately got curious, asked who is it, so with a smug face I said: It's the owner of this place. The next day he told me it was nice, but we didn't click, and he was right. After all those years, I was reminded of another trap of the dating world: virtual connection not translating into the real world.
Through texts or even on a call it's smooth, you have so much to talk about, but once you see each other, it's like: Oops, not gonna happen, sorry. It gets uncomfortable, you force yourself to find any topics, get anything you could talk about. I appreciated his honesty though, as he released me of an uncomfortable problem of being honest with him, so I agreed and wished for him to find a great therapist. But that's only because he told me on a date he couldn't find a good one, it wasn't a hidden insult, although it sounded like that, probably. Then, when I was partying at my club the night the new gay club in Warsaw was open (and turned out to be a shithole), I saw one guy, who was staring at me. Big and tall like a closet. The next morning I got a message on Tinder, from one of my matches: I think I saw you at Metropolis. Since
I liked what I saw the night before, and it looked like it was mutual, and we actually chatted for hours, we planned to meet the next day. He was quite popular in the gay world, knew a lot of other popular gays, had one of the best Polish accounts with memes on Instagram. Another minor gay celebrity. And for the first time ever, I was about to meet someone from a dating app, who saw me already and apparently liked me. When I said I like to look up, he said he likes to look down. What could go wrong?
Well, once again, the virtual connection didn’t translate to reality, and it was uncomfortable at times. Turned out, before I was way too drunk, and it was way too dark when I saw him at the club, because he was actually quite chubby. I didn't have a problem with it at all, it didn't matter to me, don't get me wrong. But it seemed like he had a problem with it and didn’t feel comfortable with himself. So this time I waited after the date and as there was no message from him, the next day I told him it was great, I enjoyed it, but obviously we didn't click, so I wished him luck. He replied something, but at the time I couldn't check what was it, and when I finally did, our match and his last and mysterious message for me was gone forever. Months later I saw him on Tinder again, on one of his pictures he was proudly presenting his bum. Another bottom.
Towards the end of May I met another guy from Tinder who could easily follow the steps of Ivan and Valentin, but maybe I finally learned my lesson, or, more realistically, wasn't into him that much. Fit and strong guy from the gym, with arms like my thighs. Came to the club when I was partying there with my friend. Soon we started dancing together, then kissed, touched, I could feel him getting hard, he even picked me up on the dance floor, getting us some attention of the crowd and saying I weight nothing, while smiling, kissing me constantly and making me feel special. That was actually amazing, of course reminded me of the Russian, since before I kicked him out of my place I thought he will get a chance to do that later that night with me. But what I couldn't get with one guy, I got with another one, David, the strong guy, who at the dawn left the club with me. And as we were waiting for Uber, my stalker joined us, talking some bullshit to me and ignoring the fact I'm with someone else, standing right there. Then in the car, David grabbed my hand and was holding it the whole ride. Aren't we all a bit lonely?
He stayed for the night, we had some fun in the morning, and when he left my place, didn't text me. So I didn't text him as well, which worked, because then he started doing it randomly, sending me pictures or asking some questions, just to keep the conversation alive. So that's how it worked. Exactly as I thought. When you ignore the boys, they suddenly feel much more attracted to you. They need to feel that someone is unavailable, to be actually interested. A forbidden fruit. They love to hunt. But, as I was saying previously, I'm not interested in such silly games, and I'm not looking for a boy, so I couldn't care less. What I am looking for, is someone similar to one of the greatest lesbians (I'm surprised myself) in our culture recently, Gentleman Jack. In episode 4 of the second season, exactly at 22:22 minute, she said a phenomenal thing, that got stuck in my head for good and set the bar quite a bit higher: I would have conquered empires for you.
My goodness. What a magnificent choice of words. Can you imagine love so strong and someone to be devoted so much? But TV taught me how to feel, and now real life has no appeal. Causing quite a lot of issues for your author, because later on I met another Belarusian guy, who yet again proved to me, that I shouldn’t be trying eastern Slavs as they’re pure evil for me, then met some other mediocre guys as well and started being afraid, that if I don’t get this immediate spark with someone, as I thought I got with Ivan and Valentin, I won’t be able to get interested in someone. Like I need a thunder to sweep me off my feet. Being unable to settle for less or something normal.
Later on I got myself Tinder Gold and had a chance to virtually travel through Poland, then Europe. Got another hundreds of new matches with guys from Berlin, Paris, London, Amsterdam. Got a dozen of cheap versions of 90 Days Fiancé, which basically means talking to a guy from a different country who constantly says that you should visit him. Yes, that's exactly what I'm going to do. Spend loads of money on a ticket to another country just to get a date. First travel, then get a date, otherwise you're fucked, remember. And another thing - as it's nice getting so many guys pointlessly interested in me, Tinder feels sometimes like a drug. It gets me high, makes happy when I get the attention of handsome, big or strong guys, but the more I take, the less it works its magic. And when I put it away and try not to take it at all, it puts me down and makes me feel almost miserable. Still gonna virtually clean the table with my nose, though, cause there are no other options, especially in the most homophobic country of European Union.
As now I'm getting new matches all day long and new conversations that last for a few hours or a few days, nothing annoys me more than a simple question: How are you? One short question, simple and so universal. But drives me crazy the way squirrels drive dogs crazy. How are you? How was your day? What am I supposed to say to that? Think hard and reply with something witty, be honest or just say anything and move on? Maybe it wouldn't be so annoying if I got it once a few days, but getting this question constantly every hour as every guy loves to start our chat with it, I'm unable to produce any more original answers, so in the end I ignore most of them. And writing is my thing, it's always been. I was always trying to be original and unique in my chats, at least not boring or predictable. Some have beautiful faces, others have great muscles or big money, and I got my words and crazy personality, which from a distance looks tempting.
However narcissistic it may sound, I can easily get guys hooked on me. A joke here and there, some witty response, becoming a chameleon that adjusts to them and knows what they like and what they would like to hear. Then they create a picture of me which isn't always real. So then one wrong word, one wrong action, and suddenly they pull away and all I have left is wondering - what the hell just happened. I guess my curse is, they always like me better in their head.
But once again, getting so many of them in my orbit now, allowed me to not care about it almost at all. Slightly annoyed with: It is what it is, but summer is coming, the nights are getting brighter and warmer, new mistakes are on the horizon. New characters are coming, as the new season of every show requires them. New occasions to say: Thank you, next. And the ruthless crowd of my thoughts deciding which contestant shall leave the show and which one should get the podium for a week, or a month.
Yours truly,
@oxerne