Brown Situationships

From Dil Mil App to Bumble to Hinge, here are some of my entertaining stories from 2021.

I’m taking a break from dating.

After so many situationships, that had absolutely nothing genuine to offer, I’ve decided to revive myself from the endless laughter.

The last few were more painful in certain ways, but I learned so much more about myself than I ever did before.

Note: I don’t hate men at all, but I’ve now been exposed to what can go wrong. This is all satire, with a blend of stories from friends, written in the first person.

The “She Sounds Crazy”

I should have seen the red flags way earlier on.

I met him on a different platform, but that platform should have been something to be cautious about.

He messaged me off of a post that I had written. We started talking and he struck the common ground on many things.

The number one thing I should have paid attention to was how “dating sucks” (which I do understand, it really does), and how “women in their 20s don’t know what they’re doing.”

As per several conversations I’ve had, women typically want genuine relationships (unless they say otherwise).

We follow each other on Instagram, and after our first phone call, he didn’t text until I posted a random selfie.

After a few days, I posted something else on my story, to which he replied at midnight about how “he would smack that woman for voicing her opinion” because she “sounds crazy.”

In sheer confusion and fear, he was blocked.

The Detail-Oriented

I matched with someone on Hinge in a different location with similar roots to my hometown. The conversation had some issues, which I should have assessed as a sign of incompatibility.

However, I added him on Facebook, knowing we had mutual connections.

Let’s call this person “MP.”

I wondered why nothing was set up, so I asked what happened.

He called, and we talked for around an hour.

MP had this thing with asking when did I exactly meet certain people we knew in common. We did debate and had a lot of strong common connections.

How am I supposed to remember what month, in what year, I met a particular person? It was borderline ridiculous to keep track of that for every common connection. I haven’t seen anyone with that kind of mindset.

He ended up messaging me afterward saying that this wasn’t gonna work.

I was so relieved.

The Whatsapp and Weird Grammar

I matched with someone on Bumble, let’s call him “GS.”

I so regretted this phone call.

I don’t know why, but it somehow slid past me that there was something wrong with his grammar a little bit (nothing major, but sometimes with capitalization and in between certain sentences or words).

GS was incessantly trying to work this out.

I heard him over the phone, and his voice left an uncomfortable vibe.

I decided to unmatch and block him after a few hours.

But wait…

He messaged me on WhatsApp the next morning. I started to panic.

Blocked again.

The Almost Married But Not Quite

This story was way too unique, and I couldn’t believe it.

It opened my eyes to bigger problems in life, but more so on how to handle things.

This dude, let’s call him “the Canadian.”

The Canadian added me on Instagram by looking at one post I made on a Facebook group. I interrogated him, and it matched with the details on my post.

I thought it was harmless, considering what details he conveyed.

A month later, he slides in my DMs, replies to my story where I posted a selfie and starts flirting.

I was a bit taken back by it, it was the first time someone had started flirting with me.

So we started going back and forth. I learned that I was actually quite good at flirting.

We decide to call after a while, and that’s where he started moaning about how he was with another girl and thought they were going to get married.

That girl ended up being greedy and started to defame his family.

I was so drained after that 30-minute phone call and questioned a lot of things.

He apologized in the next phone call and checked in every week or so.

We start talking about our backgrounds, our lives, laughed a lot in between.

Did I mention he’s in Toronto? His big plans were to move to New York and work in investment banking.

Little did I know, my phone carrier changed the plan, and started charging me for calls to Canada.

After around four months, I told him that I liked him.

Let’s just say, this dude owes me $114 for international calls.

The Possible Half South-African

This was a week of comedy gold.

I shared screenshots of this conversation with all my friends because the whole idea made me laugh the entire week.

Let’s call this dude “the halfie.”

The Hafie and I matched on Dil Mil App.

His pick-up line was “hey, on my way to Trader Joes, want me to pick you something?” and I swear I had no clue what this meant.

So I did what anyone would do. I googled it.

I went back at it and said “Haha that’s from Master of None right?”

Hafie assumed we would vibe.

He talks about what I would want in a love letter, and we went back and forth about certain things.

I knew that he was entirely Telegu, but he kept emphasizing that he was “half South African” from the “Zulu tribe.”

He went as far as to say that his parents met in South Africa.

I knew better — they met in Andra Pradesh in India.

We sent each other good morning texts. Hafie said he wished I was clubbing with him in Miami. I told him we were stargazing.

Then he says more than once if I would be able to handle all of him since he’s my “first half-black guy.” I said I didn’t care.

I also thought this was really messed up. Why would you make up half an ethnicity just to declare that you have something “big” in particular?

So I told him, “you have a long way to go.”

Blocked.

The Linkedin Enthusiast

Man, when I tell you I wanted to scream my head off, I REALLY wanted to scream my head off.

This dude, let’s call him “walking confusion.”

We matched on Dil Mil App and his introduction was “looking at your bio, I might be your cup of tea :)” in reference to what I wrote in my bio about being a chai lover.

He wanted to have a “good conversation and see where things go” but something meaningful overall.

He initiated the first phone call, we had lots of laughter and many things to connect on. I genuinely thought maybe this person might be more decent than the others.

Oh god no. I was really wrong.

We had a second phone call and started to talk about things that we had to get done — related to both of our schedules and the eerily strange coincidence of our background and ambitions. I started to think maybe that was a good start.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.

We’re competition.

Apparently, he wanted to build a professional connection off of a dating app.

I don’t know if I wanted to laugh or scream, but just wait…

I didn’t text until there was something set up in person. Walking confusion decides to text a few times in between. He told me in that phone call, that since it’s only been two phone calls, there’s no way to decide anything.

Then one day we finally met up in person.

Walking confusion shows me pictures of his friend group, the girl he decided to be exclusive with, in one week (apparently no confusion there, huh), and then instantly “friend zones” me. When someone says they want to hear more about the political projects I’m doing, I’m simply a mere ATM machine for LinkedIn connections.

The whole vibe seemed like he wanted to humiliate someone on purpose. I never felt my self-worth drop like that before.

You don’t need to drive more than an hour away just to friendzone someone.

I told him he was ultra confusing, but I wish I said more.

Do me a favor:

Be ultra-clear about what you want from these apps.

I would rather not use them, but they’re not bad when it comes to accessibility.

I’ve learned that timing is everything, and you should never mix professional things with personal stuff.

You have to thoroughly check who they are — people are unpredictable online.

Yes, it’s okay to make good friends off of them as well, but genuine connection matters more.