Four years after I said I’d given it up, I fell off the wagon again, somehow hoping it had changed. It’s just gotten worse.

Unpopular opinion: Internet dating isn’t about romance anymore. It’s not even about commerce anymore. It’s some kind of real-world Bachelorette/Survivor spin-off for people with just enough brainpower to know they’re dying inside, but not enough Raspberry Truly on hand to kill the pain. You think to yourself, there must be something out there other than swiping on pictures with three-word profiles and a bunch of tags they chose from a severely limited list of hobbies and interests. You know, because if they let us put down our actual hobbies and interests, we’d never match with anyone in a three-state radius. Nope, your options are “concerts,” “travel,” “sports,” “coffee,” “movies,” and “hiking.” Pick up to five.

You enter the arena armed with a five-year-old profile picture, from back when you still had hope in your eyes. The mysterious algorithm spits out a “match:” A picture of a woman with some kind of vaguely manga-influenced filter on it, and an accompanying bio that says “Just a simple girl who loves travel and sports” which, in practice, means she wants a guy who is built like a professional athelete and who makes enough money to take her to Europe next month. You send a message. She responds with the enthusiasm of a half-deflated parade balloon (probably because of that horrible profile pick you chose). You agree to meet because you’re lonely, she wants a free dinner, and optimism is a disease that science hasn’t invented a vaccine for yet.

Here’s how you’re going to survive without gnawing a leg off to escape.

Rule #1: Lower Your Mental Altitude
You can’t show up as yourself. Yourself has opinions. Yourself has read books that aren’t ever going to be made into an HBO miniseries. Yourself knows who Camus is, and you are about as emotionally invested in this interaction as Mersault talking to a Jehova’s Witness who just popped by for tea.
None of that is welcome here.
You must descend into the oxygen-starved atmosphere where small talk is king and critical thinking is a war crime. Every sentence must be short enough to embroider on a throw pillow and sell on Etsy.

Rule #2: Treat Every Sentence Like a Fragile House of Cards
She says, “I just have such an energy for life, you know?”
You could say, “Define ‘energy’ in this context. Kinetic? Potential? Thermal? Radiant?” or perhaps discuss quantum entanglement’s potential violations of the law of conservation of energy … but no. That would be like pulling the bottom card from the stack. Instead, nod like a medic reassuring a cyclist bleeding out on the sidewalk after being struck by a bus and mutter, “Totally. Energy is… so important.”

Rule #3: Survive the “Fun Facts” Barrage
Fun Fact #1: She’s super into astrology but “doesn’t like labels.”
Fun Fact #2: She believes drinking “alkaline water” makes her immune to viruses.
Fun Fact #3: She’s been “manifesting a good man” but the universe “keeps sending projects.”
This is where you develop your Go-To Survival Phrases:

  • “Wow, I never thought about it like that.”
  • “That’s crazy.”
  • “Totally, vibes are everything.”

Rule #3: Survive the “Fun Facts” Barrage

Fun Fact #1: She’s super into astrology but “doesn’t like labels.”

Fun Fact #2: She believes drinking “alkaline water” makes her immune to viruses.

Fun Fact #3: She’s been “manifesting a good man” but the universe “keeps sending projects.”

This is where you develop your Go-To Survival Phrases:

  • “Wow, I never thought about it like that.”
  • “That’s crazy.”
  • “Absolutely, chemistry is everything.”

Rule #4: Embrace Psychic Numbing

There will be moments when you feel physical pain. Some ideas will make you actually hear that “needle sliding over vinyl” sound effect. “I don’t believe in depression,” she’ll say, like she’s personally abolished it by sheer willpower. “History is just people’s opinions,” she’ll declare, as if Napoleon was just a guy we made up for fun. In these instances, do not engage. Don’t argue. Just let your mind drift to a safe place, perhaps picturing yourself drowning in a vat of bourbon while the ghost of Anthony Bourdain nods approvingly.

Rule #5: The Escape

Every bad date has an end, either the check comes or you fake a text saying your daughter’s goldfish got loose and is terrorizing the neighbors. At this point, you smile, hug, and promise to “do this again sometime,” which is the mating call of people who never intend to speak again. You walk out into the night air, gulping it like a drowning man, brain sputtering back to life, wondering how you’ve reached the point in your life where the only thing you have in common with your date is a shared ability to use the Uber app.

Final Note:
You will go home. You will swear you’re done. You will delete the app.

And two weeks later, at 2 a.m., you will reinstall it. Because hope is a parasite. And you are its perfect host.