Last night, a cartoon about kids going through puberty made me download a dating app. I’ve been single for 4 months, and have the intent of staying that way for quite a while longer or at least until I can iron out why I seem to be drawn to men who are possessed by the black goo from “Stranger Things;” but something about watching teens navigate their very first romantic encounters made me cross over from “I can’t look men in the eye” to “I’ll briefly consider our 20 year marriage together while scrolling through pictures of you squatting next to a lion and soulfully playing guitar on the edge of your unmade bed before sliding you into the discard pile.”

I am WAY pickier on dating apps than in real life, because I just can’t bear the thought of meeting up at a restaurant after days of texting back and forth, having illuminating conversations about spirituality and music and ways to SAVE HUMANITY only to find out that in real life, all this man really loves is the sound of his own voice. So I’ve developed a kindof short hand for interpreting dating profiles to save me from spending a precious evening suffering through a bad date instead of chocolate-dipping a whole box of strawberries and eating them by myself:

1. Picture of him holding up a cat by it’s armpits, face-to-face, with his mouth wide open feigning surprise (this is weirdly common): Incapable of a mature romantic relationship with a woman, who will inevitably express disappointment at some point which will send him into a shame-spiral and cause him to either withdraw or hurl blame at her rather than just apologizing, so chooses the company of his cat who loves him unconditionally, porn addiction and all; not to mention, has zero regard for feline hind leg support
2. More than 1 gym selfie: Has made up for his lack of intelligence with muscles, and will have nothing interesting to talk about at dinner
3. Not smiling in any of his pictures: RUN, this guy is just looking for a manic pixie dream girl to cheer him up for 2 months before plummeting back into the depths of his brooding self-centered existence
4. Says he is looking for a “down-to-earth” girl who just wants to enjoy the simple things in life: Looking for someone to do his laundry and listen to him talk about his boring-ass day at the office
5. Super super hot: See #2 but add “bad in bed”
6. His answers to all the questions are short and basic: YAWN not only is this guy going to have nothing to talk about, but he is going to respond to my delightful essays of texts which I’ve curated just to make him laugh with “cool.” 8 hours after I send them.
7. Playing the violin in one of his pictures: This is an immediate discard* because either he’ll be threatened by my violin BADASSNESS or he’ll want me to give him free lessons (*I’m assuming violin is a hobby; if he’s professional, there’s a 95% chance he’s crazy)
8. Under 5’7″ AND under 25: He is not grown in ANY of the ways, and will compensate by texting waaay too many kissy face emojis and patting my head while calling me “his little girl”
9. His “thing that most people don’t know about me” is “I tried stand-up comedy once”: Oh God, he’s not funny, but he’s going to try to give me “notes” on my material because he has “experience”
10. Wearing a tight-fitting suit showing off his giant muscles and tiny package with a tropical skittles toned shirt, arm-in-arm with two of his equally-outfitted business school buddies: Closeted gay

Ooh hold up. Mark, 36, is a graphic designer at a real place that issues real paychecks; he loves writing, astrophysics, cooking and other smart people things I can’t remember; he doesn’t need to show a pic of him standing in name brand workout gear in front of a gym mirror to see that he’s buff, and he doesn’t look like a serial killer. It’s a match! I get the ball rolling and send him a message:

“Hii! I love to write too! What kinds of things do you like to write?”

And I wait. If he really loves to write, he’ll have a super fascinating, thick juicy response and I won’t be able to help diving in and picking up on things that spark my curiosity and he’ll be so impressed with my intelligence and sense of humor that he’ll ask me out for a drink and we’ll say we only have time for one before we meet just to be safe but then we’ll stay at the bar until they close just sharing stories and gazing into each other’s eyes and the waiters will give us dirty looks while they sweep the floors until finally we’ll pay our bill and leave to roam around the streets of Montreal at night, taking in the warm early-Spring air and talking and trying to get the courage to go in for a kiss but we’re both enjoying each other so much that we want to WAIT for that moment because then we’ll never have our first kiss again, and in fact EVERY relationship benchmark from that point on will be last time we ever do it for the first time with someone…

He writes back, 7 hours later, with two words:

“Existential Prose“

And into the discard pile he goes.