I did the one thing that I’ve been actively avoiding for 5+ years. I finally caved in and set up an online dating profile via one of the Muslim dating apps. And I can describe my 4 day experience in one word: ANXIETY.
I was having a deep chat with a friend and I was explaining how I felt like something was missing in my life. All the other aspects of my life seem to be on track and flourishing, but I realised this wasn’t enough. I was missing a companion to share my life with. My friend talked some sense into me, and encouraged me. What’s the worst that could happen?
So that night, I couldn’t sleep a wink. I rolled around in bed till stupid o’clock in the morning when the sun was about to rise. All of a sudden I thought, screw it, and picked up my phone. I already had the app downloaded from many years ago, but it was hidden in a folder somewhere. I opened it up and went through the painful process of registering. There’s a verification step that I wasn’t anticipating, which requires you to take a selfie there and then in order to confirm you are the person in your profile picture. I was looking like a zombie and in bed, so obviously that had to wait. So once I looked semi-human again during the day, I plucked up the courage to take that selfie and submitted it. I thought that would be the worst of it, but to be honest, the ‘tell us about yourself’ section was the hardest thing to do! I must’ve written and re-written that section at least 20 times.
How are you meant to catch someone’s attention, whilst truly being yourself and expressing the real you in a bio? The more I read bios of these potential suitors, the worse I felt. The majority of them hardly put any effort into it and basically wrote the most generic stuff. Finished with ‘just ask if you have any questions’. But why would I even bother if you haven’t got me interested at all?
There’s a ‘Liked you’ and ‘Visited you’ section, and looking at that made me feel excited… as well as truly terrified at the same time! Some of these guys were proper shockers. I mean, I am no one to judge because I’m hardly a stunner anyway. But some of these guys were saying they were 34 on their profile, but looking like they were in their late 40’s. And I know they say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover i.e. based on their looks, but you really do have to find a person somewhat attractive to give them a chance in the first place. The same applies the other way round! I can understand why not all the guys that come across my profile will give it a like – I don’t expect them to fall head over heels, especially based on my profile picture. This is also why I made the brave decision not to blur out my photo – if they’re not interested in me at all, they can skip past me and I’m none the wiser so I won’t get hurt by the rejection.
I wish someone would explain to me why guys blur their photos? I can just about understand why girls would do this as there are some real pervy men on platforms like this. But am I missing something here – why are the guys blurring their photos? Some might say it’s because they want a girl to fall in love with their personality as opposed to their looks. But if you were that good looking in the first place, I don’t know if you’d have that insecurity. I might be completely wrong or out of line here, but if this is how I’m interpreting it, then surely I can’t be the only one thinking this? What happens if a guy gets talking to the girl and really hitting it off, but then they exchange photos and she says ‘sorry, I’m just not attracted to you’? Wouldn’t that be a shame and a waste of both of their time? Obviously this isn’t always going to be the case, but it’s something I wish more of the guys would consider. If you become a paid member of the app, then you can filter it to remove the profiles with blurred photos. But what if you miss out on decent people just because they didn’t consider the consequences of choosing that option?
Anyway, carrying on with my rant (if you’ve made it this far, I hope you’re enjoying it). I do not understand why people select ‘business person’ as their profession. Why is that an option? What does that even mean? If you run your own business, then you’re self-employed. Why have both? Then there’s hospitality and restaurants as an option, alongside catering. Again, they’re the same industry. Either way, I automatically dismiss those profiles. And the reason behind this is because I don’t want me and my husband to be like passing ships in the night. I work during the day, and working in hospitality requires working in the evenings and weekends. I am not about that life, so that is one of my hard no’s when it comes to criteria. Other than that, I don’t mind whatever profession they’re in. I’m just aware that I have worked long and hard to make my way up the career ladder and earn a decent salary, so I don’t know what the sentiment is these days if the wife is potentially earning more than the husband. In theory this shouldn’t be an issue in this day and age, but the truth is, as I am generally starting my search looking at Bangladeshi guys, traditionally men have had a real ego complex over things like this. I’m probably thinking too much into this, and it’s not like I’m earning millions, but it’s still something I often think about.
So here’s how it went down… I finally completed my profile. I swiped left and right a couple of times and then went to sleep because it was a bit too much for me. Next morning I wake up to all these notifications! It was a little mad, but basically the little red badge on the icon showed X number of people had ‘liked me’. I was in shock – how is this even possible? I tried to select a rather normal looking photo instead of one where I’m wearing a full face of make-up, so I was definitely not looking ‘my best’, whatever that is. So I opened the app, whilst fearing for my life, and was faced with all these ‘potential suitors’.
Here’s the thing, although it’s a nice feeling to think someone liked you enough to give you a like, I promised myself to not take it too seriously or to heart because I don’t want to get upset or excited over this. That’s when I started to feel odd… it was a different level of apprehension and it didn’t feel good. All of a sudden out of nowhere, I receive a message from a guy who’s profile I had seen the night before and given it a like. He sounded decent and fairly normal, so I didn’t think much of it. And all he had said was ‘Salam, how are you doing? x’ and I instantly had a little freakout. First of all, A BOY IS TALKING TO ME. But second, why was that ‘x’ necessary in the first message you send a girl? Again, trying not to be overly judgemental, but it threw me off a bit.
As I was having a freakout, my whole working day seemed to be a write off. I could not focus on anything, and I also couldn’t get myself to reply to his message. Should I? Shouldn’t I? What do I say? What if he asks me a difficult question? How do you talk to boys you don’t know but could potentially be your future husband? Ugh I know, I went there. All of these thoughts were going through my head for HOURS. I messaged two of my friends who were calm and asking me polite questions, when in actual fact they should’ve shouted at me for being a muppet and tell me to just message back already – it’s not that deep. A couple of hours later, I felt brave enough to click the message to reply… and he’d disappeared. Basically that means the person has either deactivated their account, or blocked you. Wow, he’d already blocked me without even talking to me. The rest of the day I was kicking myself. If I had replied in the morning, would this have been the case? Did I really mess up?
All of a sudden that night, I get a message from that guy apologising for disappearing – he said it had got hectic and he decided to deactivate his account. I was a bit surprised (how many people was he talking to?) but also a bit relieved that at least he hadn’t blocked me. And actually, this made for a good ice breaker conversation as I told him I was having my own freakout at the same time. But things got weird really quickly. Within the first couple of messages, he responded to my question about how his day was, with ‘babe’. Excuse me? Who are you calling babe? You literally don’t even know me, and we’ve exchanged 3 messages, and you’re already calling me babe. What is this? I don’t know about other girls, but I find that really uncomfortable. It set off so many warning bells for me.
He then went right in and asked me when my last relationship was (ummm never) and what my type was. Maybe I’m a bit naive so I thought he meant personality type. But no, he meant physical type. Isn’t it a bit weird to ask someone this 2 mins into a conversation via messages? Anyway, after that he cut to the chase and basically asked if I wanted to speak on the phone. At this point I think I already knew he was a weirdo and probably a serial dater, so I didn’t respond straight away. It was really late and I was getting ready for bed. I came back to his message to respond with basically thanks, but no thanks, but he had disappeared again – as in our message history was gone and his profile was missing too. So it was clear that he had most likely blocked me. Wow. Good riddance I say.
This interaction left me feeling strange – mostly uncomfortable. Every time I logged into the app and saw the new faces appear on these lists, I was full of dread and this other feeling, which I later realised was anxiety. There’s also another list on the app called ‘liked’ and that is basically a list of any profiles that you have liked. I had 4 people on there… and none of them liked me back. Ah well, such is life. It’s a tough one because I haven’t had any interactions with them, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t feel a tad disappointed. But annoyingly, you can also see the last time they were on the app, and I hated myself so checking that!
I saw someone decent had liked my profile, and after a lot of thought I decided to like them back. We got a celebratory message flash on the screen to say we’d matched, and it was a really weird feeling. Anticipation, excitement… FEAR. I closed the app quickly and went to sleep. The next morning I decided to click that ‘you’ve matched’ message, and guess what? The guy had disappeared. I’ll admit, I was a little sad at first, but then I realised I wasn’t confident enough to start a conversation anyway. What if they wanted to do a video call down the line and didn’t like what they saw? Yes, I have 101 insecurities about my external appearance, which won’t go away. So in a sense, it was for the best.
I checked the app one last time tonight before bed (why do I do this to myself?), and was just unimpressed. The app was pushing all the older people who had ‘liked me’ initially and I couldn’t handle that anxious feeling so I made a decision. I deactivated my account and logged out. The up and down feelings I felt in these 4 days was a bit too much for me to handle. I haven’t deleted my account though, and I have the intention to get back on it at some point. But right now, my heart can’t cope with this level of anxiety. Maybe I’ll post an update on here when I’m back on it… or maybe I won’t. So don’t hold your breath!
Culture Clash UK 