The Luv Doc: An Honest Meatspace Connection

Dear Luv Doc,

I am sitting in my car after another disappointing Tinder date wondering if it's even worth the effort. I just sat at a table for nearly two hours looking at a pair of nostrils packed with more nose hair than I ever thought was possible and gums that clearly have never met a strand of floss. Where do these men come from? Oh wait. I know. Tinder. Is it even reasonable to meet a normal person online? I am not asking for an Adonis, just someone who can hold a decent conversation, doesn't have yesterday's spinach(?) in his teeth, and isn't wearing my father's class ring.

– And don't say Bumble either

---

The internet is a weird and wonderful place, for sure. There are adorable pictures of baby pigs wearing tiny red rubber galoshes, baby eagle cams, and videos of toddlers throwing hair to Metallica songs, but there are also bum fights, zit-popping porn, and psychopaths like that dude in Don't F**k With Cats. In other words, the internet is every bit as bizarre and disturbing and beautiful and awesome as the real world, it's just that most of us don't get the real world firehosed at us through a lightpipe at gigabit speed. The real world is huge and messy, and hard to get around – especially if you live in Austin and aren't traveling between 10-11am, 3-4pm, or anytime between 2 and 5am.

My point is that the internet is just too goddamn easy and therefore we should be deeply suspicious of it. (It might be helpful here to picture an old man standing on his porch shaking his fist at a bunch of fun-loving teenagers.) Merely the fact that pretty much anyone with the ability to one-finger type "Pornhub" can have access to a treasure trove of masturbation material the likes of which has never been available to anyone in the history of mankind until a few decades ago should be a good indication that we should proceed with a certain amount of caution. We're just gape-jawed babes at the dawn of a brand-new era. We frankly don't know how to handle all this shit even though we try to act like we do.

So ... Tinder for instance: Is anyone teaching an entry-level class on how to sort through all the bullshit profiles and find someone at least decent enough to introduce to your friends? I'm sure someone probably is, and I am equally sure that someone is exactly the type of dishonest charlatan who would post a deceptive profile on Tinder – probably featuring a shirtless bathroom mirror selfie and a heartfelt paragraph on how much he respects his mom.

I know it sounds like I am pissing on online dating, but I'm not. All I am saying is that it's a real pain in the ass trying to ferret out dateable people in meatspace. Not only do you meet just a fraction of the people you could meet online in the real world, you still have to have the same tedious conversations with them. The biggest difference (and perhaps the most comforting one) is that when you meet potential partners in the real world, you haven't necessarily advertised that you're DTF. That takes a lot of the pressure out of meeting people.

What you do get in the real world, however, is a much better visceral sense of people that an online profile just can't convey. In other words, not only can you tell whether or not they floss, you get a pretty decent idea how full their crawlspace is. You might get it wrong, but at least the mass murderer who kills you will have clean gums, so there's a feather in your blood-soaked cap.

But to answer your question: Yes, there are normal people online. I am assuming you're probably normal yourself, so it only follows that there must be at least one more of you out there buzzing around the lightpipe looking for an honest meatspace connection. So buck up and get back on that internet pony – and next time maybe get a seat at the bar so you don't have to look at that spinach?