I’m hustling down a long gritty stretch of Western Blvd. in Koreatown after dusk on a weeknight. I pass by the most intriguing landmarks of my neighborhood, all the colorful Korean signs, tiny Mexican churches with lively services perennially running, and shoddy businesses that look for all the world like drug fronts without a passing glance. All of my energy and attention is needed right now to help me make sense of the horrifying situation in which I’ve knowingly and willingly placed myself: a first date with a potential Bumble suitor named Colin*.

I only just matched and started messaging with Colin earlier today. In fact, we’d only gotten through two or three lines of your average everyday mind-numbingly generic conversation before he dropped a bombshell question: “So you wanna, like, meet for a drink or something tn?” I shocked even my desperate Phase Three self by automatically replying, “Fuck it, I’m down.” A popular dive bar was chosen based on careful triangulation of our respective home bases; and the rest is history.

I can’t tell you why exactly I agreed to go out with a complete and utter stranger so quickly. Many modern dating gurus such as the inimitable Aziz Ansari tout the virtues of going from online to real world interaction as quickly as possible to avoid ramping up unrealistic expectations which inevitably lead to disappointment. Psh, I don’t know about all that. I can firmly say that I have zero expectations for this date. None whatsoever. I’m just trying to put myself out there and meet new, interesting people. That’s all!

I still have a few blocks to go. Might as well peruse Colin’s profile one more time, y’know, just so I get a better mental picture of whom to look for once I arrive at Frank N Hanks. Opening Bumble up for the twentieth time today, I appreciate how Colin’s own unique condensation of an entire personality into a dating app sales pitch is actually fairly unassuming compared to the general population. There is nary a shirtless mirror gym selfie nor pic with hotter friends to be found. Thus none of the cardinal sins of hetero male online dating photo curation have been broken in my book. Ah, so he’s humble and not deceitful!, my brain instinctively blurts out. In one picture he stands atop some sort of peak. Ah, so he sticks to his goals and sees things through to the end! In another he’s baking a loaf of homemade bread, and somehow managing to not look like an obnoxious douche in the process: a rare feat. Ah, so he’s rustic and doesn’t subscribe to strict societal gender norms. He’s a male feminist who’s good with his hands! Throughout all these photos he appears tall and lanky with glasses and a well-groomed beard. He’s healthy! He’s an intellectual! He practices good hygiene! He probably has a good relationship with his mother!  

Fuck, maybe I’m developing insanely unrealistic expectations after all. I started out this walk confident and cavalier; but I’m growing more and more nervous and invested with each successive step. My palms begin to sweat as all the blood and warmth flow out of them and into my war drum beating heart. Breathing deep and closing my eyes briefly, I imagine myself as a young woman in the 1950s making her way to a blind date with some charming chap her girlfriend from school set her up with, and can’t help but grin at the romanticism of it all. Sure, she’s taking a terrifying leap; but there are infinite possibilities ahead of her. Her suitor could be short, tall, thick, thin, mysterious, handsome, cocky, shy, hilarious, boring,…hell, he could even be the crown Prince of a wealthy island nation, for all she knows. The not knowing is both frightening and invigorating. She could conjecture wildly about what’s ahead of her. Yet she remains fundamentally open to this new experience.

There is still a world of possibilities for first dates today. But that sense of excitement and boundless possibility is diminished, replaced instead by a portrait you’ve painted of this person in your head: a portrait that’s either about to be bolstered by a real living breathing human being or else come crashing down in flames all around you. More often than not it’s the latter. However, that doesn’t stop you from throwing yourself into this strange and horrifying world again and again out of some need to prove to yourself that you’re a fully functioning member of society after all.

Less than a block away now. Of course I’m running ten minutes late. Is that a shitty move? Does he think I’m shitty now?? I check my phone again like an addict getting a necessary and not at all enjoyable fix. No texts from Colin. What if he’s running even later than I am? What if I have to sit there and furtively look around the bar like a desperate crazy person while I wait for him? What if he stands me up, and I just end up sitting there so long that I get trapped in a negative thought k-hole of my own creation while everyone in the bar looks on pityingly, thinking to themselves, “What a sad, sad, deeply pathetic person”? What if there’s a whole other universe where I derive happiness from within, and it’s still spelled Berenstein Bears? What if none of these frantic questions is accomplishing anything other than to further freak me out???

Breathe in, breathe out. All I seem able to do is repeat my decidedly non-PC pre-first date mantra: Please don’t be stupid. Please don’t be ugly. Please don’t be shorter than me. (This isn’t my proudest moment.)

I finally reach the entrance to the bar when an intriguing concept dawns on me. If I never open this door, then there’s a possibility that the guy waiting for me inside will, like a romantosexual Schrodinger’s cat, forever exist as both a soulmate and an ingrate in my mind. Yet if I open the door and don’t like what I find, I’ll ultimately be the one responsible for the symbolic death of my evening.

“Julianne, Julianne, Julianne: you Negative Nancy, you Defeatist Daphne, you Pessimistic Penelope, you! You’re really overthinking this,” the chill, rational part of my brain mercifully butts in. “Only good can come of this! Either you’ll hit it off with this guy and it’ll lead to future awesome dates, or it’ll be a complete and utter disaster and you’ll have a fun, crazy story to write about later.” This new optimistic outlook re-energizes me. I’m officially ready to tear it up. I’m about to destroy this date!

I take one last rejuvenating deep breath, close my eyes, and forcefully push open the door like a boss bitch. I begin scanning for the tall, lanky, rustic male feminist of my imagination. “Julianne?”, I hear in my periphery. I turn expectantly and my confident smile fades as a mustachioed “gentleman” with a bleach blond nascent man bun rises from his stool at the bar, no perceptible change in height from seated. “Sup sup sup!” he greets me with a crossed-arm double peace sign and an exaggerated duck face.

Well ok then, I guess we’re going the story route.

To be continued…

*Names have been changed not to protect identities, but rather because it’s a cool journalistic trope I’ve always wanted to exploit.