How to Date in the Modern Age… Pain.

The beginning of your dating journey starts with an essential initial phase: experiencing the
overwhelming, all-consuming loneliness of twenty-two years without companionship.

Stay with me here. Seeing that’s taken care of… install the best platform ever: Hinge!

Oh, the agony. What pictures do you pick? How should you answer these prompts? Too many
options… WHO ARE YOU?

Cue existential meltdown.

Upload your profile! Wow, such triumph. Now, we wait.

Hours of indecision, spending your time looking at all these people’s accounts, so many cute
individuals nearby. Send some likes. I wonder if they think you are attractive. Are you hideous?
Are your teeth brightly white? Will they believe you’re slim enough?

Spiral.

You’ve got your first match! Would you look at that—this guy says you are hot stuff. He is a
handsome fellow—Oh. Interested in short-term fling: “I only want a casual hookup, no strings
attached.” Sigh. Moving on.

Scroll endlessly, dissecting and critiquing each persona. Repetition of the song and dance so
many are familiar with. Idle chatter with no genuine reward, knowing strictly facts of
insignificance. Eyes devouring your appearance like a slab of meat—nothing more than a body to
be seen, an outlet for someone to release their pent-up urges. Is that all I am to you? The object
of your desire—prey for you to pounce upon.

Disappointment.

Give up. What is the point of putting yourself on an application to seek out a significant other
when all they crave is pleasure, nothing more. Uninstall with a groan of despondency before
locking your phone in a deep, dark, far-off location. Stop and stare blankly at the wall while cold
isolation engulfs your heart.

Try again: a reluctant reinstallation. Get a load of that—you have some matches waiting!
This lad seems polite. Converse for a week or so, he seems interested—momentum. He suggests
a date.

We have conquered!

Wardrobe crisis! Deciding which ensemble will truly showcase yourself… impressions are
paramount. Do you wear a dress that hugs your silhouette? Denim? A fitted blouse? So many
options; perhaps trousers and a long sleeve.

Ready to venture forth!

Anxiety causes the route to vanish, now standing in front of the pizza shop on the corner. Calm
down—you’ve got a suitor expecting you. Step into the eatery as the clamor blends together.
Glances lock—there’s the fella.

The patrons surrounding fade as you stumble toward the booth in slow motion, the sweat glands
in your palms igniting swiftly. Now, seated across from this newcomer awkwardly. Sentences
topple unevenly between you two, steadying as you grow acquainted—a breath released that you
didn’t know you’d held.

Chuckles and beverages are exchanged, catching that gaze of his drifting every now and
then. What could he be seeking? It dawns on you when his playful touch begins to
wander… Now you see. The shy bashful peek he started with darkened… ravenous like a wolf
drooling over a doe in a meadow—Oh. The guise of friendliness melts away, the gentle
atmosphere a figment of the past now as he poses the request:

“Do you want to come back to my place?”

Deer in headlights, frozen, looking for an exit—must flee. A roommate emergency. The
feline torched the residence! Flimsily grasping at excuses, you stammer, “I must feed my cat, I
forgot.”

You bolt from the tiny store front. Face tangled by rage—revulsion—lonesomeness.
Perched in the driver’s seat of your vehicle, finger hovering the hellish software you wish to
rebuke.

Delete—repeat.

Notes from the editor: This humorous poem brings to life the realities of dating in 2025 and encapsulates the struggles of college students finding love in a digital space. Paige Hendryx, a senior English major from Cleveland, Ohio, wrote this for an assignment for her Elements of Style class, taught by Principal Lectuerer Christopher Burnside.