Love in The Time of Coronavirus: Part 1
Bumbling Across Bumble
We first met on the Bow Bridge in Central Park on the first Sunday afternoon of June, 2021. (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. For now.) It was rather warm, overcast. I approached the bridge from the southern side. And spotted a tall, barrel-chested man with a wild mane of silver hair leaning on one arm over the stone railing, rather macho-ly, looking north. I thought, “Oh. I can work with this.” I took a breath, steeled myself behind a smiled, and continued my approach.
He looked up from the water, saw me. He had that tousled, devil-may-care, easy elegance you only see in European men. He didn’t smile, but his expression changed. It softened, warmed. Something around the eyebrows –
Summer, 2021. The world still on edge, still masking and disinfecting and vaxxing and distancing, still in the throes of one or another wave of Covid-19 and its progeny. Over 15 months avoiding one another, fearful of cooties and infection and death. Which made introductions and hellos and meetings, chance or otherwise, especially awkward (if not downright impossible). I don’t remember if we greeted each other with a wave, an elbow or fist bump, or a hug. I do remember I wanted to hug, to give three or four bises a la francaise. Like in the Before Times. There was something very attractive about this burly Nordsman.
We walked. Around the lake, by the Bethesda Fountain, past the Boathouse. Up to the Great Lawn, across to the Delacorte Castle, through the Gill and the Ramble. And we talked. About his writing, his classes. About my travels, my hard-to-explain work projects. Still no smile. Until, at some point about 25 minutes in, he laughed. At a comment I made about the English being insufferable. We talked and talked and talked and talked some more. Until it started to drizzle. And Thomas (pronounced, “toe-Mahs”) asked if I’d like to have a drink; he’d made us a reservation at Tavern on the Green, just in case –
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
First, allow me to tell you of the Wonderful World of Dating in the City of New York in the Time of Coronavirus. Or rather, not dating.
Let me preface that dating in New York City in any age, at any age, has its challenges. (From experience, I can attest that most of what we saw in the HBO series Sex and The City was not fiction.) Over a certain age, those challenges expand exponentially and morph into a scary, dismal, nightmare scenario. At my current age, the age of going to bars, concerts, theatre, classes, MeetUp groups, the office, restaurants, even dinners or parties or events, which inherently bring with them the possibility and promise of a chance encounter with someone sublime, has long passed. Most of your friends have already married, moved to the suburbs or, worse still, to the Upper East Side, and have had or are still having, kids. Some are divorced and are marrying all over again, having managed to find a 2nd spouse in the suburbs. And a lot of those married friends prefer to spend time with the new married friends they met at their kids’ school events. Not the “old” ones from their youth who remind them of who they once were, who they now try so hard to no longer be -
Hard to believe that in a city of 8.5 million – 23 million if you include the tri-state areas – it’s so incredibly difficult to find authentic prospects for a real romantic partnership. But as a serial dater in these parts for the past several decades, I can attest that it indeed frequently feels like a frustrating, exhausting exercise in futility. My decades-old theory on why this is: New York is not a place for the relationship-oriented. Too many distractions. Too many reasons to leave the house. Why settle on one when there’s plenty of fabulous fish in the sea. (Which, if you’ve ever visited the eponymous dating website, is more of a kettle of stinky heads, tails and scales.)
Throngs have always migrated to New York for one or several of the following reasons:
--They want to Live the Life. Do the scene, see and be seen. Go to the hottest neighborhoods and restaurants and clubs and bars, hang out with models and celebrities, drink and do designer drugs, dance until sunrise, and drink some more.
--They want to Make Their Mark: Read: create a name for themselves, develop their brand, sell lots of stuff, make mucho dinero, build an empire, conquer the world. After all, if you can make it here –
--They want to Let Their Freedom Flag Fly: because where they come from, they can’t be who, in their heart of hearts, they know they are. So they come here to live openly. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free …” Give us your gay, your different, free-spirited, your creative, your freaky, geeky, gorgeous, unique outcasts. New York welcomes all with open arms.
Finding a meaningful relationship? A life partner? Fall truly, madly, deeply? Generally not the priority.
And then along comes the Internet …
At some point at the fin de siècle/debut du millennium, people around the world of any and every age began using cyber technology to fill the physical, emotional, social, sexual, intellectual and other voids in their life. Cyber space first provided an open, infinite forum to exchange ideas, info, photos, messages. For real-feeling virtual connections. Before it became more of a open marketplace to purchase just about whatever your heart was desiring, from books (and now just about any and every thing), to sex and porn, to all measure of illegal black market contraband, to users' and companies' hackable personal and other data. At some point one of the earlier internet geniuses saw that the technology would provide an ideal platform for like-minded singletons any and everywhere to find each other. An ideal vehicle to cut through the randomness of chance encounters at work and bars and parties and the supermarket, of set-ups by well-meaning friends, of personal ads in magazines and newspapers, and more easily access people who shared your interests, religion, location, kinkiness, etc. New Yorkers may have been a bit late to this party, as we were busy actually partying. It wasn’t just that we age out of the New York scenes, which we all do (or should. Make no mistake: New York is a city for the young and gorgeous and fabulous and/or freakish, or the older and very rich. Most other demographic groups are superfluous, persona non grata.) The world of dating for people of every age was quickly migrating into the cyberspace, and we had to as well or be left home alone on a Saturday night.
I resisted. I believed in love. Be it love at first sight, from a chance encounter on the subway or at a party or on vacation, or from a friend’s introduction. Not from a soulless algorithmic matching by an electronic yenta. Then I folded. At some point in the late 90’s or early aughts, sick of not meeting anyone per the aforementioned, sick of another dinner of Chinese take-out alone in my apartment, I dove into the virtual abyss. I joined an on-line dating site. After that failed, another. And then another. Even Tinder, for about 15 minutes –
So many sites. Each promising their own slice of whatever suits your fancy – love, sex, kink, companionship, a meeting of the mind and heart and soul – with whomever floats your boat – Christian, Muslim, silver, Jewish, group, atheists, sub/dom, same-sex, animal-lover, single-parent, athletic-minded, relationship-oriented, vegans, furbies (!!!), hook-ups only. Yes, over the years I tried a few. Each sort of started out full of hope and promise only to quickly reveal its limitations and false promise. I think Match.com provided my first foray into the dark forest of on-line dating. After the initial excitement of a seemingly infinite pool of “suitable” possibilities – so many single, available, eager, handsome, age-appropriate, geographically-reachable men! - it soon became painfully apparent that most of the posts and profiles were exaggerated, disingenuous or outright lies. Notably the loose interpretations of the meaning of “single”. The bottomless pit of prospects on Match turned out to be a murky morass of shady shyte. Mostly.
Of course, I’d heard of soooo many friends of friends who had met the love of their life on-line. So despite disappointment after disappointment (have you ever been inexplicably ghosted by someone who seems perfect, with whom you seem to have a real initial connection?!?), humiliation after humiliation (have you ever been ghosted by someone to whom you responded out of pity, out of the kindness of your heart, even though you weren’t the least bit interested in the first place?!?), I persisted. Through the years I checked out, albeit sometimes very briefly, several (dozen?) sites vetted by friends, both free* and fee-based: LavaLife (remember that one, the intrepid pioneers?), eHarmony (after answering page after page of questionnaire upon questionnaire, you never actually meet anyone), OKCupid (a complete, embarrassing waste of time), to mention but a few. I even checked out JDate despite not being Jewish or particularly jonesing for a Jewish man, Coffee Meets Bagel (whatever the hell that means), and Tinder before I understood its primary purpose. (By the time Hinge appeared I was done done done.) All on recommendations from people, who heard that this site or that was great, better than the others, had lots of profiles of perfect prospects -
Which brings us to the end of 2018. I return home from a month-long photo shoot, suddenly single after the sudden and disappointing break-up of a two and a half-year relationship that started on line*, determined to get back on the horse. Bumble will be my last foray into Internet dating. Bumble was selling itself as a safer, woman-centric site where she gets to decide if she’s interested and would like to initiate contact. Kind of like they do in France. Where the guy gives the girl his phone number, and the girl has the option to call. Or not.
As ever, I dutifully filled out my profile, carefully crafting it for sassy and sophisticated yet sincere. Searched for photos that showed me in the best but realistic light, especially challenging for the no longer young and not particularly photogenic. Even in this primarily visual, cut-through-the-clutter-by-any-means-necessary medium, I strove for honesty, integrity, depth.
I was alone is this endeavor. On this site and its brother by another mother Coffee Meets Bagel, I encountered an astounding percentage of imposters, posers, fakers, fraudsters, felons**. Sure, the other sites had their share of liars, losers, jokers, and players, but this was a whole new level of false and fake. These were criminals, individuals posting multiple profiles with names and descriptions and photos appealing to different sets of marks. For some reason, per their profiles, a surprising number of men in my demographic were from Germany (again, more on this later) or Hungary or the Czech Republic, and worked in engineering, energy or international trade. At first, I excused a few typos, bad grammar here and there, attributing it to ESL. After some exchanges via the site, these would invariably request that we text via WhatsApp or WhatsApp Business. Never via an actual cell service. When I asked more about from where in they hail (“Oh, really?!? I was just there! Where in Berlin do you live?”), they would hedge and fumble and fudge. On a few occasions, when we actually spoke via WhatsApp, their accents sounded far more Caribbean or African or Ft. Washingtonian than Eastern European. Several claimed to be leaving “soon” to work for months on a rig somewhere in the North Atlantic or the Gulf or Alaska or Sakhalin, Siberia.
So after about the fifth encounter of this kind, I decided to follow one, “Jeremy”, down the rabbit hole to see where it would lead. His profile and photos drew me in – he was tall, handsome, fit, age appropriate, lived in Hell’s Kitchen, had an interesting job importing medical supplies primarily from China. Check, check and check. But his accent was a bit off; he sounded rather young for his posted age (50s), and – forgive me – a little street. He claimed he was leaving soon to organize a shipment of supplies arriving in Los Angeles and would be away over the holidays. And after about three short phone conversations, he was falling madly in love -
I know, I know.
As much as I would have liked an on-line fairy tale romance to take root and take flight, the cynical yeah-right-been-there-seen-it-all New Yorker in me knew better than to believe the exhortations of this seemingly-sweet but inelegant-sounding cybersuitor. The writer in me propelled my curiosity and I decided to play along at least for a little while. I had to discover just wtf was going on on these sites.
So play along I did, and before long “Jeremy” was gushing proclamations of unbridled attraction, declarations of love, promises of forever after. Uh-huh. I kept reading his texts, listening to his passionate messages. He was too busy to meet, despite living just blocks south of me …. Oddly, once or twice his photo changed; he morphed into a blond woman, then back to himself, then into yet another blond woman, supposedly his sister. He told me details of his business, about shipments arriving from China into the Port of Los Angeles. His need to fly there, then to Southampton, UK, to deal with another shipment. Both being held at dock due to unexpected port charges, taxes, whatever. That needed to be paid immediately. But his money was currently tied up in other projects. And how he hated to have to ask me to help in his time of need. But he simply had no choice. So could I please send money, just $5,000, he’ll provide all the banking transfer and other information –
Not quite the Tinder Swindler, but definitely a charlatan, a predator, an imposter, a thief. I declined.
For a time, the calls and texts and VMs keep coming. I continued politely declining, assuring him he’d find a way, asking him to get in touch when he returns to New York. He never became threatening or nasty; he was just, he claimed, “very disappointed” that I didn’t trust him, didn’t trust our love.
Then – poof! - he ghosted. Completely disappeared. Until I got one last message from him, addressed to a “Cindy” or some such, which contained bank tracing and other account info where she should send the $16,000 dollars.
My bumbling Bumble Casanova con artist was having trouble keeping his marks organized.
And with that I swore to myself, God and wo/man, that I would never, ever, ever again use a dating site. Ever.
We would soon ring in 2020. I'm not getting any younger. I'm losing my mother. Eras are ending, doors feel like they're slamming shut, one after another. "Guess I'm just meant to remain single. Guess I'll get a dog. Or a cat. Or a dog and a cat. Or -"
Then, a revelation. I'd change the paradigm. Instead of suffering in spinsterhood, I decided to take advantage of my single status, embrace it, revel in it, enjoy it. I'd be the forever free-spirit, the cool aunt, the interesting neighbor, the fascinating friend living la dolce vita. I'd travel and work cool jobs and do what I want, where I want, when I want, with whoever I want.
Until a mysterious virus started to spread around the world. And everything changed.
*Entretemps, on Bumble I did actually meet a real, live, available man living in the New York tristate area. We dated for nearly two and a half years. He turned out to be an imposter of a more American, generic nature.
**Nothing on-line is really free. Cyberspace was flooded with the personal info I provided these sites, and has been exploiting it for profit, for years.
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