As Seen On Dating Apps #4

HELP - I'm addicted to going for the joke

Author’s note: This dating series was written over the course of the past year (2024). True to my procrastinating nature, I’m just publishing it now. Links to parts 1, 2, and 3 are here.

I’m choosing not to heavily edit the posts and instead let them live as a ‘time capsule’ of sorts. I’ll include occasional commentary in italics from present-Rick, who’s much more experienced in the modern dating-verse than at the start. Now, we can re-watch my evolution together. It’s all a journey or something…

Summer Teenage Nights

I'm on the edge of my cheap computer chair. Blue light from the monitor silhouettes my form. It is well after midnight. The year is 2004 and I am 14 years old. Behind me, Aqua Teen Hunger Force from Adult Swim is blaring in the background. I loved the show but had no attention for it now. The most important thing in my life is the ICQ messaging interface before me.

Will Molly message me again? Did she go to bed?

As teenagers in a rural Pennsylvania town, this is how my friends and I spent our summer nights. We coordinated using ICQ and then would call each other, setting up complicated connections with 3, 4 or more landlines. We'd get phone numbers during the day and call girls at night. Unfortunately, some you couldn't call - their parents would get pissed the phone was ringing late at night. Imagine. The nerve.

Molly was one of these girls. We were already friends and had been hanging out casually for weeks. I was crushing on her harder than a monster truck over a grape. Did she like me back? At 14, it was impossible to tell.

*Uh oh*¹ A message!

The message contained a link to the song Take Me Out by Franz Ferdinand. Luckily, cracking this case didn't require me to be a Navajo Codebreaker. Later, she told me that for weeks I'd been missing her elephant-sized hints. Add it to the list of reasons I'd be useless on an African safari.

It's a trope that many men are clueless to the advances of women. As a teenager, I fit squarely in that crowd. I've gotten smarter with age but I'm still not perfect. Reading the room in person is one thing. Reading it over text on dating apps is like trying to decipher Easter Island's Rongorongo scripts.

Going For The Joke

Humor is always listed as one of the top traits women look for. Naturally I do my best to keep things light and comedic. It starts with my profile and extends into conversation. Here, I playfully insinuate that Elise is safe to date because she doesn't listen to true crime podcasts and thus is lacking the proper knowledge to murder me:

😂 <---This is a good sign

Things seem to be going well! It's time to double down. Heighten the joke. Take a chance. She mentioned her mother DOES listen to them. It's a small step to imagine her mother brutally killing me instead. In my hubris, I can't just go for one joke, instead writing two. If a little humor is good, more will be better, right?

Elise does not take this well. Actually, I don't know how she took it because she never responded at all. Maybe it was a step too far, given that I sent it on Mother's Day. Maybe text is too easily misinterpreted without tone. What if she was being serious about her mother while I was joking? Perhaps I'M the one who misread the situation and instead I struck a chord by bringing up the family baggage that her mother actually IS a serial killer.

Whatever the case, the end result is the same. On to the next person. I'm always working to improve my skills, so I came up with an ingenious solution. Voice memos! Surely once someone hears my intonation, it will be clear I'm joking. A foolproof plan that could never fail.

Rick Tries One Voice Memo

Maddi and I had some good rapport going. She was not afraid of typing. I would receive MASSIVE texts over the app. Naturally, in order to hit each of her points, I had to respond with equally large ones. Between the two of us, after only a few exchanges we had the making of a solid novella.

At the time, my mother was visiting from out of town. I told her I'd have more time to do a call/date after that. She said that'd be fine. Meantime, I had a more pressing problem: my frail fingers were tired. Typing a book on an iPhone is exhausting.

So I decided to try the voice message function. I poured a modest helping of my typical Rick charm into it, playing it like a fun bit. That's what I do in real life, so it only makes sense to get the other person acclimated quickly. Her response:

Imagine my voice booming out through rows of packed, silent cubicles like the mating call of a lion. Exactly like that. Just replaced with the vocal cords of a 34 year old white guy committing HARD to the bit. Both of which, I'm told, get ALL the ladies revved up.

Except Maddi. I informed her that I did indeed speak like that somewhat often. I had a feeling she was not properly prepared for it. I was correct. A few messages later, she unmatched. Sigh. Another girl afraid of big commitment. What's a comedian to do?

Better In Person

Lest the world think I'm clueless, I CAN read the dating leaves in person. As proof, I present my first date with a girl named Alice. We had gotten drinks and food and were doing a few laps around Lake Eola in downtown Orlando. As we walked, she strategically drew us to a quiet spot where we could be alone to look at the beautiful lit-up fountain at the lake's center.

I could tell Alice was having fun. Unfortunately, I wasn't feeling her vibes. Some of the conversation from earlier had soured me on her. Externally, I carried on the conversation. Internally, I was racking my mind for a graceful exit strategy. That's when I noticed her leaning toward me expectantly.

She wanted me to go for the kiss. It could not have been more obvious. This is a rough recreation:

I do yoga, which is how I'm able to contort my body like that.

I knew this was a terrible idea. I didn't want to kiss her and then let her down after the date. I didn't want to let her down right then because it just seemed unnecessarily cruel. Plus, it's not like she had verbalized she wanted a kiss. I was just reading my context clues. So I resorted back to my number one strategy:

Make more dumb jokes.

A tried and true plan. Luckily the park provided ample material. I simply made quips about the fountain we were staring at. Above, my humor had cockblocked me on accident. This time, it saved me. We were able to wrap up the date in short order. A disappointing end to a real life encounter that seemed so promising over text. In the world of modern dating, that's just how it goes.

Of course, even I'm not always on point in person. In the next edition of As Seen On Dating Apps we'll go over my most hated first date activity: the dreaded coffee date.

---

Discussion

1. Do you have a funny encounter related to a communication breakdown? Please share! Can be dating or non-dating related.

1. For those familiar, this is the old chime when receiving an ICQ message, not me getting a gut reaction of fear (even though I’m sure I was)