Philly dating disasters: This is what women deal with…

Tinder, dating, dating apps,

I never felt at home in Central Pennsylvania, and according to my brother, I wasn’t home much anyway.

Being equal driving distance to either Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, I was smack dab in the middle of “Pennsyltucky” in Podunk County. Part of moving to Philly was to spread my wings and fly, expand my brand and hopefully find a love nest along the way.

Being a dreamer like my father, the OG entrepreneur, and having a brain under these blond locks, I didn’t want a redneck man. I wanted someone with more education and class but who could throw down in the mountains if necessary. (You can take the girl out of the country…)

And like everyone else in the dating world who works almost non-stop, I went online.

Swiping for Mr. Right

Once considered a stigma, nowadays it’s almost a necessity. When you meet people in real life, you don’t have the list of their likes, dislikes, what they do for a living, political affiliations (a total dealbreaker), shirtless photos (douchebag territory) and group photos where it’s like playing Where’s Waldo to pick the correct person.

First I tried MySpace and would hack around the system to block it at The Times Herald, getting yelled at repeatedly for doing so but finding the fun of hacking and messaging too tempting to resist. That was a dating disaster as that guy turned out to be bipolar and schizophrenic. Facebook soon dominated, but I tried to keep it a safe haven –friends and family space. The one time I broke my own rule, I ended up with a passive aggressive guy who was sulking when I went to visit my family for the holidays after one date. Rule reinstated.

The one time I tried Chemistry it told me I had no matches. Talk about a way to boost your online dating self-esteem! I joined eHarmony, certain that there was someone better suited as it was the serious dating site for marriage and monogamy. As a serial monogamist, I love being in love and had always found my boyfriends (some who did propose but just didn’t feel right) the old fashioned way — through friends, at a bar/club, etc. So I joined eHarmony for a guy only to have him block me from no contact as soon as I subscribed and paid that ridiculous fee because I took too long to respond.

Determined not to pay to find love, I joined OKCupid also known as OKStupid. This was the site for me back in 2010, full of artistic types who were misfits, dreamers and do-gooders like me. I met a man who made a wonderful friend but we would fight about having children all the time, it was like a loud broken record and eventually was a deal breaker. Now the website is just full of… how do you say… losers? Pretty much it’s a place to find a partner with no job. But hey if you wanna be a sugar momma or sugar daddy, more power to you! But FYI there’s always those sex dolls that are becoming very life-like and it’s pretty much the same thing for less money. Or you can join GoFish, the website hook-up jawn.

The height factor

Like a bad zombie movie, I went back to dating in real life — even going beyond my self-imposed dating limits (no one shorter than me and at almost 5’8 my limit is 5’10 because of heels). A horrible man with Napoleon complex ended up calling me a bitch during dinner because he was trying to mansplain how to take photos. I said when you have a successful blog, you can tell me how to take photographs. But that little jerk did teach me something.

He showed me the Mecca of dating apps out there and the stereotypes attached: Bumble for iPhone (I’m a Samsung gal for photo quality purposes) but hear it’s female friendly from many people who enjoy it; Tinder, the hookup app spawned from the gay hookup app Grindr, and Coffee Meets Bagel, also a female-friendly app where if you choose each other, then you talk — no one million messages to ignore.

On CMB, I met a surgeon who later showed me an X-ray of a person with a light bulb up their butt. Also, he who was not his listed height which made him a liar from the get go (ladies, the equivalent is the selfie above the head to make you look smaller). Next! Date two, a cute nurse literally swept me off my feet dancing salsa and bachata on our second date.

It’s been about 9 months since, and he got a job in Arizona. Perhaps it’s time to be bi-coastal Cass soon, just like I’ve always wanted. Will my story end happily ever after? Follow along on www.cassiehepler.com.