I've said it once, and I'll say it again: online dating sucks. It's time-consuming, it's disappointing, and often leaves me even more disenchanted with men as a whole. I've used countless dating apps off and on for years now. OkCupid, Plenty of Fish, Bumble, Tinder, and Coffee Meets Bagel have all been downloaded on my phone at some point in time. Sometimes it gets so bad I swear off online dating for awhile, but all it takes is one lonely night and a couple glasses of wine, and I find myself swiping yet again.

So when my friends started saying that my standards were too high and that I just needed to go out there and date someone, at first I thought they were right. Could the problem with my lack of success in online dating be how I do it? If you look hard enough through an online dating profile, you are bound to find a reason not to date that person. Maybe they hate dogs (which, to be honest, is a deal breaker for me) or think pizza is gross (possibly also a deal breaker). Maybe they think men should be the breadwinners of the home (definitely a deal breaker) or that women should be the caretakers of children. On some of these sites with pages of questions, I can almost always find something that makes me go NOPE NOPE NOPE.So maybe my friends were right, maybe it's not the guys on these sites, but my unreachable standards for these men.

Then I realized, that it actually isn't an issue with me (well at least not completely). The majority of guys on these sites are pretty much awful. They can't hold a conversation, they don't want to spend any time getting to know you, and they blatantly ignore signs of incompatibility. I list being vegan on my profile and I've had a man whose profile picture was him with a deer he shot, message me. For a while I actually put as the first sentence in my profile "Don't start talking to me by saying 'hi beautiful' or something similar" and nary a man was dissuaded. Yes, I know I'm making sweeping generalizations, but unfortunately, this is the overwhelming truth.

Still, I'll grab my glass of wine and answer compatibility questions, discover matches, and swipe through pictures. I know there has to be someone out there who can at least feign interest in me long enough that I actually want to meet them. Right? Maybe? Hopefully? I've just realized that I'm busy, I'm in school, I work, and if a guy doesn't really interest me, I'm not going to waste time grabbing tacos with him. It's my unfortunate reality. In a different world, I could give everyone who doesn't completely repulse me a chance, but my time is precious.

So when I stop talking to a guy because he's boring, sure I might tell him it's due to my busy schedule, but in all actuality, it's really him. I'd make time for the right person, and he's just not that guy. Maybe I'm missing out on a great love, but that's a chance I'll take. For now, guess I'll have to buy my own tacos.