A couple of years ago, for the briefest of moments, I decided to try online dating. Now, I have zero judgment about the medium itself – it is a tool of the times, the internet, and it was only a matter of time before it would become a safe space to meet people. (Wait, did I just call the internet safe?)

I’m on the oldish end of things – fresher than a Boomer but with enough years behind me to remember all things analog. So if I defied the viability of finding love digitally? Not only would I be ignorant, but I’d do a fair ’nuff job of showing my age. So, I went ahead and tried my hand using the dating aparatus of a generation: my phone.

I setup a profile on Bumble – an app I felt good about in the supposed control I had over who I allowed to contact me. It was created, owned and operated by a woman who had spent a good amount of time on dating apps, and understood enough to know what she would do differently. And so she did, and just killed it, quickly becoming the second most utiziled love peddler out there.

Setting up a profile didn’t come naturally to me – AT. ALL. What was I to say? I have two kids, a cat and a turtle? I bartend for a living and hangout at the same bar for fun? I like to write – when it’s done, anyway, and otherwise I have zero hobbies outside of drinking and smoking weed incessantly?

In my lack of interesting things to say about myself, I became inwardly concerned, although it was a great talking (er, laughing) point with my regulars as they assisted in whittling down who I was. What made me interesting? What did I like or dislike? Was this to be what my obituary would sound like – empty, blank, filled with okay-ish tidbits but no real meat?

I felt like I had little to highlight for an audience, save what I could show in pictures, meticulously staged and posed – not a representation of who I actually was at all. I mean, I can’t seem to not have a wide open mouth in every freaking picture I take, trying to get a big bite out of the ghost penis hanging around. So, to stand still and hold a smile in an actual pose? Yeah, not me. I felt like I was on the block in some dingy medieval marketplace, showcasing my baby-rearing hips, and turning to flaunt my hind-quarters, for all the would-be buyers.

But I did it, got the whole shebang all setup and flying, and moved along. Still, my discomfort in…well, everything about it, kept me from interacting with those posed faces who shot me a hello, and I pulled the plug after only three or four days, feeling totally overwhelmed. It did, however, create a strong momentum of doing, if only for my own sake of staking some big ol’ claim in the world before I up and pop off.

So, I guess in a way I have Bumble to thank for the alliterate relationship that is a Cat, a Kate, a Cooper. While I find myself in a bit of a conundrum far as Miss Wilma the Coop goes, we’ma got this. I have no clue how quite yet, but I’m hanging onto Henslowe’s words: It’ll all be alright. Don’t know how; It’s a mystery.