"I use dating apps and decide I would be happier coming of age in the 1990s, or China"

In a unsurprising turn of events, my boyfriend and myself have broken up. In a surprising turn of events, it is the least dramatic thing involving two raging homosexuals ever to have occurred, which I am very, very grateful for.

I suppose the fact remains that whilst we are deeply incompatible in a fairly important sphere, there's no need to do anything as drastic as unfriend each other on Playstation Network, or stop watching Youtube videos whilst pissed over 15,000 calories worth of takeout pizza. Thus the Boyfriend is now the Platonic Man Friend, or perhaps the Housemate. Plus ça change, etc.

And so we arrive at the current position, where I studiously avoid certain danger zones on iTunes (Coldplay, Tegan and Sara, Adele) and have emerged blinking into the world of Dating Apps.

We didn't have all this malarky when last I was single for any period of time (sometime when News of the World was still in operation and dinosaurs roamed the earth). Back then it was mostly a matter of meeting someone on an LGBT social and worrying the next morning about being barred from the toilets in Little Johns.

The Platonic Man Friend has very much taken to dating apps. He seems to have developed the knack of going from 'pics ;) ?' to 'I can be there in 45 minutes' in the time it takes to level up on Fallout 4 and eat a pack of chocolate rich tea biscuits. I am happy for him (I.e seethingly jealous) and pleased that he is embracing his new identity (I.e seethingly fucking jealous). I think to myself, I would quite like a piece of this getting people to want me action. I can do it too, can't I? I should. I should try. It'll help. 

So I downloaded:

Whisper, anonymous confession app - mostly home to catfishing 15 year olds, dogging fetishists and very lonely single men from Stockport. 

Tinder, mostly heterosexual dating app, famously terrible. 

FindHrr - Grindr, but for lezzers. 

Her - again, for lezzers, but where you actually have a profile and several photos and stuff .

Results so far have been.....mixed.

Let's put it this way. They see your face before they start talking to you. I would much rather they saw a picture of Daria with her head in her hands and listened to some awkward non-chat up lines first. It also means that (damn, damn) they get to decide to not talk to you because you have a ratty blue mohawk and eyes like pissholes in the snow currently but you don't want to lie to them and put up an older picture and see the horror dawn slowly on their face as they see you approaching and then pretend to need to be in Superdrug for the next 50 minutes with their phone switched off.

And there was the unfortunate self-esteem sapping incident of sending a picture on request and it ending the conversation....5 times in a row. Now, I checked and it wasn't accidentally a picture of Myra Hindley. I was smiling. In a relatively non-creepy way. I have charitably decided this is because I am an acquired taste.

So this is the first problem.

The second problem is that I have no idea how to do small talk, which you seem to have to do before you are allowed to say anything like 'do you fancy having sex' or 'we appear to have nothing in common, can we have a one night stand please instead of talking about how much you love psytrance/incest fantasies/making your own clothes'.

Thirdly – I actually don't like talking to strangers. Or anyone. I text back with a 5 hour time delay, if at all. In any given social situation I would probably rather be watching Jane Eyre, or lesbian anime, or porn, or Diners Drive in and Dives in my boxers with a can of Carlsberg, covered in rats. So, all things concluded, the dating app experience does not appear to be My Thing.

I have discussed this briefly with friends. The consensus appears to be that I am 'alternative' and this is putting people off.

Various solutions have been advanced – I have had a kind offer from the LGBT Network Bosslady of dressing me up as a 'proper' lesbian in blue jeans, a white t-shirt and swoopy hair (and, I'll be honest, I'm considering it). Beelzebub (aka She Who Must Not Be Named, she of the horoscopes and indestructible cheerful life tips) has suggested roller derby – also something I'm giving some thought - chock full of lesbians and alternative types - although with the risk of making a cunt of myself on skates when I manage to trip over my own feet a lot, without wheels attached (this advice, however, coming from someone who has a nuclear-fusion level smile and could probably get laid at a Westboro Baptist Church convention. This does not make it bad advice, I recognise).

And you know what, yeah, maybe I'll try that stuff. Lose some weight, get some more tattoos, try a few different looks, go out, do stuff, submerge myself in a world of alternative gay creatures zooming around on wheels and whooping, try smiling a bit more. Go to the gym. Go to social groups. Save some money. Plan a career. Move to shared housing. Listen to fun music. Go abroad. Cook. Find out who I am. Get some confidence back. I've been thinking about it, and thinking, yes, that is what I need to do, I will be happier, and then someone will want me.

And then, I thought, is this, the whole dating app thing, the trying to make myself someone someone else will want, the best use of my time? Do I need to do this? Or is it just because I'm jealous and really I just want to feel attractive? Like someone wants me? Am I just doing it because I feel I should be able to? Do I even want to be with someone right now or am I just scared of being alone? Do I need to change myself for someone else? Should I try to be making myself happy for somebody else?

So no. I'm not going to do that stuff to get laid. Or find a relationship. 

I'm gonna do it because I've decided I would actually quite like to be happy. Just for me. 

I might write that again. I would like to be happy. I want to be happy. Me. Happy. Myself. 

I-want-to-make-myself-happy. I am gonna be happy and fuck everyone who doesn't want me to be. Now is the time. Right now. I've not really given it a shot yet. I'm 26 and I've never really stopped to think, hey, I want to try just making myself happy. And thinking of all the exciting things I can do made something click in my brain. I don't have to do it to distract myself, because I'm in pain, because I want to find someone. Those don't have to be my goals. It could just be my goal to be happy. Just because I want to be. And perhaps I will find someone I can be happy with and make happy and grow alongside. But if it's going to happen it will happen. I can't live my life based on that. Sure, I have little hopes and dreams. But my priority right now has to be me.  

And it has to be now. On the wave of another shitty existential crisis, on staying home from work, drinking too much, wanting someone to want me, desperately, and that making me unhappy. Because it is.In a wandering about in a daze, while my soul tries to escape in spectacular gory chest-burster style, causing icy lances of oh-God-what-the-fuck-make-it-stop kind of way. No more of that. It's highly inconvenient, aside from anything else. No. This is the time. I've got to start. I want to. 

Will I still be jealous? Yeah, probably. Will I still probably be sloshing about for the next few months full of Feelings and half-regrets and worries, wanting to be wanted? Well, I'm not going for a personality transplant here, so yes. Will I still have moments of weakness where I basically just really want a shag? Please see answer to above question. 

But I'd just like to wake up and think, I'm happy today. Just because of me. Not because of anyone else. And know who I am. 

So, in summary, fuck Tinder.

It's going to be ok.