Party of One – Swiping Left on a Social Life

If my life was a Romantic Comedy, when my friend said to me that I needed to get out there and she was going to help me do it, there would have been a montage showing the creation of a dating profile and possibly a makeover. However, my life is not a RomCom, so none of that happened.

It all started with a conversation about this app I was playing while we were having lunch: Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp.

Apparently, my social life is severely lacking if I can devote daily time to playing this game, to the point that I subscribe to an in game service where I have a little camp caretaker watch my camp while I am at work. I consider it an investment in my entertainment. Yes, I know they are just taking my money but…whatever ?

I am easily addicted to games that are task oriented, or revolve around the attainment of supplies to craft, or build things in the game. As a single mother, it is hard for me to get into any console or PC games since I have to attend to real world things, but if the game can be played from a mobile device? It’s on like Donkey Kong.

Am I addicted to Pocket Camp? Yes. Why lie? The game is cute as hell, and clearly I have no life. But why is that so wrong?

Apparently, it was this game monthly subscription service that was the breaking point for her. My friend declared at this point that I “needed” a man in my life.

I disagree. I don’t need a man. I don’t need anyone. I could want a man, but I don’t need a man. I have never needed to have someone in my life to feel complete. After spending the majority of my adult years in a terrible marriage, I am wary of repeating the mistake. I am also trying to figure out what it actually feels like to be alone.

As a single mother, it is difficult to feel alone. When the kids were younger, I could keep busy, distracting myself with being their mom. Shuttling them to and fro between activities, engaging in their lives and schooling. Taking care of them and basically being there for them whenever they needed me.

Now that they have both graduated high school I am finally beginning to feel the sense of alone that I am sure the ex enjoyed every moment that he shirked his parental duties to do whatever the fuck he wanted knowing I’d pick up the slack. My freedom has been of a short duration, comparatively, and I am only just getting the hang of it.

I don’t want to be that woman that jumps from needing to be there for her kids to being there for a man. I gave up so much of myself to being the other half to the ex, that I have no idea what it really means to be me: Party of one.

But back to this app. She conned me into downloading an app onto my phone. Little did I know that while I was doing work answering what I thought were her random questions, she was actually taking a quiz to figure out which app I should use. (Zoosk was the answer btw) Who knew there were so many?

But I haven’t completed my profile. I got as far as the part where I needed to upload a photo of myself without other people in the photo that I hit a snag because I don’t have any pictures of myself, by myself.

If there is a photo of me, there’s one or both of my sons in the photo. I don’t have hundreds of selfies, and the one photo I had of myself from several months ago, I was in my pajamas in front of my computer and I am not even sure why I took the photo when I looked like I crawled out of bed and had been sitting in front of a computer for several days… which may have been the case.

I have considered uninstalling the application since it’s been almost two weeks and I still haven’t added the photo. And even though the curiosity is slowly eating at my psyche to see what the app is like. I’m good. Do I need to get out there, going on “dates”. No. Hard pass.

For starters, we are in the middle of a pandemic. There ain’t shit out there that I absolutely must do, and it just isn’t worth exposing myself to some killer virus for shits and giggles. I get enough excitement dealing with the idiots at work. So I am basically at square one…

Part of me is concerned that if I do complete the profile that I will be unable to back out or delete it if I change my mind and it will be out there in the ether of the internet forever… kind of like my MySpace page.

Maybe tomorrow I will delete the app. For now, I am doing my best to ignore the notifications that Zoosk has my latest “search” results, because the truth is, I am not searching for anyone, and I doubt anyone is searching for me.