Ask Elisa Podcast

PODCAST EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to another Dating Storytime episode of Ask Elisa. I’m here with Kelly, boy Kelly. Hello.

And Kelly has a story to tell. Okay, long one first. Long one first, okay.

Okay, so this is the story of the very first time that I matched with someone on a dating app. Way back in, oh, this was probably 2010, maybe, 2011, I want to say. Yeah, it had to be, it’s been a minute.

And it was on eHarmony. That’s our first, this is our first eHarmony mention on the podcast. Is it? Oh my gosh, yeah, no, it’s not that common anymore, is it? But it was, I don’t remember her name anymore, and I probably wouldn’t want to say it anyways, but so I met, matched with this woman who lived down.

Do you want to give her a name? Let’s call her Amanda. How about, does that work? All right. That actually could be her name.

Anyways, Amanda and I met just strictly through the app because she lived down in Portland area. And because of that, we were just chatting for a long time. And we didn’t immediately make plans to meet, but we started after about a week, kind of started like flirting with the idea of, hey, maybe we should meet.

And it seemed really great at first. She was really enthusiastic. She was really interested.

She asked a lot of questions. She was really responsive to my questions. Are you talking about in the chatting? Yes, just in the chatting phase, which it never got past, actually.

But this is the story of why it never got past that stage. Because we did start kind of, like I said, talking about meeting in person, and I was going to go down to Portland and we would just have a day and hang out. But then the conversations started to get a little different.

She started talking about things that I needed to do to show up for her and things that she would like to see more from me, almost like we were already in a committed relationship. And this started to build up over a pretty quick period. This was probably the second week of our chatting.

Then she started sexting me a little bit. Can you go back to this? Yes. What kinds of things was she asking of you? I don’t know.

I think there was one day where I was just kind of busy and I wasn’t responding as quickly. She was asking if I could respond a little faster. I was like, sure, that’s fine.

But then, and it has been a long time, I can’t give specific specifics, but she was talking about needing me to be supportive of, I really wish I could remember this better. Something I said must have come across as dismissive maybe. I don’t recall.

But she gave me this weird lecture about being more supportive of her, which was weird because it felt to me like the kind of conversation that a committed couple would have, not a couple of people who had just met on an app and had never met in person before. That was kind of the first time that I was like, oh, this is maybe a little weird. I don’t know what’s going on.

But it just started getting worse from there. I used the word cool beans one time in a conversation. It’s two words.

It is two words, yes. And she didn’t like that and told me so. What did she say? Again, it’s nothing bad.

It was just like she was telling me something weird and I was like, okay, cool beans. And she’s like, oh, no, no, you can’t say that. That’s dismissive and that’s not how I want you to address things when I’m telling you stuff.

I was like, oh, okay. And so I started doubting myself. I was like, I don’t know, am I doing this all wrong? Am I being terrible? But no, the more we interacted, it just felt weirder and weirder.

And like I said, yeah, we did sext a little bit, which was, you know, I wasn’t the one that initiated it. And it was fine, first time doing that. And I was like, hey, cool, you know, I’m not seeing anybody right now.

This is fine. We’re adults. But then afterwards she was kind of like talking like, again, saying more intimate things than I would expect from someone that was just chatting with me online.

This podcast is 18 and over, so mark explicit so you can say if you want. I would be more explicit if I could remember, unfortunately. I know it’s so long ago.

It was 15 years probably or close to it. Then we started to make proper plans to meet in person and this escalated. And she got really mad at me one day and I was kind of feeling like maybe I don’t want to come down actually.

How did she express anger over this chatting? And you were texting? It was all texting, yeah. I think there were some phone calls in there too actually now that I think about it. Yeah, so we talked on the phone.

She was a lecturer. She would lecture me about things and she got really mad one day, again, about me just not being like the right kind of supportive. And I was like, listen, we’ve just met each other and I’m starting to feel really uncomfortable with this and I think maybe we shouldn’t meet.

And she had like a meltdown. She was screaming at me on the phone and then through texting, just really angry texts at me. And then she kind of wore me down.

I remember this was a Saturday. She kind of wore me down. She’s like, how can you know that you don’t want to be with me if we haven’t even met yet? And I was being unconfident and just really not having a lot of dating history.

I was like, okay, well, sure. Good point. Yeah, good point.

Okay, we can still meet next weekend. And then the next day she said just one more thing that just kind of like flipped a switch in my brain. I was like, no, we’re not doing this.

And again, I said, listen, this is not working for me and I don’t think we should continue forward. And then she really had a meltdown. She called me and we talked on the phone for almost two hours, which was crazy because it was kind of like this really cyclical conversation where she would say something and I would respond and then she would kind of move around all these points and then come right back to the same thing that I had already responded to five minutes ago.

And I finally said, listen, this conversation is not going anywhere. I’ve stated what I want and I’d like this to stop now. So I’m going to hang up and I wish you well.

And so I hung up, but then she kept texting me for like another hour and a half. And she’s like, you better delete all those sex messages I sent you. And I was like, you know what? I already did.

Don’t worry about it. You should stop. I’m going to block you now.

Did she send pictures? She never did. No, no. Well, who cares? Yeah, I know.

And then not only did I unmatch her, but I deleted the entire profile on eHarmony. I was just like, I can’t do this. This is insane.

This is madness. And I didn’t get back on the apps for at least another year or two. So yeah, my first experience was just really bizarre.

Just this person that really, really desperately was, she seemed really desperate to be in a relationship. I have a couple of questions. Sure.

Were you feeling like responsible for making her feel better? I’m just wondering what your feelings were when you were, like you said, not very confident in your dating. You’re kind of like second guessing yourself and not really. And so you were complying sort of and just keeping things going.

Were you feeling a sense of responsibility for her feelings? Absolutely, yeah. I’m a very empathetic person and I don’t like people being upset with me. I’m kind of one of those people that’s just like, I don’t know, everybody doesn’t have to like me, but they do have to like me kind of people.

And so I was definitely working very hard to not upset her and to kind of tiptoe around whatever it was she was sending my way and just not having experience. And I was feeling bad because I was like clearly upsetting her with things that I had said, but I didn’t. And in retrospect, I was like, oh, I wasn’t really doing anything wrong at all.

This was just a person that was really, really needing a lot more, a lot more quickly than I could provide. Yeah, it sounds like she had a lot of healing to do. Maybe a lot of wounds that she was trying to maybe fill with a relationship or with connection and that maybe she had a lot of work to do.

Yeah. I hope she’s doing better now. I hope so too because I don’t bear her any ill will.

I just, I was, I was, it was just a bizarre situation and I was caught up back because I’m a more slow burn kind of guy. You know, I prefer to take things slowly. And she was really pushing for quick stuff.

She’d already told her friends about me. She’s already, you know, like it was, it was, it made me really uncomfortable and I was, I didn’t know how to address it. I feel like that happens to a lot of people when they’re with somebody who, when they’re with somebody who’s giving feedback about, you know, what they need, what they want.

And, and I think that as humans who, who care about others, that we tend to hold other, we tend to hold other people’s feelings over our own, over our own comfort. And that is a part of codependency patterns. Yeah.

Like codependency is when you, when you take on other people’s feelings kind of as your own. Yeah. And I, I, I was trying really hard to, to, because I wasn’t sure, you know, what is, what is the timeline for all these things? Because I don’t, I wasn’t, I wasn’t sure, you know, should I be feeling the same way as her at this point? And I, and I wasn’t, and I was like, I don’t, I don’t think I am.

And I think this is, yeah. Well, good for you for not going through meeting her. Yeah.

Yeah. Can you tell me, Jake, how bad, how much purring is being picked up on the microphone? A lot. I want everyone to hear Tucci’s purr.

He’s got a really good purr. Good purr. Okay.

I think he’s done. I think this needs a little, a little snugs. There you go.

Okay. As I mentioned on our episode together, my friend Sam, who married my, my good buddy, she set me up with a coworker of hers. And we lived, she lived up in, up towards Seattle.

So we were about an hour apart. So we decided we were going to meet somewhere in the middle. And I got there and I waited and I waited and about an hour passed, I want to say, and she had not shown up.

And I was like, what am I still doing here? And as I was walking out the door, she showed up and like literally as a, as the door was opening, she was walking in and I was like, oh, hi. She’s like, hello. And so we sat, I was like, okay, well, she’s here.

Let’s sit down and chat. And her excuse for not being so late was extremely lame. She’s like, oh, I didn’t, I didn’t think you’d be here on time.

Blah, blah, blah. And then we were chatting and I don’t remember a lot of what the conversation was, but the thing that, that, that. If I wasn’t already done with this potential relationship, the thing that really got me, she was from the Philippines and I mentioned that I had a dog and she was like, oh, she, she liked her face.

She got this little scowl on her face when I mentioned that I had a dog. And I was like, oh, you don’t like dogs. She’s like, no, I think they’re gross.

I was like, oh, oh, that’s too bad. And she’s like, yeah, no, we had a, we had a dog farm where I was growing up and we didn’t, I just think they’re gross animals and I don’t like them. I was like, and I didn’t understand yet what that meant.

And she’s like, yeah, no, we had a dog meat farm back in, in her hometown in the Philippines. Her parents actually ran one. Oh, this is not going to work out.

And you know, that’s, that’s, I, I, I’m, I was feeling really uncomfortable just because like, I didn’t want to be culturally insensitive, but I was like, oh, that’s, that’s messed up. I don’t, I can’t handle that. That being with someone that is going to dislike dogs and see them as food as opposed to like, yeah, I just like, I was like, I know we’re not going to, and she, she clearly knew it wasn’t happening either.

We just weren’t jiving and we didn’t even hug on the way out. We just kind of, it’s like, all right, nice, nice to meet you. See you later.

We didn’t exchange numbers or anything. It was just no. An hour late.

I know. I know. And excuse being like, I didn’t think you’d be here on time.

Oh man. Yeah. I don’t know.

I don’t mind if somebody is running late and they send a text saying like, I’m about 10 minutes behind schedule. Sorry. Yeah.

That kind of thing. And I, I remember back in like 2016 being on a dating update and meeting somebody and he was running late and. And he was like, I’m sorry.

And told me, and I was like, I got there kind of early. So it was in the summertime and I was, it was near where some outdoor music was being played. So I just went and listened to the outs.

I was out there listening and it was, you know, maybe like five minutes until, and then I got a text saying, oh, I’m going to be late. I’m sorry. I was like, no worries.

I’m just at the park next door listening to the live music. So it’s all good. And then when he said he was parking, I went to the restaurant and got a spot.

And then when he came inside, He was so grateful that I wasn’t mad about him being late. He said that he’d gone on a date where he was like 10 minutes late and he’s like, I’m always 10 minutes late. Pretty much always.

It’s just, you know, I’m not very punctual. Yeah. And he’s like, I just really appreciate it.

Cause I was on, he said he’d gone on dates where the women were just like visibly mad the entire date because he was late, like just like crossing their arms and just like harrumphing and just like, and I’m like, at that point, why don’t they just leave? You know, like why, if you’re going to be that mad at your date and like punish them the whole time and not try to just make the best of it, just like the guy should leave. Like somebody should just leave. Yeah.

I actually try to be like not right on time. Cause I want the guy to be at the restaurant or wherever first. And so I try to be like two to five minutes late just so that I’m not the first one, you know, walking in and like being awkwardly sitting at the restaurant.

I like to be able to be like, there you are. Hi, I’m here. I, the one time where somebody was like 15 minutes late, then 20 minutes late, then they ended up standing me up.

Oh yeah. But I don’t think I’ve ever had anybody be more than like 10 minutes late. Yeah.

And people have asked me why, why did you wait a full hour? And I was like, well, I ordered some food. I was like, I bet I got, I got 20 minutes in. I was like, you know what? I’m hungry.

I’m far from home. I’m yeah. I ordered a little bit of food and I just sat there and I was like, if she shows up then yeah.

But then I finished the food and I was leaving when she walked in. So yeah. You actually told me this one before.

Did I? Cause I remember the dog farm thing. Yeah. So for my dating story time, I’m not going to actually, I’m not going to tell you a full story.

I’m actually going to read you some profiles. I’m so excited. Profiles that I’ve screenshotted over the years.

So this is all the same profile. Okay. And I mentioned, I think it’s one that I had mentioned in our episode together.

First of all, the first, it’s a Bumble. Bumble. And so Bumble starts with my bio.

And this bio is time does not wait for anyone. You can get more money, but you cannot get time wasted. So know what you want and don’t waste my time.

I love the philosophers. That’s their bio. So he’s six three.

He’s got an undergraduate degree, rarely drinks, not a smoker. He’s open to kids and he’s Christian. He’s looking for a long-term relationship, a life partner.

All right. So the prompt is one thing you, one thing you need to know about me. You got to find out.

And then it has the emoji of the heart face or the smiley face with the three hearts around it. Yeah. Yeah.

So, and the one thing about Bumble that I like is people can put their causes like that they’re interested in. And I think that can help you tell their, their values and his causes are reproductive rights, human rights and volunteering. Okay.

Yeah. Those are good. And then the next prompt is.

Oh, no, I forgot about this. So I haven’t looked at these in a while. The next prompt is I go crazy for.

Okay. It’s hard to say this without laughing. Females only not males.

I love a female, but just not any females. I go crazy. Sounds like it was written by AI.

What is that? It’s somebody who’s probably really worried about like finding a trans woman attractive. Yeah. Heaven forbid.

Yeah. Oh my gosh. So that, that’s all I have from that person’s bio.

He, yeah, he told, he told us literally only as much as we needed to say to him. Yeah. Yeah.

Which is helpful actually. I like it. And I hate to say, but I feel like sometimes they choose the causes to like target women to make it seem more likable to women.

So I think when they put reproductive rights, sometimes they’re like, it’s very on purpose. They say that, but the human rights, they mean like fetus rights. Yeah.

And they’re like, and they use words. They say females instead of women. That’s always a little yuck.

Okay. Here’s another one where the bio is. My bio is don’t waste my time, please.

That’s their bio. They’re five 10 and open to kids. Don’t have kids.

They’re spiritual and moderate. Okay. See moderate for me.

I think you said this in another episode, right? It’s just, it’s a flag. It’s, it’s a, it’s a hard pass because it’s, it’s, it’s people that aren’t owning that. They’re just really conservative.

And yeah. And I feel like I, what I’ve noticed, I don’t know if this is the same thing for like women, but I feel like men often see being moderate. As like a virtue, like being able to be, to not to be like being in between and not like, yeah.

Being able to say like, Oh, you know, I’m moderate. It’s like virtuous. It’s like, there’s, it’s practical.

I’m it’s smart. It’s like, it’s a, it’s automatically like, yeah. Like, I feel like people, they, and, and that they think that that will appeal to women as well.

Well, this one is a screenshot of somebody trying to match with me. And their message to me is hello there. Lovely Elisa.

And then there’s a, I heart emoji, a heart on fire emoji. And then a rose emoji. That was their first message to me.

And right below, you could see their hello message to me is the prompt, my greatest strength. And then it says my level of virility. That’s not something you see on women’s profiles.

Oh my God. All men need therapy. You know what? I’m going to say here, if you’re a man and you’re listening to this and you’re not in therapy, fucking go do it now.

Good Lord. And women. And women too.

Get therapy. For the love of God. Because of men.

Yes. Because of men. And women.

And then this one I actually showed, showed you before, but I got, this person liked my photo and tried to match with me. And their first, their first image is a meme of like a sad looking stick figure holding a cup of coffee. And it says, this is Dick.

Dick is sad. Dick is sad because he hasn’t seen any butts or boobs. Don’t let Dick be sad.

Post to chick deer up. Dick up here. Dick up.

Dyslexic. Dick is sad because he hasn’t seen any boobs, butts or boobs. Poor Dick.

Don’t let it be sad. That’s just, that’s, that’s bold. And just, I, I remember when I had my dating profiles, there were a couple of times where I thought I was being really cute and clever.

And then I looked at it again a month later and I was like, Oh no, I’m, I’m, I’m cringing at this. I need to change this right now. And never to this extreme.

Yeah. But like just, just silly things that I would say. And then I’m like, Oh no, that comes across as bizarre or, or, or, or I don’t know.

And, and, but I always wonder when I see stuff like that is like, does this guy just not have a clue? Does he actually think he’s being cute and, and I don’t know, approachable with, with that kind of a thing? I don’t know. I’m going to read you one more full Bumble, Bumble profile. Okay.

The first prompt is what I’d really like to find is I’m going to try to act this out in terms of the punctuation they’re using. Okay. In life, be honest who you’re attracted to.

Opposites attract. I’m looking for my queen. You dig? Those are all exclamation points.

That’s what I was trying to pull off there. Not here to bullshit you. I’m a hundred percent and high vibrating.

A hundred percent. High vibrating. Yeah.

High vibrating. Yeah. Their causes and communities, environmentalism, voter rights, human rights.

And one of the prompts is my humble brag is, are you ready to hear what this guy’s humble brag is? I’m so ready. STD free. Never been a cheater.

And I have really big feet. Winky face. But if you ain’t into a loyal man with big feet, then swipe left.

Suck a peace sign. Looking for my forever. A hundred percent.

The big feet. Okay. That’s destroys me.

Humble brag. No STDs. Cool.

You wrapped it up. Good for you. Good job.

Good job for the bare minimum. What world do you live in where it’s a brag to not have STDs? I never had an STD. I hope that that’s the norm.

For most people. Yeah. And people that do get them.

It’s not that big of a deal. No. It’s not.

Most of them are very easily treatable. Yeah. And the ones that aren’t have management, there’s ways to manage them.

So yeah, that’s ridiculous. I mean, we were definitely raised to like fear STDs. Yes.

We were socialized to think they are the scariest thing ever. So there’s one more. I mean, HIV was really scary when we were young.

Yeah. Even that nowadays is, yeah. So the last part of this profile is, I’m hope the prompt is I’m hoping you, I’m hoping you understand not into just sex and I don’t give money out.

Crying, laughing emoji. Save that for little DK men. Thumbs up.

Looking for my wifey. My best friend can relocate. If it’s right, energy 100%.

There’s not punctuation. So I don’t really know. It’s really hard to decipher what’s going on there.

Anyway. Yeah. He’s sending us off to the little feet.

The men with the little feet. Yeah. If you want money, go to the men with little feet.

How generous of him. All right. Yeah.

I feel like women having that kind of, it’s terrifying, I’m sure, but also just hilarious seeing so much of the garbage that’s out there. And those easy swipes seem so much. Yeah.

I really wish I started screenshotting earlier on in my dating endeavors because I have limited resources. So at this point, since I’m off the apps, I am not seeing them. So I am would love for listeners to please, if you are using the dating apps or if you have saved screenshots from past use of dating apps, please send them to me to read on the show.

Do you think that it would be beneficial to share like good dating profiles, but nobody want nobody like there are a lot of good solid dating profiles out there. If you, I mean, yeah, if there was, if you, if, if you were to find one that’s just like solid, like this is a really good example of what dating app dating profile should be, then that could be helpful. Cause I, I always remembered, I struggled like, like, okay, what should I say for this? What, what, what is something that, I don’t know if, if maybe if people have one that just like this one really clicked for me because it had these points and it was saying this, but didn’t need to get into that.

You know, that could be really interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I just feel like people want to hear the cringe. People want to hear the ick and I don’t blame them.

It’s entertaining. I’m trying, I think there, there was a guy that I matched with because he had, he seemed really sweet and had a really nice solid profile and he was a great guy. I dated him for a little while.

And I remember seeing that he had updated his profile and the way he, he changed it. I was, I thought was so like was almost like, like I think dating profiles should not be like written like a, a pitch. They shouldn’t be written like a, like you’re trying to get a job.

And the way that he had changed it sounded like, like one of the things that he put in, it was like, I get joy from, from serving others because he was a very service minded person and liked to really loved like helping people. But the way he wrote like, and like, I’m, I’m a this, this and that who get, who feels joy when serving others. Like it just seemed very much like he was applying for a job.

And so sometimes there’s, there’s ones where you’re like, Oh, he’s trying. And he, I know he’s a good person and I, I’m sure I know he’d make a great boyfriend for the right person too. And this just like, it totally like gave me, it gave me the ick reading that.

And I’m like, I wonder if I saw that before. Like if that was his profile, when I swiped right on him, if I would have been like, and not swiped because it was just so, it just seemed so cheesy. And, and what you want to see is like, you want to get somebody’s personality and you don’t, you don’t want it to sound like they’re pitching themselves to you.

Right. Like, I feel like some people say, you know, you’re, that’s what it is. It’s a pitch.

But if it sounds like you’re trying to sell yourself, it’s almost like, I don’t know. I, it’s, it’s inauthentic. Yeah.

Yeah. Just relax guy. Yeah.

Yeah. So thanks for sharing your stories. Yeah.

I, I hope that I get more dating profiles sent in, uh, screenshots of dating profiles so I can continue to share, share this with the world. I don’t, I mean, I know I can like go on Reddit or go and find them all around, but I would really rather have them submitted by people that, and not like have to take them from other places, you know? Sure. Yeah.

Get some unique ones. Yeah. It’s always interesting to see what the experiences from, from people that are engaging with the content too.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks so much for sharing your story.

Of course. Great being here. This was fun.

Yeah. Maybe if you think of other, other things to share or something about dating that you want to, that you think might be good to talk about on the show, let me know and we’ll have you back. Okay.

Sure. Thank you for listening to Ask Elisa the good, the bad, and the ick. I’m your host, Elisa Sparkman.

This episode was produced by me and a guy I met on a dating app, audio engineering, editing, and music by Jacob Patterson.