Recently, I had a video interview unlike any I have had before. There isn't actually a person on the other end of the video, it's just a screening process, but it was intense.
In a normal video screening interview, the company or district presents you with a question and you spend some time considering your answer, writing down your thoughts, thinking about how to present yourself in the best possible light -- and then you press the "record" button when you feel prepared.
In this interview, a question flashes onto the screen along with a 30-second countdown timer. At the end of 30 seconds, the recording starts with or without you.
To make matters worse, the first in the series of questions was along the lines of, "After all the research you have undoubtedly done on this place of business, what are the aspects that you find most surprising?"
Obviously, if you have not done your research prior to the interview, you are screwed at this point, a mere 30 seconds in. The rest of the questions are then a moot point.
That got me thinking...
How many first dates have I been on where the guy says something like, "I'm temporarily living in my folks' basement so that I can film documentary horror movies, which is my passion, but I plan to move out within the next 5 years..." and I think to myself, "This is not going to go anywhere."
It's happened a lot of times, blog world.
What if online dating were set up like that interview, though? Rather than wasting 2 hours of my life in a pub trying to generate conversation with someone I know I don't ever plan to see again, I could just watch his screening video and see if he passes question number 1.
It would be like:
"What are you doing to make the world a better place for others?"
And the screen would flash this huge red timer counting down 30 seconds while the guy completely panics because he was expecting a question about whether he prefers hamburgers or hotdogs (hamburgers, duh).
And maybe their 30-second reaction is, "Once I donated canned goods to get into a Mardi Gras party?"
Or like, "How do you know you're empathic?"
And the timer would freak him out to such an extent that he blurts out the God's honest truth, which would end up revealing a lot, like:
"I have an incredibly high EQ. I know this because I took an internet pumpkin test by Buzzfeed, whereby I selected orange, green, and purple when presented with 15 colors of pumpkins, and this proved that I am 1000% empathic, wear my heart on my sleeve, and give until it hurts. Also, look at me. I'm dripping with empathy, okay? I regularly take care of my loser siblings."
That would just about tell you all you need to know, without the hassle of agreeing on a location and time, putting on lipstick, and making small talk, never mind spending months dating them trying to figure all this out!
All the online dating apps think they have made things easier by allowing you to FaceTime someone within their apps, but this is not the same at all!!! All this has done is complicate the issue.
In the minds of the Hinge and Tinder gods, FaceTime coffee dates allow you to chat and see if this is a person you'd like to take the trouble to put on lipstick and go out of the house for.
But if you are a compulsive people-pleaser, what actually happens is you get stuck talking to someone about total and complete banalities for 2 1/2 freaking hours because there is no waitress to flag down and ask for the check!
I'm telling you, if I could just do the video screening process with no actual interaction, I would save an enormous amount of time, which I could then devote to painting more refrigerators and/or propagating fiddle leaf figs. Or, you know, becoming a wine expert.
I'm kind of serious. But then I think about the inverse and the fact that my friends have been spending the last 20 years telling me to get a filter and I shudder to think of what I would do on the end of the 30-second dating interview.
It would be like:
"How do you know you're empathic?"
"Because my therapist says so, okay? GAWD!!!"
Or like, they would ask some backhanded compliment question like, "You're beautiful and have no divorces or children. Why are you single?"
The 30 seconds would start flashing and I'd start panicking and/or hyperventilating and then it would start recording just in time for me to yell something like, "I'M NEUROTIC AS F*CK!!!"
And then I would just see myself to the metaphorical door.
This leads to my next shower-musing:
Is there an inverse relationship between dating age and the starting time of booty calls? In other words, when you're 20, a "what you up to?" text at 1 a.m. is a booty call, right?
But what about when you're 30? Does it change to 11 p.m.? How about 40?
Is there an inverse relationship by which as the number of your age goes up, the starting time of a booty call regresses? And If so, what is the exact formula, because I either need to delete some of these messages or return them.
Finally, for those of you who have been watching And Just Like That, we need to address the obvious.
Carrie Bradshaw looks phenomenal -- like, she looks better at 55 than I did at 25. But can any amount of phenomenality (it's a word, okay?) really make up for the fact that she got on these dating apps after her husband died, swiped right on a guy, and literally after ONE DATE found someone decent??
I could get behind the million-dollar apartment on a freelance journalist's salary 20 years ago.
I could get behind the $500 stilettos in Manhattan, despite the fact that I found it impossible to walk in anything other than Toms the summer I lived in the city.
I could even get behind the toxic relationship that magically turned healthy with the erstwhile Mr. Big.
But meeting someone great after ONE MILLISECOND in the online dating world?!?!
IS HER LIFE MADE OF GOLD FAIRY DUST FARTED OUT BY MAGICAL UNICORNS!?!?!?
I QUIT.
