A Reflection On A Year Of Bagels
After eleven straight months on Coffee Meets Bagel, I’m happy to announce that I’ve just deactivated my account because I met a Bagel who puts every other Bagels to shame. This was a big step for me, because after almost a year of fishing in what felt like every ocean in the goddamn world, I made the conscious decision to make the journey back to dry land and hang up my fishing rod. For the time being, at least.
I’d like to have this post serve as a reflection on my last (almost) year on CMB. Eleven months on CMB means that I have said yes or no to at least 330 eligible men in Los Angeles. Some days were more carb-heavy than others, but I think 330 is a fair estimate. To put that number into perspective, I compared it to my social media stats. I’m honestly not even sure I have 330 Facebook friends. I barely have more than 330 Instagram posts. I definitely do not follow more than 330 people on Twitter. Coffee Meets Bagel has arguably been the only app I have actively used every single day for the last year. Yikes.
For any of you who do know me, you’ll know that I need a first & last name in all phone entries. If I don’t have access to your last name, your last name in my phone is bound to be where or how I met you. Rightly so, each Bagel I’ve ever exchanged numbers with has the last name of “Bagel” in my address book. In writing this post, I searched my address book with “Bagel” and came up with a grand total of 53 entries. Some had the same name (there were a lot of Johnny Bagels and Jason Bagels), but trust me – each entry, like a snowflake, was unique. Could I tell you what conversation I had with each Bagel? Absolutely not. Will some be forever seared into my memory? Hell yes. 53 Bagel entries means that I connected and exchanged numbers with 16% of the bagels I ever received. Can someone tell me if that’s a good or bad batting average?
Out of the 53 Bagels in my phone, I have gone on 22 bagel dates. Say it with me – oy. I don’t need to tell anyone out there how easy it is to go from having a harmless chat one day to never talking to that person ever again. Life gets in the way – people are working, they have other priorities – honestly, why would anyone prioritize getting to know someone they happened to meet online when there are so many other things to do? I truly believe that for each conversation to result in a date, both parties either have to be really into the other person (rarely the case) or they have to be bored enough to agree to a date. In my last year of dating, I can truthfully say that I have never moved anything around to accommodate a first bagel date, and I’ve actually cancelled a lot of them because I got tied up at work and couldn’t commit to a raincheck. That being said, however, I believe I will never know if I like someone until I actually go out and meet him. But, that also means that I averaged 2 dates with strangers per month.
Now here’s where things start to dwindle down. After going out on 22 bagel dates, I have only seen 4 bagels more than once. I’ve written entries about all of these bagels (except the latest one), so I won’t go into details, but they all dwindled away because there was no real connection and I could never justify making time to see them. And that’s the thing that I’ve always struggled with: finding someone that I genuinely wanted to prioritize in my life. When you’re balancing friends, family, and a demanding full-time job, you really have to like the person to fit him into your schedule. So, I’m considering it a freaking miracle that I met someone I actually enjoy scheduling into my life.
Needless to say, I think my last year of CMB has taught me that maybe the guys do have it right – maybe online dating really is a numbers game. I had to go through over three hundred bagels to find one that I liked enough to give a relationship a real shot. After countless of bagels, many awkward run-ins around town, awkward conversations, and even more awkward dates, it’s good to know that there is some light at the end of the tunnel. Even if it did take eleven months.
About Coffee Meets Bagel (CMB): CMB is a dating app designed with women in mind. Founded by 3 sisters in 2012 in NYC, CMB aims to deliver a fun, safe, and quality dating experience that results in meaningful relationships.
