Unnamed frogs part I - The Italian Hipster

The way to find love these days in this online over-connected but highly individualistic society seems to be by going into an infinite number of dates hoping that someday the frog will turn into a princess. The belief that love is out there is what keeps me going, however, the lack of success sometimes makes me doubt about the existence of love. Does love really exists or it is a myth? And if it does, how do I find it? Why some people find it and some others don't? I think that everyone fears the thought of dying alone or just going to sleep alone... and that's why we create online profiles, send messages to other singles and keep on going to dates...

Anyway, back to my stories, I have a bunch of frogs for which I don't have a name due to their distance in time and/or to the fact that I tend to forget bad, well, I won't say bad, just not so good, dates. Therefore, this post introduces the first of a number of frogs that I went on a date with in my quest to find love.... forget me if I have forgotten your name and you are reading this (very unlikely...), it was not my intention, but we both knew that we had nothing in common and did not keep in touch... so the feeling was mutual...

The Italian Hipster

A couple of years ago I was new to in a big city (far away from my beloved Brighton) and I decided that I needed to meet new people. I was very specific in my profile that I was looking mainly for friends, but leaving the door open in case the ONE would show up.... She was “new in town” too so she contacted me and we decided to go to the LGBT Film Festival and then have a few drinks in the scene.... We met, she didn't look much like her profile picture, well, her pictures were close ups of parts of her face, hands and her back and her tattoos... very artistic I have to say... but they were not very useful for me to get an idea of who she looked like… I guess I imagined differently…

I was already expecting that the reality would be significantly different than the image I constructed in my head from the pieces of herself that she carefully displayed online...

I didn't perceive much chemistry at first sight, maybe due to the mismatch between the idealistic image of her and the reality. She was a very extreme hipster. I like alternative people, I always wanted to be as cool as them and I pretended during my teens to be also "alternative", but it is too hard to keep it up... and ended up turning back into the main stream world... I buy my clothes at shopping centers and listen to music that is played on the radio, being alternative takes so much time... you need to search for clothes in small shops that non-alternative people can't see, a bit like the Diagon Alley in Harry Potter that can only be seeing by magical people, in this case by "alternative" people... and also, in order to be a real hipster, you need time to be politically committed with social causes and go to demonstrations and in some extreme versions, you might also want to restrain your diet from meat, dairy products and eggs, but keeping track of how to substitute those products by doing research... you also need to buy sustainable and local stuff which I always support, but it takes more time to go to farmer's markets than it takes to do all your shopping at Sainsbury... Don't get me wrong, I do support social causes and the fight for injustice, but I'm not very politically involved. I accept the fact that being hipster is like being gay, you either born this way or not, and the pretending is very exhausting... therefore, I embrace happily my average main stream condition...

Back to the unnamed frog Nº1: We met and went to the cinema, that part was easy, not much talking... then we decided to go for a drink at a gay bar, at this point I put my cards on the table, I told her that I was more looking for friendship and that we could enjoy the night... we entered in the bar and my date instantly fancied a girl.... I agreed to help her in her approach and used the technique of... - Hi, we are “new in town”, what is going on tonight? Where can we go after to look for some fun?... and worked, soon after she was talking to the girl and I was making small talk with her friend.... Anyway, the hipster and the girl seem to be hitting it off... my new friend asked me about how did I know the hipster.... to what I answered that we met online (I'm not ashamed of my online dating behavior). I also reciprocated the question and asked her about the girl that the Italian hipster was talking to, to what she answered that they worked together at the police station.... by the time she said that... the hipster and the girl were leaving through the door together.... I smiled and asked to my new friend: your friend does not happen to be an undercover cop or something.... ? to what my friend answered.... why are you asking...? and I said: well.... the hipster wanted to smoke some weed after the drink, but I guess that now she found the perfect company to do so... so my new friend and I laughed... the hipster probably got a nice fine and left without saying goodbye as I did not hear back from her at all... (or perhaps went home with the undercover cop.... but my new friend  told me that it was not her type.....) I finished my drink and conversation with my new friend and I went home... After that night I bumped into my police officer friend a couple of times at the scene and we ended up being friends (until she got a girlfriend and stopped going out on the scene...) ... it's funny how the universe works... I made a friend on an online date with someone else that I’ve already forgot her name….