Just as I was about to delete my array of dating apps again, I matched with a guy who was everything I was looking for. He was my age, local, friendly and kind, and most importantly, looking for a long-term relationship. We quickly hit it off on the app, with me loving his conversational skills and positive personality. He was funny and sweet, and he matched my energy completely. We swapped phone numbers and Instagram handles, where we continued to talk regularly and plan our first date for the end of that week. He was a great storyteller, giving so much detail and energy about his recent road trip back to our area after living in Florida for two years. He sent me videos and pictures from the trip, as well as him with his old friends, whom he was now catching up with. These would come throughout the day, so even when he wasn’t talking, he was showing his interest in me by staying in touch. He consistently said how sweet and interesting I was, remarking on all our shared interests and hobbies. He was also constantly remarking about how much he liked me and how excited he was for us to meet on the date we set. Now, I’m no stranger to love bombing, so I took his enthusiasm with a slight hindrance, knowing things could change completely when we did spend time together in person. I was eager to go on our first date quickly, wanting to find out if we really did like each other. From experience, I knew that might not be the case, as of course, online interactions and real-life time together are very different and sometimes disorienting.

When the date came, I was nervous. There was so much on my mind. I had been on three dates this year, and they were bad, good, and okay, all in that order. But they all had the same thing in common: they weren’t leading anywhere, which I knew on the ride home right afterwards. That fact was haunting me, as that idea had my whole life. I hadn’t identified anything I did wrong on these dates, and yet the guys really didn’t seem to like me, or at least didn’t want anything from me, after our in-person encounter.

I hadn’t had any dating experience before this year, and I knew from social media that a lot of other people were having difficulties with connection too. From ghosting to not being able to even carry a conversation, it seemed all of us on the dating apps had collectively forgotten how to communicate with others.

I have always been a person who places a lot of importance on love. As a kid, my number one goal was to fall in love with someone and spend my life with them. I figured if I had that, everything else to do with adulthood, like having a career and finances, would kind of just fall into place. Even after learning that wasn’t the case, I always tried and continue to try spreading love. I consciously try to strike up conversations with strangers when I’m out and I’m the first one to compliment someone in hopes of making them smile. Community and connection are what I always yearn for. I want to be able to share my true self with others, and make them feel they can do the same with me. I want to show them they will be met with honest enthusiasm and interest at what they are sharing with me. I truly love everyone and I try to make that known. I ask lots of questions and remember every detail I possibly can about the people I encounter. No matter how small the interaction, I carry everyone I come into contact with with me and think of them fondly. Going on this date, although I was nervous, I was also excited to just get to know a lovely person more and spend time with him.

We were meeting in a public park near his town. It was going to be cold, so we figured we could just chill in my car. We had made each other playlists before the scheduled meeting, so we could exchange and play them together from my car speakers. I had also brought snacks and drinks to complete the date. When I pulled up to the playground at the end of the park, I saw him waiting there for me and got out of my car to greet him. He gave me a big hug that, to my pleasant surprise, lasted much longer than I expected.

We nervously and giddily climbed into the front seats, and I asked him my icebreaker about how the drive over was for him. He happily explained that he used to come to this very playground all the time as a kid, and that it felt so crazy to be there now, especially after just arriving back in his hometown this week. I asked him to tell me the stories from his road trip that he promised he would, and I put on the playlist I had made for him. We quickly fell into the easiest conversing I had ever experienced with someone new. Every now and then he would stop to say what a good song I was playing. Soon enough we were playfully touching, me hitting him lightly on the shoulder when laughing, and him getting very animated telling his tales, touching my leg and huddling into me. Finally, I felt brave enough to grab his hand, and we fell silent for a moment, looking into each other’s eyes. I felt so stupidly relaxed and comfortable that it really did feel like I already knew him.

Things continued on, and we touched more, growing closer. We cuddled and held hands with each other. We kissed. It hit me that I didn’t feel like teenagers or kids, even though we were making out in my parked car in a playground. It was exactly how I thought “right” would feel. I was just so happy to be sharing this moment with him.

Somewhere in our continuous conversations, he mentioned that coming back to town and seeing all his old friends again, he was informed that a boy he used to know had died. He told me about the boy he knew and their short times together, how it felt weird to know he was gone and feel like he had just these little pieces of stories with him left. They weren’t particularly close, but he was a good guy who he shared time with that he still remembered so fondly and now bittersweetly. I told him I heard of a quote once that read something like, “I hope death is like when you are a small child, sleeping during a family party, and someone carries you softly away, letting the laughter and voices fade as you are brought to your own bed.” I was holding his hand, and he squeezed it whispering, “I hope so.”

I asked him what things he had to leave behind in Florida. He told me about how he left pretty spontaneously, leaving mostly everything in his room. I described how my room is like my sanctuary, and how I have a lot of trinkets, posters, and figurines. I laughed, telling him that I had my dad’s canine tooth in a white pearly box and that my dad specifically brought it home for me after having it pulled at the dentist. His face lit up. He dove into his pants’ pocket saying, “Oh please, I hope I still have it!” Out came a big chunk of a tooth. He explained that just a few days prior, he had fallen on his face out on an adventure with his friends, and most of his tooth had cracked and fallen out. He pressed it into my palm and said that he wanted me to have it. I thought it was the sweetest thing and stared at it in awe, quickly putting it in a sachet I had in my purse, terrified of losing it. We kissed, and I thanked him earnestly.

We just stayed like that until I had to go, his head on my lap and my thumb rubbing his knee. When his friend arrived to pick him up it was pitch dark out. He said he didn’t want to leave and kissed me. Against my lips, he whispered, “You’re amazing.” Before he left, he said he was going to be free Friday and Saturday if we could plan something. I was so happy I was getting a second date, and I truly believed we would meet again. But, unfortunately, as so many others are experiencing after great dates, we never saw each other again.

The next day we were both busy, so there was little contact, as I had expected. Friday I asked him if we were still on, and he informed me he would let me know. He didn’t, and from the looks of his Instagram stories that night, he was out with his friends. The texts between us pretty much diminished after that, even though he was watching and liking my stories. I was left on delivered, and despite trying to reach out to him, I remained that way.

It was not easy to leave things like that. All I wanted was to feel the same effort put in and the same importance placed on connection. I thought he felt the same way, but instead he was just another date that led nowhere. I’m tired of not only receiving less in relationships, but accepting less, because I’m so panicked at the thought of not having any love that I’ll take whatever little attention and kindness I can get. It seems like no one wants to share their life or their vulnerability. It seems like when they do, it isn’t as serious to them as it is to me.

I know the value of connection exists. I, myself, am living proof that this vulnerability is out there. I have always been one to show love, displaying it outwardly and without shame to all I encounter. And I take so much joy in that, in bridging the gaps of strangers around me with a smile and a little effort to be understanding and generous. But am I such a rarity in my generation on dating apps? Why are our connections so fleeting? Why would he lay there with his head in my lap and so earnestly share his stories and memories with me, only to say, “Eh, nevermind”? The confusion was so frustrating and so accurate, given how it seems every person in the dating realm is experiencing connection.

I was given a literal piece of him, a token of flesh from his very body. He wanted me to keep a part of him, and then he immediately left me without any more. I was reminded of those in the Victorian era who kept lockets of hair and vials of tears in memory of their departed loved ones so that they could still hold a small piece of their connections to these people who were no longer with them. How they carried on was through these relics and memories. He held my hand and told me about the death of an old friend, pressed his severed tooth in my hand, told me he wanted to see me again, and then he was done. It felt wrong. It just didn’t make any sense.

I am far from the only one left confused and heartbroken by dates like this. There are whole Tiktok accounts dedicated to navigating situationships and there are pages of answers on Google to the question, “What does it mean when you have a great first date but they don’t text back?” I don’t understand this as being so normalized, but I know it is.

Yet, I still have to think of him when I see an Iron Maiden t-shirt and when I watch a Gregg Araki movie, and I’ll still have his tooth in a green silk sachet next to a good luck crystal shaped like a teardrop. He had actually given me a part of him, but I felt like I was the one used and forgotten about. I doubt I will ever forget that his tooth exists in my small, dusty bedroom, but I question if he will remember my name when he runs his tongue over the empty socket and recalls with a laugh that he passed the missing bone along to a one week situationship with a girl he met and left in a time in his life that only I seemed to care about. To me, he is like that departed friend he so kindly shared the memory of with. I have spaces with him in my heart and in my stories. It was really just a moment of loving, and we didn’t know each other particularly well, even though it felt like we did, but it’s so weird and disheartening feeling him in my memories and knowing he is no more. I carry him, as I carry so many others, with me everywhere. But it was only one date.