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It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was election night and I was surrounded by a fashionable crowd at an election party, at a film producer’s Toronto home. I was three glasses (or so) of red deep, and somehow Trump was leading the polls (WTF?). And so, I did what any single, slightly buzzed girl would do at 10 p.m. with the weight of the world looming, I opened up the dating apps on my phone and escaped into immediate convo”which I initiated”with a babely, bearded, leather-coat-and-hoody-wearing match on my screen.

As Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” played in the background and my glass was topped off by the server walking around the room, yet again, I boldly asked the boy in question if he wanted to meet me for a drink when I gave up on the results, reluctantly accepted defeat and left the party.

He agreed to meet me in the area, and within an hour of matching with him we were sitting at one of my fave local spots in #TheSix sharing a wood-fired margherita pizza and raising glasses to cheers. Little did I know then that this guy would turn out to be a serious prospect. But I have that to thank to the app I met him on, Happn, because the whole premise of the app is moving your online connection into real life as quickly as possible, and that’s what we did. I solely use this app because it matches me with people who are within 250 meters of me, so they’re close by making it easy to meet up immediately and get the ball rolling, and did I ever!

We (the collective we, like us single women who use dating apps) have so many ideas about how dating should look: The guy should message first. He should ask us out. We should talk back and forth for a while and then once we get comfortable enough, swap numbers and then text and if banter ensues, we’ll eventually meet in person. But with that method comes a waste of time and a waste of energy. Because, you really need to meet someone in person to see whether or not there’s that innate chemistry. That rip-your-pants-off attraction. We all know someone who went on a date with a dude from a dating app who arrived only to look nothing like their pictures, or to freeze up and not be able to pull off the same charm and convo IRL.

After we ate our pizza and guzzled down our first drink together, we hopped in an Uber and headed somewhere a little more intimate, one of my favourite haunts on Toronto’s Ossington strip. Before we even stepped inside, dude leaned in for our first (of what would be many) kiss. Butterflies. Due to both of our awkward living situations (I’ll save that for another piece,) we didn’t have anywhere to go after the lights went on an hour after last call at the bar we were at”because we didn’t want to part ways and couldn’t get enough of each other”we sauntered over to a 24-hour diner to have tea and talk into the early hours of the morning. Talk about making shit Happn! All of this, because we were close by and acted on the immediacy. Since then, we decided to mutually delete our apps and have been getting to know each other.

We make dating way more complicated than it needs to be. We spend so much time waiting for someone else to initiate, to say the write lines, to ask as on a date and then to prep for said date. But dating can be easy, so long as you move your online connection into real life early on, removing any pressure or expectations. So, stop reading this and get hunting!