Denial
Claire’s totally going to reply. It’s only been four days. Of course, she’s busy. Her bio says “Yogi,” so she’s probably on a weeklong spiritual yoga retreat doing downward dog and meditating on how to message me back. Hold on, her bio also says “C’est La Vodka Vie” so she probably has family from France that’s currently visiting Los Angeles for the first time. She can’t answer my messages, while she’s at Disneyland on Space Mountain.
That’s totally why she hasn’t replied yet, or she accidentally dropped her phone in the toilet. A study shows that every twenty seconds an American drops a phone in a toilet.
Wait, she just updated her Tinder picture. It all makes sense now. She definitely saw my double message, and she’s trying to build suspense and sexual tension before she replies. She doesn’t want to look needy. We're gonna date for sure!
Anger
Why can’t I get a date? I suck! I should have joined swim team to get those washboard abs. Why did my genes limit me to the eternal hell of being 5’ 8”? She probably saw my atrocious height in my bio and decided that I’m a plump Oompa Loompa. What God cursed me with shyness and the inability to get laid? How could my parents restrict my sexual escapades by not forcing guitar lessons on me? I learned the recorder!
I should have picked another major. Econ majors never get messages back.
Bargaining
I don’t need Claire. Yoga and French accents aren’t that hot anyway! She didn’t reply to me, so she’s completely unreliable! Morally, I can’t have a relationship or even a one night stand with someone this unreliable. Also, she’s a self-proclaimed “Netflix Connoisseur,” when Hulu is clearly the better option! Unreliable and bad taste in streaming platforms? I can’t be with someon this ignorant. You know what kind of people are ignorant? Racists! Bigots! Nazis! I won’t sleep with a Nazi!
Depression
Was it my shirtless profile picture? Did I go too far by putting my shih tzu puppy on my lap as I hold a guitar? Sure, I don’t know how to actually play guitar, but she doesn’t know that! Was it the double messaging that became octuple messaging? Maybe I used too many exclamation points when I sent “Hey Claire!!!” Four would have definitely been too many, but two doesn’t feel like enough. Why has the English language ruined me by not creating a half exclamation point? She was my sole potential mate. My sexual aspirations have dried up like the Sahara desert!
Acceptance
Today, I realized that my only option was to buy Tinder Gold and pay the reasonable fee of ten dollars a month. In moving on from Claire, I also made accounts for Plenty of Fish, Bumble, Date A Golfer, Clown Dating, and Ugly Schmucks. Claire’s not going to reply, so I won’t get laid tonight. My sex life is over, because it never began. Like the Jews wandering in the desert for forty years in search of Israel, I perpetually wander in a sexless wasteland.
Oh wait! I got another match with a girl named Aphrodite. She wants to video chat online! Ooh! She wants my credit card and social security to prove that I’m over eighteen? Yeah, no problem! I’m going to get laid!