My name is not Naomi. It’s a nom de plume to protect my identity. Though names and some details have been changed, all the stories here are true.
I haven’t been on any interesting dates lately, so I want to dedicate this week’s installment of Gen XXX by shouting out the men on the sex app who do the opposite of ghosting and won’t fucking go away. No matter how many times I reject their attempts to match their profiles with mine, these guys always — always — reappear, game for another go-round of “will she or won’t she like my profile back?”
These dudes come in all shapes and sizes. One of them, Pablo, looks a cheesy cross between Boogie Nights’ Luis Guzmán and Johnny Depp in the film Donnie Brasco. Pablo first finds me on the sex app, where he likes my profile no fewer than eight times before I finally block him, which takes me completely out of contention, and hopefully, his consciousness.
Except it does not, because a few days after I block him on the sex app, Pablo approaches me on Bumble. He uses the same pics — he must be an actor, because his photos are professionally taken and staged — but a slightly different profile writeup. On the sex app, Pablo is open about his kinks and desires. (He loves eating pussy.) On Bumble, he is more sexually circumspect, though no less motivated, apparently, to get my attention. (Isn’t one definition of insanity doing the same thing and expecting a different result?)
I feel bad saying this, but there’s something pathetic about Pablo, the same way there’s something pathetic about Scott, the tall, 40-something mixed-race dude with the silver hair who pops up in my sex app inbox every couple of months or so. Then there’s James, a handsome blond Australian and inbox regular whose profile includes a photo of him posing with a lorikeet and who seems sweet, if a bit unserious. (Another blond Australian, Samuel, who looks to be about 120 pounds soaking wet, also seems nice but doesn’t have much to say about himself in his profile other than that he’s very tall and “comes with an accent.”)
The real repeat offender, however, is a guy named Johnny. Johnny is white and British and has golden hair and is into farts. I don’t know why Johnny keeps liking my profile, because I never like him back. Never. But he always returns, which means that he’s “hearting” my profile, waiting a bit to see if I respond, and then unhearting my profile just so he can heart it and try to get my attention all over again. (I never actually block him because I’m curious as to just how often he’ll keep coming back for more. So far, it’s 14 times and counting.)
My disinterest in Johnny isn’t because he’s physically unattractive — he’s actually quite handsome and well-built, like Jude Law’s Dickie Greenleaf in The Talented Mr. Ripley — but because I find his fart fetish incredibly unappealing. (I don’t want to kink-shame, but the recent addition of “breast milk” to his stated sexual repertoire makes me even more uncomfortable.)
Johnny’s antics aside, I’d be lying if I said I don’t find some of these guys’ persistent attempts entertaining, even vaguely appealing. Take Brad, a 28-year-old who looks like a jacked-up version of the actor Andrew Garfield and supposedly goes to grad school at USC and lives in a penthouse. (The pecs are real but the CV probably isn’t.) A few weeks ago I also consider matching with another recidivist, a six-foot-six-inch, pale-skinned bruiser who is covered in tattoos and seems like a gentle giant, albeit one with a dominant side. (I decide against him because I don’t like the cheesy photo of him holding a riding crop.) The tow-headed, wanna-be “cuck” who keeps showing up makes me curious too, only because I want to ask him what it is about my profile that gives him the impression that I’m at all interested in submissive men.
I’m also amused by the repeat appearances of the blond surfer from Costa Mesa who looks like Scott Caan and the Middle Eastern man who says he’s looking for “wifey” and proceeds to rattle off a list of things — luxury clothes, private jets, cold hard cash — he believes all women are obsessed with. (I sort of want to match with him just so I can call him out on his disgusting misogyny.) Then there’s the tall white guy with the curly hair whose profile seems wonderful in all respects except for the photo in which he’s pictured lying on on a table, his legs spread and in the air, as if in an invisible pair of gynecological stirrups. (A male friend, who seems to be laughing maniacally, has placed his head between the tall guy’s thighs.) I don’t get the joke and I’m not sure I want to.
Besides Johnny, the award for the most persistent young dude goes to TJ, a Black 20-something dude with a bangin’ body and a genuine, welcoming smile who is simply too young (like, 24 years too young), too far away (he lives in Long Beach) and, I hate to say it, too available. TJ has liked my profile at least half a dozen times over the past month alone, which suggests that, like Johnny, he is liking me, unliking me, and then liking me again. I’m tempted to give in to TJ at some point — digitally, that is — and engage him in conversation because his tenacity is admirable and his profile writeup feels sincere. Also, I like the idea that he just can’t quit me. Because believe me, I know the feeling.