I think I just let a man destroy my brand

Emily Eaton, Columnist

With Valentine’s Day quickly approaching, I felt it was appropriate to announce that I have managed to betray my own way of life by a happy little accident. 

By accident, I mean I agreed to a Tinder date after months of bashing the website to my friends, and to the entire university via my column. By happy, I mean I actually found a guy that adds to my happiness, as much as even typing that sentence makes me shutter. 

You think I would’ve turned down the date with him considering that the week prior, my then-date drove in an oval around the same Michigan U-turns three times. But alas, I dragged myself out the door for another date.

It’s been months and I’m still waiting for him to bail, but there haven’t been any glaring red flags. He’s still showing up with ice cream if I so much as complain about class. My life is pretty easy, and one small inconvenience in mine accounts for a grand gesture for me in his. 

Before him, I was the girl who bashed the guys I encountered. It’s been my brand. I felt it to be my civic duty to write about it, to warn everyone else of the dating atrocities I had witnessed. But he’s turned me weak. 

He asked me to be his girlfriend after two weeks of dating, and, still holding onto my brand, I said it was too soon. Then he put a sticky note in one of my sweatshirts saying how much he liked me. A week later, I asked him instead. I had officially gone soft.  

Despite this new relationship, I’m still well aware of his college-boy flaws. His biggest one lies in his (and every other guys’) obsession with Marvel. His deeply-devoted loyalty and love for Captain America far exceeds how he could ever feel about me. He also eats chicken tenders for breakfast. I almost broke up with a guy last year for not eating breakfast food, but that guy never wrote anything to me on a sticky note. 

The absolute worst thing about finding him when I did is that we started dating right when all my friends decided to be single. 

In an effort to cling to my boy-bashing brand, I went to a party with all my single girlfriends to experience some more bashable content. And, as always, I got some. A random guy started throwing money on the enormous crowd of girls dancing, myself included. 

It was degrading and disgusting, but at least I went home with $107. 

I can’t help but wonder why, after publicly and blatantly loathing the online dating scene, I got on it again.  Did I do it for attention? Maybe. For more column content? It’s probable. 

But unfortunately, I ended up encountering someone genuinely kind enough to bring over my friend’s ice cream if they had a bad day — not just me. I always bragged about being the single girl, and always wrote about the awful single guys. I based a whole column off of it. 

Turns out, however, they’re not all that bad. Luckily though, I have enough single friends and dating horror stories to last me about another century. I thought being single all of college was definitely the way to go, but sticky notes can really make a girl think twice.