Held Hostage by a Fish? [UnHinged]

I am aware that you came here to read all the testosterone-filled messages I have received in the last few weeks. However, this story must go in proper order and the first thing that had to be done was creating a profile. It’s an art form that I have no experience in. As my photography professor continuously said last semester, “it’s important to constantly strain and push your artist muscles, just as an athlete would.” I’m pretty certain he wasn’t speaking on behalf of Hinge profiles, but one often finds meaning to feel as though they’re on the right path.

You’re only allowed six pictures and six prompts to accurately (or inaccurately) allow the strangers on the internet to give you a split-second judgment. Of course, you might think that the best thing to do would be to flex your good looks in every single picture. On the contrary, I believe with my limited experience. I indeed have a picture of myself in a pretty dress looking my absolute best, but I also have a picture of myself mixing chemicals to develop film at 8am while wearing my pajamas. It’s called duality, and it shows you have personality. Or maybe it just gives someone else content to write about, because I must seem pretty unhinged.

I told Maeve and Nola I was choosing personality and interesting pictures instead of just pretty, posed pictures to show more personality. Half of me thought I would hook more interesting men with more interesting pictures. The other half of me subconsciously realized my inability to take a good, posed picture and instead opted for the ones friends had taken of me when I wasn’t paying attention. Like the one of me photographing Louis Tomlinson, up on a rig photographing rock climbing, and surfing a wave in California with my dog, Scout. My prompts talked about things that weren’t shown in the pictures like my love for dirt biking and some of my absolutely feral travel stories.

So now that we’ve curated the perfect profile, let’s get onto the top three likes and messages.

***

Jairo

One of the main ways I’ve been told to improve my Spanish and accent is to watch Spanish TV, and I’ve spoken to many people here who say they learned English from watching Friends. As soon as I got the message, “Hey Calihan, how you doiinngg?” I knew that Jairo was one of those people who had learned English from Friends and wasn’t aware that this line is not a typical one that people use. I want to educate him, but I also don’t want to open the conversation further.

I figure anyone who learned how to talk to girls from Joey Tribiano wasn’t someone I necessarily wanted to associate with. While sweet and fun-loving, one cannot possibly say that Joey treated the girls in his life well.

I give Jairo one star out of five, because I need creativity.

Ahsan

Ahsan took a leap of faith, he tried really hard. When someone tries that hard, there are two possibilities: a major slay or a major flop. Unfortunately for Ahsan, his attempt fell in the ladder group. Ahsan might have been a wee bit proud of himself though because as soon as I read his message, I dropped my bag of almonds on the ground trying to grab my computer as fast as possible, knowing this experience needed to be written about as soon as possible.

It’s really a shame when someone tries to be quirky and exciting when I gave them so much interesting content to work with on my profile. Ahsan, you didn’t have to send me, “How can god be the best creator when your parents exist?” Since I’m a self-diagnosed power-move addict, I respond, “Does that seriously ever work?”

I give Ahsan 3 stars because I can’t say the line was fantastic, but I did just ask Jairo for more creativity so I can’t dock Ahsan for having some.

Alex

The winner of the week is Alex. I didn’t think I would be saying that considering he simply liked my profile and never sent a message. Since I’m looking to only use this app for content, having to make the first move isn’t in my pre-determined playbook. I am allowed to like profiles without sending messages, but these men are not. Alex is a lone exception.

I looked at his profile when he liked mine and a certain photo struck me as funny. He was on a boat, holding up a fish he had caught, but had drawn over it and put an ‘X’ through it so you couldn’t see the fish at all.

Either he’s trying to please the “anti-hunting” girlies who were obviously never taught, “there’s plenty of fish in the sea” both by the way they get mad about people fishing and by the absolutely feral men that they treat like God-reincarnated… or he’s trying to be funny. I hope for the ladder.

I messaged him, “We need to get to the important questions, what kind of dirt does that fish have on you that required you to make him unidentifiable?”

Alex played right along. Coming up with an elaborate story about a fish heist. Although it was a bit cringy, I appreciated the effort.

I give Alex four stars. If there’s one thing I can respect, it’s people who commit to the bit.

Yours truly.

Calihan