A friend recently wrote she had been blue starred on a dating website. Blue starred is like getting the biggest bouquet of last-minute-idea grocery-store bought roses from a person you never knew existed. Weird, flattering and alarming all at once with the thought rolling around that maybe they sent the flowers accidentally and they were supposed to go to the person in the next office, but they didn’t and now you have the task of deciding if you want to thank the person or ignore that it ever happened in the first place and slip them into the (virtual) trashcan.

In the online dating world one has to make snap judgements about so many things that this thirty-something isn’t quite sure how it all works out. I have more of a guess and check method, when I probably could have benefited more of a refined rubric that had some what-do-you-call them . . . standards. See a picture: Attractive? Used complete sentences? Refrains from shirtless photos? Omits Myers-Brigs letters, because seriously? So you have all of that to sleuth through and then someone throws you a curveball into your arthritic swipe-left wrist and you see they’ve used their one blue star for the day on you. You pause. There they are. Staring back at you. A grainy (on purpose?) picture of three people and you hope it’s the middle one but with your luck it’s the shirtless bloke on the right with the backward baseball hat that says ‘Vagitarian and Proud Of It’. And you can’t do anything else until you’ve made a decision to ‘like’ them or ‘lose’ them. So you scroll through the other photos looking for clues. Occasionally wears a shirt. Okay, that’s good, I guess in case we have to go anywhere. Owns transportation. This is actually a pretty big plus in the world of online dating. The man-holding-baby picture but clearly marks, usually using emojis, that it’s not his kid. Ah, ok. Well thanks for taking the time to show off that pretend paternal side . The slightly confusing shot that includes a mystery woman–the ‘Maybe that’s his girlfriend?’ pictures.  Well, low pressure, then. Swiped Right. Decision Done. And it was hard.

But, I struggle with quick decisions in the grocery store because there are so many damn choices of peanut butter. So many. Isn’t it just peanuts ground up into ah, nut butter? How do any of the peanut butter companies make any profit. There’s so many of them with all the same product with slightly different twists to try to catch your eye. Well, I pick up each one to see what they have to offer me. Health, organic, jelly mix-in as a time saver, nuts they forgot to blend completely, bargain brand, a hint of high-fructose corn syrup (geez, even I know that’s not necessary). I usually give up and decide I don’t like peanut butter twenty-five minutes into my research. I’ve actually left grocery stores empty handed because there are too many things. I’ll come back after I’ve narrowed down my decisions.

Well, in a blue star online dating situation you can walk away, but you can never go back to it again. That option is all gone if you swipe no thanks. And, aren’t you curious? Why did this person look at my profile and say boy that’s the one! I’m picking the girl with the oh-so-original bird tattoos, unwashed hair, beer in fifty percent of the pictures and a shot of some $6 grandma-comfort-inspired slippers (that someone kindly said looked like Toms Shoes. They don’t. I think they are Isotoners to make things worse.) I chose photos that my mother took while she was visiting and helping me settle into my new apartment after a break up. I don’t really do selfies that don’t include dogs or cats in them so these were the only current pictures I had in my possession. Most of the pictures she took were just moments before I told her to knock it off. My eyes about to roll due to an auto-annoyance reaction that occurs when a camera lens is pointed toward me. She took them to show my family who would be proud that I could use an allen wrench and screw together some IKEA furniture unsupervised. I hadn’t showered. Hadn’t washed my hair in days. I’m wearing a sports bra and nary a duck face can be found. Duck face, for those of you who haven’t played the Dating Game version 2016, is when a woman purses up her lips into a glossy bill of desperation thinking it accentuates her best feature, sluttiness, I mean, cheekbones. Come on ladies, we can want sex, I mean connections, and not look ridiculous, right? Pictures chosen, pictures uploaded, pictures say something that makes someone use their blue star up.

So decisions. They gotta be quick because you can’t click anywhere else until you decide if the person stays or goes. Or you can make like me in the peanut butter aisle and just log out completely because it’s so damn overwhelming. Or you can swipe ‘like’ and just hope they don’t write something like ‘Hi, Dana! I like ur face. So, u shud just use me 4 drinks and give me ur #—Ur gonna have fun w me. TTYL.’ Yes, that lovely bouquet of eloquence was swiftly tossed into the trash can. But, not before I replied ‘Oh my, you’re too kind! I’m actually looking for someone a little more seedy and arrogant which to waste sixty to ninety minutes of my life. Sorry it won’t work out!’ And so, I wish my friend the very best of luck with her blue star.