W hat’s worse than getting ghosted by a guy who perfectly fits your type, can occasionally strike up a fun banter and is super, super cute? Endless texting, reel spamming, and zero dates. It’s the Gen Z twist on a tragic pen-pal romance—minus the poetry, plus the Hinge shopping on the side. Forgive my limited understanding of the talking stage but how long does it have to go on till you actually meet in person? Days, weeks, months.
Who knows? It was fine when American poet Emily Dickinson did the whole letters-only thing with a judge called Otis Phillip Lord, and British author Charlotte Bronte with her teacher Constantin Héger. They were separated by seas, wives and diphtheria. We can’t even save up our niche meme exchanges for the ever-brewing future tell-all.
Unless the dating app pen pal is secretly married. In that case, congratulations, you have a bestseller in the making. Since married guys don’t give themselves away so easily, make sure you can afford a private detective as well.
The experts of just-texting-never-meeting always have a solid excuse at hand—hectic jobs, strict curfews, “timing issues” and whatnot. Some just keep calling in sick on planned dates like the employee who is quiet quitting but is too nervous to actually resign. On another level are the Sweet Bobbys who run the catfish business like it’s their full-time job.
Even a thousand bad Bumble dates seem like a walk in the park if you compare the nine years Kirat Assi spent getting .