A few months after I left my husband, I downloaded multiple dating apps. It felt like foreign territory, as I'd met my ex-husband in college before dating apps existed β a time when "swiping right on Tinder " held no meaning.
I'd lost 40 pounds, which made it difficult to find the right photo to use on my profile, and I had no idea what to write about myself. Should I be coy? Or blunt? Silly or serious? After hours of deliberating, I created my first account on Bumble and started finding matches. My goals for the year were to travel the world, go on as many dates as possible , and attempt to find my soulmate in between airport delays and missed connections.
As a travel writer, I loaded my schedule up with assignments that would take me around the world. I traveled to more than 20 countries that year. The farther I went, the harder online dating got. My plus-hour flights to countries such as Myanmar and Australia made the journeys to cities in Colombia and Spain seem short.
As I traveled from the beaches of Sardinia to the craggy mountains of Patagonia, I found myself swiping, texting, and occasionally questioning my life choices. I created dating-app profiles and swiped through candidates on Tinder, Bumble, and Coffee Meets Bagel. Was I destined to end up with a guy who explained life's meaning over tapas in Madrid or a tour guide in Macedonia who I later found out had a wife and kids at home? I started to wonder whether my life was going to play out as one bad date after the next.
After months of swiping and bumbling abroad, online dating paid off , and I matched with someone back in the US who felt different. We spent hours talking virtually. We'd text at 3 a. He was in Chicago, two hours away from my temporary base in Indiana. The distance didn't bother me. We were falling for each other even though we hadn't met face-to-face. I suggested a date on a day when I'd be in Chicago just long enough for a coffee before catching a flight to China.
