Chapter 1: The 6 Line

Dear my fellow wanderers,

​This beginning chapter of my 20’s is called the 6 line ( it’s not his real name, but if you ever rode the local 6 line in NYC, you’d know).

You see, I started my newly found 20-year-old life on dating apps.

I remember starting my dating journey on Hinge.

I had fun starting on Hinge, with my first experience starting off with talking to this Spider-Man-loving guy.

Some might remember him as my first love.

He was interesting, conversational, cute, and a medical resident! Everything I value in a man and partner.

I remember it was around Halloween night when he decided to be open and honest enough to tell me he wasn’t into me.

Naive 20-year-old me was okay with that.

Because of him and his honesty, I thought many guys on dating apps would be so forward about not being interested in me when they know they aren’t feeling it, and that they would all be just as interesting as Mr.Spiderman was.

But boy was I WRONG!!!!

After accepting and sending likes and talking with other men, I fell upon the 6 line in my likes. I accepted him because why not?

I was new to dating, and I wanted to try everything.

In his profile, this man said he was 5’9 ALLEGEDLY!!! The words to describe his looks… it was always… he’s okay looking.

I didn’t really find him attractive, which you might say, well, why’d you still talk to him?

At 20, I craved attention and was excited to talk to guys, especially since I hadn’t interacted with many in high school.

Also, I must add that my mom refused to let me outside, so no parties for me, no hanging out with friends.

For Haitian parents, there's a three-L rule: Lekol (school), Leglis (church), and Lakay (home), so you can see why this world felt new and exciting to me.

So my Cinderella backstory aside, let’s head back to our 6 line.

Our conversations, looking back, were truly me leading the conversations, asking him about himself, what he’s into, and his occupation.

He would only contribute to our conversation by asking me if I ate and how was my day. You know the drill ladies. Insert eye roll LOL.

At the beginning of dating, I hated pet names and truly still do.

Within just a week of talking to me, this man was calling me cutie and using the most egregious cute pet names that were supposed to make me swoon and giggle.

It was quite the opposite; it was ick central for me because I hated babe, cutie, any of the things that went into romance, but let it slide after a month when it came to the 6 train.

It was truly an ick until it wasn’t. In retrospect, this man was probably love bombing me, trying to get me to fall for the okie doke, but I wasn’t into it.

However, I wanted to give it a shot because I’m just a girl who’s standing in front of a guy, hoping he picks me.

So fast forward a few weeks of talking, one day I asked him, " Are you still into me? Because he hasn’t asked me on a date, especially since he wrote on his profile that he doesn’t want to play games when dating.

So when I asked if he was still into me and stated why I felt he wasn’t, he said yes, he was into me, and then he asked me on a date.

On the day he planned, he went ghost.

Meaning he didn’t text me at all that day and was silent. 20-year-old me didn't see this as a red flag.

I chose to be blind and give him the benefit of the doubt, but I was aware of what was happening. Well, sort of. I was like, no way, he was trying to avoid our date and go ghost on me like he was Danny Phantom.

Right? Like, he's definitely having a rough day or something. So I asked him whether we are still on? And he said no, something came up.

He’d then reschedule and plan another one but pulled the same act. I still talked to him after his countless no-show dates, and this probably went on for more than a month.

However, I got annoyed one day and decided that I would take the initiative to plan a date.

I was thinking maybe he feels scared to meet me one-on-one, so I introduced the idea of a group date with one of my friends.

Y'all, why this man said "I’ve never heard of meeting someone in a group on a first date, and that he’d like to get to know his person one on one rather than with people he doesn't know."

Cue the look into the invisible camera.

Like, sir, you didn’t want to meet me one-on-one, so what are you going on about?

Well, audience, do you think that was our last time talking?

Nope, I still talked to this boy, guys.

Sigh, Desperate, I know, but PLEASE I AM A STARRRRRR!!!

Anyways, we Facetimed nightly for 6 months.

Over those months, I found myself getting agitated daily.

By month 3, I brought up topics of politics within month 3 because I was like, " Wow, we’re still talking! How awesome 🙂 I wanted to see how he thinks and whether he’s deeply stimulating.

Gosh, I wish I had left after his first ghosting.

First off, he is a female sayer, meaning he would say 'females' instead of 'women' whenever speaking about women.

I actually really hated that and said, "That’s not okay." I typed multiple paragraphs to this man about why using female as a term is not okay.

My friend and I bussed our asses, tag teaming in Google Docs to try to get the point across.

In the end, it didn’t work; he still used female, but it became less occurrent after our conversations about the word kept happening, because we came to an agreement that he can use it with others, just not me.

Besides using females, he was fatphobic. facepalm.

There were many moments of slight fatphobia. We snapped on Snapchat on top of convos with each other.

Yeah, the trenches, but sigh, guys, I'd send pics to be cute, and once I sent a pic of my thighs.

This is where I have to hide in shame!!!! (judgment-free zone guys, remember this is a judgment-free zone!!)

This boy told me that it's unhealthy.

HE SAID THE THIGHS WERE UNHEALTHY! Yup, he told me my thighs were unhealthy.

This honestly thinking back was around month one or maybe month two, but I simply unsaw that because again I was naive and just didn't want to believe a man was saying something about my thighs after my profile showed I was plus size.

I would like to add that he worked at a gym and took two hours to work out 🤔.

I never quite understood that. I believe when we once talked about him working out within month 2 or 3, he told me I should do the same.

Younger me became defensive and said, "Well, first of all, I can't because I'm injured from a workout experience," which was the truth.

My early 20s did start off with me tearing my meniscus, allegedly at first, during a training session with a trainer, from pushing myself too much, which flashed forward a year.

It turned out I actually had herniated my disc and have arthritis, which still affects me today as I constantly go through chronic pain.

As I received these comments about my body, I tried standing up for myself, but it also pained me that he would say those things.

On top of that, he called me a fatass one day.

LMAO I don't know why or when, but I know my friend and I were named by him as some girl and fatass.

I promise, it was during our last month of talking.

My logic for staying was: ‘I can say I have an almost man, you know.’

I can say I have experience. That was what younger me was thinking. She was valid to think that, but I now will absolutely not stay with a guy who fat shames me and makes my body seem like shit.

So, because of my growing anger and my keeping these bad experiences to myself because I didn’t want my best friend and my friends to know I’m with someone so stupid and horrible to me, I decided to see other people.

Also, my friend (some girl, as he referred to her) reminded me that I am, in fact, single, and it’s okay for me to see other people, since I had been feeling some guilt about talking to other men.

I went on OKCupid and Bumble.

OKCupid didn't last long because I was so confused there, and it seemed like people my father's age were on it.

Possibly even a serial killer if I’m being honest.

But Bumble?! That was my girl!

I was there swiping nonstop, chatting it up with most of the men that my friend and I swiped on, and I was also talking to someone who liked me from high school, who you will learn about in another post, who is just as bad as the 6 line.

With no dates in mind, the 6 line was just having conversations that ended up with me writing paragraphs because I really found this man to be dumb as shit, and

I can’t stand a dumb man, especially a college-educated one.

Ugh, I forgot to paint the picture, but guys, I was 20, and he was 23 or 24 with a college degree, like please. He was losing my respect by the day.

So after experiencing other men, I said no way this man is staying longer than he already has.

Mind you guys, I was fed up the moment after my friend's birthday in December,

Where I may have knowingly tried spicing things up by sex talking,

which he sucked at, guys, and told him I liked him (which was false, that man gave me the ick).

The sex talk was truly awful, like he talked about making love on the couch I was on, and all this nonsense.

Like Sir, we have never met. Why are you saying making love during something that's meant to be naughty?

So he (me, really) finally planned a movie date after planning fake dates to keep him under the guise that something would go down between us.

In the process of finally planning this movie date, I gave him a "I am a virgin" paragraph, and I won’t actually be giving him anything until we’ve had three dates (have some decorum, 20-year-old Marie-Anne!).

The reason for this paragraph was that we were going to have an Airbnb picnic date instead, but luckily, we went with just the movie.

God’s timing for real! 🙏

You might be wondering… did you finally meet up?

Absolutely! Find out in the next post.

But before you do, comment:

have you ever experienced something as degrading and bad as this in your 20s?

Please share below!

Sincerely,

Marie Anne (fatass apparently LOL)