#i think Justin ? made a joke about how clear it is they were raised southern baptist from how griffin describes it | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

toddsfall · 7 years

Text

I didn’t just come here to dance

written for day 3 of @nurseyweek (prompt: challenge)

aka the nurseydex ballet!au no one asked for (read on AO3)

////

‘You did that on purpose!’ Will glared at Derek, rubbing his back.

‘Chill, dude. I obviously underestimated how much room I’d need.’ Derek answered, shrugging. He tried to at least look apologetic. He knew he was failing.

‘You know I wasn’t trying to hit you with my tendu, bro.’

‘Oh my god, you are such a jock.’ Lardo joked, trying to defuse the situation.

‘Don’t “chill” me Nurse! That’s the third time this lesson alone that you’ve “accidentally” hit me with one of your stupidly long limbs!’ Will’s hand gestures got wider as he started waving his arms around to get his point across.

‘Okay, first off chill with the air quotes dude, this isn’t 2006. Second, if you don’t stop waving your arms, you’re going to poke someone’s eyes out.’

‘Chill?! What did I just say Nurse. What did I just say?’ As Will got steadily redder and redder, Lardo broke them up.

‘Alright children, time out.’ She sighed.

‘Boys! If you don’t stop interrupting my lesson, I’ll send you to the dressing room, you hear? You pay for dance classes, not to stand around gabbling like chickens.’ Their dance instructor was looking at them sternly. Eric ‘Bitty’ Bittle was their tiny Southern ballet teacher. His description made him sound a lot less intimidating than he was in reality.

They both nodded and Derek moved to Lardo’s other side to avoid further conflict. He saw a few of the girls in the class rolling their eyes. He didn’t blame them. This happened way too often.

He wish he knew how to not anger Will so much. No, that was a lie. He wish he knew how to not anger him and enjoy it so much.

They finish the rest of the dance class without any further altercations. The only way Derek knew Will was still mad at him was by the way he kept shooting him murderous glares. And he was pretty sure he saw him chuckle a little when they were doing grand pliés and Derek fell on his ass.

By the time they entered the dressing room, neither boy felt much like talking. They finished changing and Will left without a word. Nursey sighed and picked up his bag. No matter how fun dance class was, fighting with Will always left a bitter taste in his mouth.

/////

Derek startled when he pushed open the door to the dressing room. For the past few weeks, he’d been changing alone because he was the only boy in his class. Now, he saw muscles move under the freckliest skin he’d ever seen. The back had two broad shoulders and smooth white skin that looked like someone had splattered paint all over it.

The back belonged to a redhead, who was now frowning as he looked over his shoulder at Derek. ‘Will you close the door, you’re letting cold air in.’

‘Oh, sorry dude. My B.’ He stumbled a little over his own bag as he tried to hastily shut the door.

The redhead snorted. ‘Did you just say “my B”? Whatever. Never mind. I’m Will.’ His arm moved as if he was going to offer his hand to shake, but decided against it at the last second.

‘Hi Will, I’m Derek.’ He put his hand up for a fist bump.

‘Uh. Hey.’ After a few awkward seconds, Will moved to bump his fist. ‘I’m glad I’m not the only boy here, I was kind of scared it was going to be just me and a bunch of girls. I’m actually here on a dare, I lost a bet. My colleagues challenged me to take this class. They think I’m just some stuck up guy who would never take such a girly class-.’

‘Couldn’t handle being alone with girls, huh?’ Nursey smirked as he interrupted the other boy’s rambling.

‘What? No.’ Will blushed. ‘Just uhm, well you know what they say about ballet dancers.’

‘I don’t know actually. Besides, our instructor is a man so.’ Derek felt himself get irritated now. He held his breath for a few seconds as he watched Will try to climb himself out of the hole he just dug himself in.

‘Oh well, I didn’t mean it like that. I mean – well –‘ He struggled to find words.

‘Okay man, well, I’ll let you think on that one some more. See you in a minute.’ Derek finished changing and stood up. He threw Will a look and left. Maybe he banged the door a little harder than necessary, but he had rightful indignation to back him up.

They spent the entire hour of the lesson bickering as Lardo looked on in despair.

Afterwards, she took Derek aside. ‘Derek Malik Nurse, I didn’t drag you to this class with me just to watch you bicker with the first boy you find.’

‘It’s not my fault! He started it, chill.’ That last part was more directed at himself than her.

Lardo threw him that look that she usually only saved when he came home and told her about yet another unattainable crush. The one that said ‘get your shit together, Derek’. He hated that look, but he also needed it in his life. ‘Let’s go home, nerd. We still have some episodes left in our Gilmore Girls re-watch.’

‘Yeah, let’s see if Shitty wants to join us.’ Nursey felt his mood lift. Who cared if the new boy annoyed him? He had his friends. Will could do whatever he wanted for all he cared.

/////

‘And jump and jump and jump’ Bitty clapped his hands in a tempo that could only be described as sadistic. Nursey felt like his sweat was sweating.

‘Alright class, good job today. See y’all next week! Don’t forget, I’m doing a bake sale on Saturday right here at the studio if anyone’s interested. We’re raising money for some new barres, Lord knows we need them.’ They all laughed and clapped as they trickled out of the room.

A big blond man stood in the halfway yelling at everyone. ‘Get your asses out here on Saturday! Do it for Bitty! That fine piece of Georgian ass deserves to display his glutes with the best equipment available. We didn’t do all those squats for nothing, huh Bits?’

‘That’s right Holster. Bitty smiled and winked. ‘Now move, you big lug. You’re holding up my dancers! If you don’t let us through, we can’t clear the room for your littles to dance.’

‘No problem, brah.’ Adam moved to let them all through, occasionally high-fiving or fist-bumping people he recognized. ‘You seen Justin?’

‘You two can’t spend two minutes apart. It’s sweet.’ Bitty grinned. ‘Yeah I’ve seen him. He said he was going to the Kundalini Yoga class next door.’

Nursey chuckled, the past few months these guys at the studio had really grown on him. They were all starting to hang out together too. He turned to Lardo. ‘Hey Lards, thanks for letting me tag along to this class. I feel comfortable here.’

‘Feeling sappy today, Nursey? Go change. Shitty and I have a date tonight and if you’re late, I’m leaving your ass behind.’ Lardo chirped him, but she squeezed his arm so he knew she was joking.

He walked in the locker room to find Will still there.

‘So, you’re going to the bake sale?’ Will asked.

‘Yeah, I want to support Bitty. I take it bake sales are not your speed?’ He felt tired, those jumps had really taken it out of him. He really didn’t have the energy to start a fight with Will right now.

‘I’m actually going to bring some cookies for Bitty to sell.’ Will raised his eyebrows.

‘Oh, cool man. I, uh, didn’t know you baked.’ Derek said. He felt a bit embarrassed. What did people always say about assuming?

‘There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Derek.’ He smirked and bumped his shoulder against Derek’s.

‘Nursey. Uhm. My friends calls me Nursey. I had some hockey friends in college’ He bumped his shoulder back.

‘I’m your friend now? That’s nice.’ Will smiled at him and Nursey had never seen him like that. Happiness looked good on him.

When Will left the room Nursey called out ‘See you on Saturday!’ and he felt a warm feeling in his gut.

/////

By the time the bake sale had ended, there were only a few dancers left in the studio. They were all hanging around the table Bitty had set up. Holster had produced a bottle of vodka about twenty minutes ago, and now they were all taking turns adding some in their little plastic cups.

‘Thank y’all so much for coming. It really means so much to me. I… uh.. didn’t grow up with this much support in Georgia. Growing up a gay ice skater wasn’t exactly a piece of cake.’ He took a second to chuckle at his own joke. ‘Oh gosh y’all, I remember when I first came out here for college. I couldn’t be happier with my life right now. I get to teach you wonderful people every day. Plus, I’m talking with a nutritionist friend of mine at the Providence Falconers who might have an in for me to teach a class or two to some of the players. They could work on their flexibility.’ His eyes looked a bit blurry.

‘Alright Bits, that was a wonderful speech. Maybe you should stay off my vodka for now, okay?’ Holster moved to put his arm around Bitty’s shoulders. ‘We’re glad to have you here little buddy.’

Justin, Adam’s boyfriend, chimed in ‘While we’re reminiscing, I still remember when I met you Bits. Never been so glad that I decided to be a biology tutor.’ With a sniff he added ‘Tragically, I was already taken when this cute little Georgian stepped into my life’.

Holster protested. ‘Babe! I’m right here.’ But he was smiling.

Nursey took it all in. He knew all this already, from hanging with the instructors after class. But it was still nice listening to their easy banter.

‘You friend isn’t here?’ He looked up as Will approached.

‘Nah, Lardo has an art project she needs to finish tonight. Our entire apartment has been taken over by papier-mâché hockey players. Don’t ask.’ Nursey answered.

Will laughed, his eyes crinkled at the corners. Nursey couldn’t help but think it was beautiful.

‘So, what about you man? I know the story of just about everyone here, but not yours.’

‘My story isn’t that interesting.’ Will looked down at the floor.

‘I’d still like to hear it. C’mon man, I’m an aspiring writer. Stories are my jam.’ He clapped Will on the shoulder and tried to look encouraging.

Will nodded and settled next to Nursey, who was sitting against one of the mirrors. ‘Well, when I was 18, I moved out to Providence with my older brother for a job. The work was alright, we worked for a construction company. When my brother decided to stay here – he had met a girl in an instrument shop he liked to snoop around in – I stayed with him.’

He paused for a second to catch his breath. It was the longest Nursey had ever heard Will talk. He had a nice talking voice. Nursey wondered if it would be rude to close his eyes while he listened.

‘I had to find a job, of course. The construction job was alright but not something I want to do for the rest of my life. I’m still trying to figure all that out, you know?’ Nursey nodded, even though he didn’t know. He’d never had to think too hard about which job he wanted. He fell in love with writing when he was 14 and he hadn’t looked back since.

‘Anyway, I tried out a couple of things but right now I’m working as a musical instrument repairman slash builder. Well, apprentice. Harry, my boss says that stuff takes years and years to learn. But I’ve always been good with my hands.’

Nursey’s entire body felt warm suddenly when Will said that last part. The vodka must have been stronger than he thought.

‘And that’s how I ended up here. I lost a bet with my co-workers and they dared me to take a ballet class.’ He snorted loudly. ‘They really thought they’d done me with that one. You know they actually paid for my classes? Well joke’s on them, I’m really enjoying it!’ He finished with a chuckle.

Nursey smiled at him. ‘Well, I’m glad too, man. Doesn’t matter how you got here.’ He looked at Will intently ‘I know we don’t always get along but –‘. He didn’t really know how to finish that sentence.

‘Yeah. Me too.’ Will said.

Nursey didn’t really know what he meant, but it didn’t matter. He pressed his shoulder closer to Will and they watched the others laugh and tell stories.

/////

The next week, Will wasn’t in class. Nursey felt a twinge of disappointment, even though it meant that he got through the lesson without pissing anyone off.

When he still wasn’t there the next week, Nursey started to worry. He decided to speak to Bitty after class. ‘Hey Eric, can I ask you a question?’ He didn’t know why he didn’t just call him Bitty. Nerves always made him more formal.

‘Sure, hon. What’s up?’ Bitty gestured encouragingly.

‘Have you heard from Will lately? I haven’t seen him in two weeks and I’m getting a bit worried.’

‘Do you want me to give him a call? It would be a tad unethical for me to give out his number without his permission.’ Bitty started looking through his books, which were – as always – a mess.

‘Thank Bits, I really appreciate it.’

After a few minutes, he heard Bitty mutter a quiet ‘Aha!’. ‘Okay, let’s see. William Poindexter. Let’s give him a ring, shall we?’

Nursey fought the urge to bite his nails. It was a disgusting habit that he’d quit years ago.

‘Hello Will? It’s Bitty here. Just calling you up to make sure you’re alright, no one has heard for you in a few weeks. Hmm? Yes. Alright, oh I’m sorry hon.’

Nursey wanted to rip the phone out of Bitty’s hands, an irrational desire that he made sure to repress. He was sure Will was alright, and Bitty was going to tell him what was up in just a min-

‘Oh haha, yes you’re right. He’s right here actually, you want to talk to him?’

Nursey startled. What was happening. Before he could react though, Bitty was pressing the phone in his hands.

‘Hey Nursey. Heard you were worried about me’ Will teased him.

Nursey sighed in relief. He sounded fine. ‘Yeah well, someone has got to make sure you’re still breathing loser.’

‘I’m fine dork, I’ve just had the flu and I didn’t want to give it to you guys.’ He heard Will smile through the phone and Nursey felt the corners of his own mouth turn up.

‘Okay. Great. See you in class next week then?’ He tried not to sound too eager.

‘See you then, Nursey. Oh, and I asked Bitty to give you my number, so you won’t have to bother him the next time you get worried about me.’ He laughed merrily, as if Nursey’s worry was giving him glee.

Nursey didn’t say anything to Lardo as he finally got to her car, but he could tell that she was giving him the look again.

/////

‘This is Derek, I’m not here right now. Leave a message if you want, it’s chill. Beep.’

‘Hey Nursey, Will here. I begged your number off Bitty, hope you don’t mind. I’m guessing you won’t, since I already gave you mine but you never know. Haha. Uhm. Well. I just wanted to let you know that I won’t be in class again. Nothing bad, don’t worry! I’m just picking up an extra shift on Tuesday at Harry’s Music Store, kind of a lame name for an instrument store right? Hah, well. Okay. That’s what I wanted to say I guess. Have fun in class, try not to fall on your ass too hard without me there.’ Click.

/////

The shop bell jingled as he opened the door. Everywhere he looked, there were instruments. There were a lot of guitars, but also violins, cellos, trumpets, clarinets, flutes, keyboards and a drum set. Nursey was immediately transported back to his youth.

‘Can I help you?’ A pretty girl appeared behind the drum display.

‘Hi, I’m looking for Will? I’m Derek, a friend from his dance class.’ Nursey fidgeted with his sleeves, suddenly nervous.

‘Ah, yes. William’s mentioned you. I’ll go get him, he’s fixing something in the back.’ She gave him a once-over before she turned again and disappeared.

Nursey’s heart was racing. Will hadn’t exactly invited him to his place of work. What if he thought it was creepy that he had just shown up out of the blue? Before his thoughts could start spiraling, Will appeared from the same place the pretty girl had disappeared.

‘Uh. Hi Nursey, what’s up?’ Will looked confused, but exactly unhappy to see him. Nursey would take it.

‘Hey Will. Am I bothering you? I can come back another time if you want.’

The silence between them stretched out just a second too long for comfort. Nursey’s shoulders sagged. He started to turn away, but Will cleared his throat.

‘No. Uhm. This is fine. I’m glad you came.’ Will had stretched his arm out, as if he was going to grab Nursey before he could leave.

‘It’s just, uhm. I missed you in class man.’ The English language had never failed Nursey this hard in his entire life.

Will smiled and stepped a little closer. ‘Yeah? I’ve missed you guys too. I’ve missed you too.’

Nursey felt the room grow smaller, the closer Will came to him. With a herculean effort, he unfroze his limbs and took a few steps closer as well. Soon they were almost toe to toe.

‘Care to show me how much you’ve missed me?’ Nursey asked.

‘Is that a dare Derek?’ Will smirked. Nursey wanted to kiss it off his face.

‘Well, it seemed to have worked out for you in the past.’ He tore his gaze away from his lips to look Will in the eyes.

‘Yeah, it seems that way.’ Will chirped as he grabbed Nursey’s hand.

Before either of them could say another word, Will used his other hand to stroke Nursey’s cheek once before leaning in to kiss him. It was short and sweet, in direct contrast to the way they usually interacted. Nursey didn’t mind it one bit.

His brain hadn’t even caught up with his body yet, before Will moved his hands in his hair to kiss him even deeper. Nursey moaned and grabbed Will closer. They kissed until they were both out of breath. In that moment, their thoughts were perfectly in synch.

You’re a challenge worth taking on.

#nurseyweek #nursey week #nurseydex #derek nurse #william poindexter #omgcp #sarahsfic #finally finished it sorry for any mistakes #I hope someone reads this

2 notes · View notes

therandoblog-blog1 · 7 years

Text

Interracial Dating

“Oh, you only date black guys?”

“She just has jungle fever.”

“Oh, stay away from her, she likes a little more mocha, if you know what I mean.”

The list goes on and on. I am a white girl/woman/however you put it. And I have a preference for darker complexion, darker hair, darker eyes. Not to say that’s the list I go through before choosing to date someone. But that really puts a label on me. It tells my family that I am different, that I like black guys. And it is a really dumb label.

I won’t lie. Like I said, I do think the darker the skin, the more attractive. Of course, that is only a physical preference. No, I don’t fetishize darker skin. I just happen to tend to be attracted to men of darker color. (Women as well, if we are being honest, but that is an entire other issue.) But I don’t only hold that as my only standard when looking for someone to date. I’ll gladly date a white guy or an Asian guy or a Hispanic guy or any other race as well, if they’re nice to me and can make me laugh and share my interests and want to get to know me. See, unlike most people who may see me walking down the street hand-in-hand with my African-American boyfriend, I don’t focus on the color of his skin. Now, this splurge may make it sound like I do, but I really don’t. If I think you’re cute, I think you’re cute. End of story. I don’t look around a room and look for all the people of a certain color and then figure out who’s attractive. I just happen to notice attractive people.

Now that I have hopefully cleared up how I feel, let me explain why I am writing this. I have grown up in, obviously, an all-white family. Beyond that, my all-white family is Southern and, well, racist. Not totally, or even completely outwardly. But they are. I was raised around the n-word and the thought that black people were, for whatever reason, lesser than us white folk. I always felt something was off about all of that. All through elementary school, my best friends were of different races than my own. I never thought they were bad people because their skin is a darker color than mine. But my mom did. And my dad. And my mom’s boyfriend. And my uncle. Honestly most people in my family did, and still do. I knew something was off about the way my mom’s boyfriend proudly hanged confederate flags in his garage. I knew something was off with my mom’s tattoo of a confederate flag inside of a heart. I knew something was off with my mom trying to stop me from listening to music that black people sang. I knew something was off with the fact that my dad only had white friends. Even as a child who didn’t quite understand what race was, I knew something was wrong.

I remember one Valentine’s Day when I was, say, eight or nine or ten, I had gotten Tiger Beat magazine (or some magazine of that nature, I can’t quite remember its name).There were a bunch of Valentine’s Day cut-out cards of famous people such as Justin Bieber and Jonas Brothers and a young Miley Cyrus. I decided to cut some out and give them to my special friends. I had kept one of them to myself, because I particularly liked this one. This was a card of Jaden Smith. Even at my age, I knew for some reason I would have to keep this card a secret from my mom. I remember when I would get upset about whatever kids get upset about, I would take the picture out and stare at it. I would keep it in my pockets, because I knew my mom wouldn’t find it there. One day, a bit after Valentine’s Day, I had gone to my kitchen to stare at the picture. My mom had run after me and I balled my hand up as tight as possible. My mom clawed at my hand until she got the picture out of it. She looked at it for a minute, and she looked back at me. Now, I was so scared, I almost peed myself. She just says “Oh no, my baby girl likes black boys.” That still rings through my head anytime I find myself wanting to tell my mom about a new guy I develop feelings for who happens to have darker skin. In fact, I have been scared to death to tell my mom and Granny about this new guy I have been talking to. He is dorky, sweet, and hilarious. He’s so handsome too. And he’s black. I have feared telling my mom about him for the months I have had feelings for him, because to my mom that automatically makes me only attracted to black guys. Just like when I got a Hispanic boyfriend, my mom said I had given up on white guys. Any boy I brought up after him, she would ask if he’s “one of them Mexican boys”. It took months after my first real date with a black boy back in my Junior year of high school for my mom to stop asking about all the black boys.

I have been subjected to this behavior pretty much since the Jaden Smith incident. After I hit puberty, I gained a lot of weight. I currently am not very large, but I am very curvy. I have a large back side, a big chest, and motherly hips. I also have a stomach that sticks out and arms that jiggle when I move and a double chin if I look down at all. I accept how I look, even when I don’t always like them. My mom would always tell me that black boys would like me because I am a thick girl (this was before thick was a thing). She would repeatedly say that my big butt and abundant chest would only attract people with darker skin. Not that she accepted it. She didn’t approve of it at all. But once I hit a certain age, she started to accept that I will date who I want, no matter the color of their skin.

My dad, on the other hand, really disapproves of interracial dating. He’s gotten better over the years, but you can bet that I delayed introducing my Hispanic boyfriend to my dad for as long as possible. I didn’t want him to think of me as a damaged girl. Now, I know his thinking is wrong, and I am most certainly not damaged. But it would hurt to have my dad look down on me. I mean, he almost didn’t date my step-mom because she had a history of not really dating white guys. Both of my step-brothers are half-Hispanic. Maybe that made my dad a little more accepting. But that is just with Hispanic people. I have to talk in hushed tones to my step-mom about the amazing guy I am falling hard for because he’s black and my dad wouldn’t like that.

All of that history to ask a question. Why? Why is race so important? Why should it matter to me that my family won’t approve of who I date because of racist reasons? Why?

It bothers me that I have to live in fear of who I date. My mom tried to have a black guy arrested for sexually harassing me when he was messaging me the same things a white guy had been messaging me a couple weeks before. I have to watch out for that kind of stuff. I hate that there is a high possibility that a majority of my family won’t approve of the person I decide to spend the rest of my life with. Disapproving people on the streets, they can go screw themselves. But this is my family.

Joke’s on them though. My generation of my family is full of game-changers. My cousin and my little sister are both pretty sure they are bisexual (separately, they aren’t trying to add incest to the family). My dad has a daughter who is pansexual and likes darker people. My other cousin likes darker people. It’s like we are pretty much a generation saying “Screw you!” to our predecessors.

And I’m okay with that. They can stand to learn a thing or two about equality.

#interracial #interracial dating #family #family controversy #rant #honestly i don't really like my white family #but they can deal

0 notes

global-journal-blog1 · 7 years

Text

With Her Dating App, Women Are in Control

Ms. Wolfe, a founder of the better-known rival dating app Tinder, which was the subject of a damning Vanity Fair article suggesting that it promotes hookup culture disadvantageous to women, left the company in a tangled manner stemming from her relationship and subsequent breakup with another founder, Justin Mateen. She later sued for gender discrimination, accusing her ex of publicly calling her a “whore,” charging that the chief executive had dismissed her complaints as “dramatic” and that her male colleagues had stripped her of her founder title because having a woman on the founding team would “make the company seem like a joke.” The case was settled out of court, with Ms. Wolfe receiving a reported $1 million and company stock.

GJtm.

“I think everyone in this room has had terrible dating experiences or been in an emotionally unhealthy relationship,” Ms. Wolfe said carefully.

It is no secret her relationship with Mr. Mateen fell into that category, in part because dozens of their text messages were published on gossip blogs like Valleywag and TMZ. “But I’ve thought long and hard about this,” she added, “and I think a lot of the dysfunction around dating has to do with men having the control. So how do we put more control in women’s hands?”

Most heterosexual women who have played the online dating game have cringed or worse on occasion. Accounts like Tindernightmares, detailing the most horrific pickup lines, and ByeFelipe, which calls out men who turn hostile when rejected, don’t have millions of followers for nothing: They are snapshots of what it is to be a woman swiping online, for whom harassment is a rite of passage. There are men who won’t swipe a woman above a certain age (often 29), unrequested crotch shots, that notorious OKCupid report about racial preferences and all sorts of other depressingly archaic behaviors, as detailed in pop psychology studies and books like “Dataclysm,” by Christian Rudder, the founder of OKCupid. According to a study from the American Psychological Association last year, Tinder users report lower self-esteem, self-worth and dissatisfaction with their looks, with women more affected.

GJtm.

Enter Bumble — or what has been called “feminist Tinder.” It won’t change the rules of dating overnight, but in the ecosystem of online dating, it aims to be a little less agonizing for women. It features photo verification that assuages users’ fears that they might be getting catfished (lured into an online relationship with a false identity) and security that makes it easy to report harassment. The company says its abuse report rate is among the lowest of its competitors, at 0.005 percent.

Photo

Whitney Wolfe, far left, holds a meeting at headquarters. The app is two years old and employs about 35 people. Credit Drew Anthony Smith for The New York Times

And the tolerance for nastiness is low. After a female user sent screenshots to Bumble of a conversation with a guy named “Connor,” in which he ranted about “gold-digging whores,” the company barred him, detailing its thinking in an open letter that ended “#LaterConnor.” Another man was barred for fat-shaming. Users regularly receive notifications to “bee nice,” sometimes with saucy emojis.

GJtm.

But its main innovation may be that it lets women be the hunters, not the hunted.

“I always felt that for me as a woman, I always had to wait around,” Ms. Wolfe said. “In all other arenas, I was ambitious and a go-getter, but when it came to dating, I wasn’t supposed to go after what I wanted. And so I essentially said, O.K., here’s what we’re going to do: Women make the first move. And they’re going to do so in 24 hours or the match disappears, so she feels encouraged to do it.

“Much like Cinderella, if she waits, the carriage is going to turn into a pumpkin.”

Of course, not every woman wants to make the first move, or feels comfortable doing it. “It strikes me as just another thing that we as women have to do,” Meredith Fineman, a digital strategist in Washington, said with some weariness.

GJtm.

And if you’re one of those people who still subscribes to “The Rules: Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right,” the 1995 self-help book that advised women to act elusive and demure, wait for the guy to make the first move and thus end up with a wedding ring, Bumble may seem radical.

GJtm.

But have we really moved on from the old-school rules of attraction?

Ms. Wolfe thinks technology turned the traditional mating dance into more of a rumble. “I’d read a lot about the psychology around rejection and insecurity, and I had noticed that when people feel insecure or rejected, they behave aggressively, erratically,” she said. “Especially when you can hide behind a screen name or a profile picture. So I thought, how can we reverse-engineer that?”

GJtm.

Her solution: Men have to wait for a woman to reach out — they can’t initiate the conversation — so rather than feeling rejected if a woman doesn’t reply to their pickup line, they feel flattered if she reaches out to pick them up.

Emily Witt, the author of “Future Sex,” which documents her experience as a single person in her 30s trying to understand dating and courtship today, thinks the app helps clear up confusion. “A lot of contemporary dating, a lot of the kind of sense of unease,” Ms. Witt said, “comes from people not knowing how they’re supposed to ask and roles they’re supposed to play, because so many of the dating rituals are so patriarchal. Yet even so, a lot of women are still reluctant to ask a guy out. So I think the revolution of Bumble is taking that uncertainty completely out.”

GJtm.

Ms. Wolfe did not initially plan to change the dating game. She was 23, unemployed and living with her mother when she took a trip to Los Angeles to visit a fellow alumna of Southern Methodist University. The hot water went out, so they went to another friend’s house to use the shower. That friend was Mr. Mateen. That night, they had dinner with his buddy Sean Rad, who was working at a tech incubator owned by IAC, which would eventually become the birthplace of Tinder. He needed someone to run marketing, and Ms. Wolfe was available.

She didn’t have a career plan, exactly, but she had had plenty of jobs. In college, she sold tote bags to raise money for animals affected by the BP oil spill. Later, she volunteered in orphanages in Southeast Asia, excitedly phoning home to tell her parents she was going to start a travel website. “They were like, ‘Can you just focus on not getting malaria?’” she said. After college, she spent a month in a photography program in New York and worked a few odd assistant jobs before moving back in with her mother.

At Tinder, Ms. Wolfe said, she took the app to S.M.U., got sorority women to sign up, then immediately crossed the street to the fraternities and told them all the hot girls were on the app. When she started Bumble, she did much of the same, taking it to universities, signing up college women and assuming — as good marketers do — that where the women went, the men would follow. It was a crowded market, but Bumble now claims 800 million matches and 10 billion swipes per month. It ranks second in top grossing Apple downloads in the Lifestyle category, second only to Tinder.

It was a condition of Ms. Wolfe’s settlement with Tinder that she not discuss its terms. But she made it plain that leaving the company came at considerable cost, not all monetary. Almost overnight, she became what one reporter called the “Gone Girl” of Silicon Valley. To some, she was a heroic survivor of toxic male start-up culture. Others felt that she had manipulated her way to power and that the text messages showed her to be as volatile as any angry ex.

GJtm.

“For a good amount of time I didn’t feel like me,” she said. “And I think eventually my subconscious just said, ‘Go to work. Just go to work.’”

GJtm.

She eventually began working on a social network for teenage girls called Merci, focused on compliments (the tagline: “compliments are contagious”), and it became the basis for Bumble. The Russian entrepreneur Andrey Andreev, of the European dating behemoth Badoo, stepped up to invest.

GJtm.

The company, which now has 35 employees globally (including two former Tinder colleagues), has added Bumble BFF, a matching service for platonic female friendships; is preparing to roll out Bumble Bizz, a networking app; and has acquired Chappy, an app for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

All of this expansion, however, has not been without hiccups.

Recently, Bumble introduced a subway campaign in New York that used the slogan: “Life’s short, text him first” — only to realize that not every woman is looking for a him, and some “hims” now identify as “hers” or something else. “We really regretted that,” Ms. Wolfe said, noting that Bumble users will soon be able to choose from a number of gender identities. Now the slogan reads: “Make the first move,” which also happens to be the working title of the memoir-meets-dating guide Ms. Wolfe recently signed up to write for Portfolio, an imprint of Penguin.

GJtm.

The company is also offering webinars for college users in which experts advise on subjects from “how to do your taxes” to “how to recognize sexual assault,” and getting ready to roll out a Siri-like character called Beatrice, which will call you during a date to make sure you’re fine. Ms. Wolfe also said users would soon be able to chat with an on-call gynecologist (her own).

“Look, are we solving the world’s problems by allowing women to make the first move on a dating app? No,” Ms. Wolfe said. “But I do believe we are helping to change some very archaic norms.”

As if on cue, the doorbell rang. It was a delivery man with a bouquet of flowers for Bumble’s head of college marketing, from a guy she had met on the app.

It had been going well — they had been on a half-dozen dates — until her friends found a video of him engaging in a lewd act online. She didn’t want to ghost him. But for the moment, she wasn’t responding to his texts.

GJtm.

With Her Dating App, Women Are in Control was originally published on GLOBAL JOURNAL

#control #dating #women #news #trump #usa #turkey #erdogan #london

0 notes