Real talk, y’all- I can’t stop deleting and then reinstalling dating apps. It’s reached the point that I worry it’s a compulsion. It’s not just the loneliness that drives me back to the apps. It’s that I’ve worked through a shit ton of my demons and I have a healthy amount of love to give. I’m just hoping to find the right girl to give it to. As I write this, I’ve swiped through every woman in DFW on five different dating apps. I just keep telling myself that there is at least one woman out there for me and that she’ll eventually pop up.

Almost every day a woman will direct message me saying that she is intrigued by the tits-and-dick combo but, after The Sex Tornado, I’m not really interested in being someone’s dating experiment. So, I usually just delete their message without responding. However, they often lead with such personal questions about my genitalia that I have started replying to some and asking what their vagina looks like. It’s actually been really fun to turn the tables on them and then, when they are shocked, say “What? I thought we were talking about our private parts?”

About a week ago, J messaged me. She lived out of state and, when I told her that she lived too far away (my standard line for non-DFW women) she said she didn’t mind travelling. Well, the fact that she was gorgeous made it easy to shrug and decide to give long distance a try. I had family that lived in her town so I sent them her profile pic and asked if she was real and/or crazy. They said she looked familiar but they didn’t know her.

J was kinda cagey. I’d ask her a question and she’d sometimes ignore it. Other times she’d change subjects with no rhyme or reason. However, she continued showing interest in me so I chalked it up to her being ditzy or something. Or maybe she had a movie on in the background and was only giving me half her attention. Who knows? I imagine life is easier for women as pretty as her and those supermodel types. They can just phone it in while bitches like me fawn over them.

Yesterday morning I messaged J and explained that I’m a Type A Personality. I was gonna take some initiative in moving things forward. I gave her four choices with bullet points to choose from:

• Video Chat for a first date
• Road trip to the biggest city between us for a first date
• She was too busy to do anything right now
• She wasn’t interested in me.

She chose the road trip date and I did a little happy dance. Then she got, like, really sexual really fast. This happens with most women I match with… apparently only sexually forward women are attracted to me… but it can still be shocking when it comes out of nowhere as fast as it did with J.

So I thought, “OK, this is happening. Let me look at getting a hotel room in the city we’re having the date in.”

What? You’re judging me for putting out on the first date? Umm, I did the whole True Love Waits thing before I married my ex and I can tell you that it wasn’t worth it. Plus, I’m a grown ass woman with physical needs. Also it’s not like anyone my age is a virgin and getting defiled. However, I always make my partners get tested before we do anything. Sorry you had to read this paragraph, mom. I wrote it in the name of journalistic integrity or something.

Anyway, J threw out this really kinky scenario and I was like “Yes, please, but –hey– how about I get a hotel booked first.” Then, as I was looking at hotels on my laptop, she kept going down this intense sexual rabbit hole on my phone that got weirder and weirder until I finally stopped her because I felt totally uncomfortable.

So… yeah. Turns out J is a transwoman. I kinda freaked out at first but, after voicing my frustrations, I did my best to focus on her and calm her down. Then I gave her my phone number so we could talk… but she wouldn’t call me. She was scared and ashamed. The whole time I was talking to her I was trying to figure out how I felt about everything.

After the initial shock, my anger completely disappeared. I felt sad for J. I know what it’s like to be rejected over and over again. I know what it’s like to crush on people and have them tell you that you’re not for them… but that they think you’re going to be a great wife to someone. I know what it’s like to fear living without companionship forever. That fear pushed me to radical honesty, in which I am up front and honest about everything in my life. For J, that fear pushed her into hiding, deceit, and manipulation. We simply had opposite reactions to the same fear.

I went back and looked at her pictures again and, wow, she was still very beautiful. I reached a point that I was like “Fuck it. Let’s do this. You’re still a beautiful woman with a beautiful heart and I’m still a lesbian. What’s the problem?” so we kept messaging, with me harassing J to call me and her repeating the same insecurities over and over again. I finally just threw caution to the wind and let J hear my heart.

She never replied to me. She still hasn’t at the time of my publishing this.

I saw that she was online for about an hour after I sent her that invitation. I guess the fear in her won out, which makes me so fucking sad for her. I’m feeling pretty low, too, if I’m being honest with you. J took me on a rollercoaster ride like I’ve never been on before. I thought we had gotten to a beautiful place together only to look over and see that I was on the ride alone.

I had to delete all of the messages between us because I couldn’t stop checking if she was online. Not creepy and obsessive at all, right? I guess her nickname is The Ghostfish, since she catfished me and ghosted me. At this point, I’m just feeling the same about her that I felt about The One Who Got Away. We could have had something beautiful. I guess is wasn’t meant to be.

My friends tell me that she might not have even been real. Or maybe she was batshit crazy. Or maybe I could have been raped or murdered. I don’t know… and that is what is so crazymaking about getting catfished. How much was real? How much was lies?

Once I get all the shit cleaned up from this mess, I guess I’ll eventually get back to swiping and asking rude women to describe their vaginas to me.