A Real Story

I downloaded Pure about four months after my divorce was final, mostly because a coworker joked that it was “Tinder without the emotional homework.” No bio, no job title, no last name — just a photo, a rough age, and a location radius. You get sixty minutes to chat before the whole thing vanishes, which sounds gimmicky until you’re actually watching a countdown clock while trying to figure out if a stranger is serious about meeting for a drink that night.

The first three matches fizzled exactly like you’d expect — timer ran out, one guy admitted he was still at work and couldn’t leave, another just went silent at the 40-minute mark. Then I matched with someone who suggested a specific wine bar on Congress Avenue, said “table by the window, I’ll wear a green jacket,” and showed up exactly as described. We had two drinks, talked for two hours, and he was funny in a way his four-word bio gave zero indication of. No app timer, no pressure, just an actual person.

We saw each other three more times over about six weeks. It never turned into anything serious, and I don’t think either of us wanted it to at first. What surprised me was that around week five I caught myself wanting it to turn into something, and he very clearly didn’t, which is its own kind of answer. Pure is honest about what it’s for, and the lesson I took wasn’t about the app at all — it was noticing the exact moment my own expectations quietly changed while the app’s stayed the same.

I still have it on my phone. I use it maybe once a month now, and mostly what it’s taught me is to be upfront earlier about what I actually want, instead of letting a green jacket and a good two hours convince me otherwise.