A Real Story

I joined POF eight months after my divorce because it was free and I wasn’t ready to pay for the apps that felt like they were trying to sell me a spouse. The first week was rough — guys named their profiles after their trucks, one man’s entire bio was just tire pressure recommendations, and I got a message that said ‘sup’ at 2am four nights in a row from the same person. I almost quit. I actually had the app open to the delete-account screen when a notification popped up.

His message referenced the Nick Drake song lyric in my profile, the one line from ‘Pink Moon’ I’d quoted half-jokingly because I hadn’t listened to that album since a boyfriend in 2009. He didn’t say anything about my photos. He just asked if I still owned it on vinyl or if that was aspirational. That was it — one line, and I actually laughed out loud in my kitchen. We messaged back and forth for four days before he asked to meet, which felt slow and deliberate in a way that felt like a relief after the 2am guy.

We met at a diner called Grounds for Change that’s since closed, and he showed up fifteen minutes early with a chipped front tooth from a childhood bike accident and ordered pie before coffee, which I found weirdly endearing. He told me later he’d sent maybe six messages total on the whole app because he refused to send anything generic — he’d rather send nothing than send ‘hey beautiful.’ Fourteen months later he still keeps a running list on his phone of songs he thinks I should hear, and I still can’t believe the app that gave me a week of tire-pressure guys also gave me him.