Tag Archives: the hairpin

Dear Fancy: The Deep Cuts

So, as you may know, I have an advice column called Dear Fancy, formerly of the Hairpin, now on Jezebel. This piece of advice got cut from a recent column since this kind of advice is found in myriad places over the internet, but I thought readers of Chronderlust might enjoy it! Let me know what you think in the comments.

Dear Fancy,

I just started dating this amazing guy who I met on OKCupid. When people ask how we met, I get a little embarrassed to say “online.” Should I come up with a meet-cute story or is it socially acceptable to say “we met on the internet” these days?

Signed,

OKStupid

Dear OK,

In an informal poll of my highly fun and extremely sexually desirable friends, I found that about 100% of the ones who aren’t dating/married to someone they met either in school or as friends who blossomed into Something More have tried online dating and had some success with it. I also found that approximately 92% of them were somewhat embarrassed by this. Pretty much everyone does online dating (including me!), but we’re all a little secretive about it.

Look, dating is weird in general, and it’s the last facet of our lives we consider mildly embarrassing to do online. Unlike selling your handmade fingerpuppets on Etsy, you’re writing up a description of yourself and picking out your best pictures, tacitly saying, “Hey, largest bar in the entire world, I’m really looking to find someone to love me, even though I’m not perfect.”

That’s scary, but it’s also incredible. You have access to tons of people who could be great for you who are also looking for the same thing. This means you don’t have to settle for the only guy in your social group who isn’t taken by default, and that is a luxury no previous generation of inhabitants of Spaceship Earth have had. Embrace it.

You met a great guy your friends didn’t know already, and if it weren’t for the magic of the interconnecting series of tubes, you probably never would have gotten the chance to do so. Most couples who don’t meet online have super boring stories (“she was in my algebra class” or “we hated each other in high school and he kind of grew on me in our mid-twenties”), so let go of the rom-com ideal of locking eyes with a hot bus driver as you get splashed by a huge puddle on the way to a job interview and searching for each other all over Cleveland. Tell the truth and grin about it. When someone asks how you met, say, “We met on Tinder and I couldn’t swipe right fast enough. I mean, look at him.” I guarantee you that person will say, “Oh! My sister met her husband on JDate!” and not, “What’s wrong with you?”

Yours in Love,

Fancy

Fantasy Life Update: I’m Published!

Uh, yeah, I took a screenshot of the brief moment I was on the front page of Cosmopolitan. I'm very cool.

Uh, yeah, I took a screenshot of the brief moment I was on the front page of Cosmopolitan. I’m very cool.

In the last couple weeks, I’ve gotten a couple pieces of great news for my freelance work. Little bitty ole Chronderlust led to my new column on the Hairpin, Ask A Fancy Person. and a job as the society reporter for Charleston City Paper. Someone passed that along to an editor at Cosmopolitan, and I had my first piece published there this week! I couldn’t be more excited about these fun things I’m getting to do and write about. Thanks so much for reading Chronderlust, and keep your eyes peeled for more of my writing around the web and in print! I wouldn’t get to do any of this if you weren’t reading this here.

Lazy Sunday: 31 March

Happy Easter, if you’re doing that today. Happy Day-Before-Half-Priced-Chocolates if you aren’t. Enjoy these either way.

  • Do I need a $200 padded bra dryer? Maybe.
  • The Culture Kitchen didn’t make it, but as Good points out, this would be easily reproduced in many, many places. Let’s do it, shall we?
  • Foppish boys, ignore the mean comments! 2013 is the Year of the Well-Dressed Man!
  • Again from the New York Times blog, but this time about antiquarian books in Canada.
  • I am not going to complain in April. Join me! I’m serious.
  • I have a low-grade permacrush on Rob Lowe and a serious-business hatred of the word “literally” so I don’t know what to do with this.
  • Hello, youth of France? Are you okay? I’m worried.
  • Oh, I just…I…yes. This. Trip Advisor, you’re on notice, I guess.
  • Mississippi, my former home, is like a trashy cousin. I can make fun of her, but if you do, I will gut you like a fish. Leave me alone, The Onion.
  • Short and excellent fiction. FO FREE FIFTY.
  • This sums up most of my unreasonable fears pretty nicely.

Read away, babies.

Lazy Sunday: 24 March

I’m on vacation still, so I’m leaving you these things to read in my absence:

  • When I’m hideously rich, all my presents will come from here, so begin currying favor with me right now.
  • I disagree with the fatshaming they’re doing with these ads, I DO agree that soda is really, really bad for you, and not all of them are like that. Your thoughts?
  • North Korea hates Hillary Clinton.
  • I’m not surprised by this, but also unnerved that Google knows all kinds of stuff about me.
  • Kate Moss is reads (kinda NSFW).
  • BEFORE THEY WERE STARS: JD SALINGER AS YOU’VE NEVER SEEN HIM BEFORE.
  • Kids from around the world have neatly organized their favorite things. Please look.
  • How to spot the ax murderer in your book club.
  • If you don’t read Anne Helen Petersen‘s Scandals of Classic Hollywood, you’re doing yourself a disservice.
  • The romantic comic book anthropologist’s blog is back!

So, what are you reading this weekend?

Do they make rubber bracelets for people who can’t stop eating peanut butter cups?

If so, please consider donating to the fund to continue my habit. If not, look at this lady who uncovers frauds who get people to actually do what I just described (i.e., give money to strangers who pretend to have diseases but are actually just fine). The fact that this exists only furthers my fascination with Munchausen’s by Internet, which started with this article.