PORTLAND DATING QUESTIONNAIRE

A girl's gotta screen

Feb 02, 2023

[This was rejected by McSweeney’s, so I thought I’d share it here because fuck McSweeney’s for thinking they’re too cool for the room all the time]

PORTLAND DATING QUESTIONNAIRE

Hi, [name of a probably dark-haired, cute, and beardy Portland dude in his late 40s whom I just matched with who’s also already completely wrong for me. But probably Greg, Brian/Bryan, or Matt],

I know we only just matched on [insert name of dating app not actually designed to help anyone find real lasting love], but in the interest of saving ourselves time and a potential HPV diagnosis, I’ve come up with a way to screen potential suitors based on my decade of dating experience in Portland before agreeing to actually meeting them in person.

While many believe it’s just a numbers game and you just have to keep hopelessly swiping, I contend it’s not the app, but your local dating pool that’s the problem. And at almost 54, my dating pool is really more like a rusty thimble half-full of rancid standing bongwater.

So you couldn’t really blame a cishet lady (who’s seen more than her share of profiles with guys standing in a river holding fish or sitting in the front seat of their cars looking like human thumbs wearing Oakleys) to be more than a little self-protective and selective for all of the right reasons. Because Portland.

Do you have any diseases I can catch & potentially die from?
Are you an alcoholic not in recovery who plans to never stop drinking?
Same as 2 but substitute “addict”
Do you regularly use drugs harder than weed & choose to do that over getting to hang out with an awesome woman?
Are you essentially or literally homeless (and not in the cool Instagram “van life” way)?
Do you see a therapist who makes all your life decisions for you, like you should stop dating someone even though you really like her?
Are you unemployed? If yes, are you looking for a job? If no, do you have some long-winded justification that sounds like you’re going to do something but it just hides your laziness?*
Are you selling your own plasma as a way to pay your bills?*
Have you ever accepted money in exchange for sex?*
Do you have your own source of transportation? If not, can you afford a Lyft for yourself to anywhere so I don’t always have to drive you?*
Do you have roommates?
Do you have roommates you’ve slept with?
Do you have roommates you’re currently sleeping with?
Do you have any weird sex things that you consider dealbreakers if another person isn’t into them?*
Do you pretend you don’t have a weird dealbreaker sex thing and then try to do that weird dealbreaker sex thing in the middle of sex without your partner’s consent?*
Do you have an ex who still has some sense of ownership of your balls?*
Do you share a child with an ex so she can always call you on “her” days at the last minute to make you take the kid(s) & ruin your plans with the new woman you’re seeing?*
Do you have an ex you still see because you share a pet, and oops you just always hook up every time she drops it off?
Have you ever shown up at a woman’s house uninvited late at night after she’s repeatedly told you she doesn’t want to see you?
Have you ever refused to share your HIV status/history of STDs and then also refused to wear a condom?
Have you ever dated a woman for a few weeks, told her you really liked her, and then decided to call her & break up with her while she was on her way to meet up with you?
Have you ever promised a woman that you were hooking up with at work that you wouldn’t hook up with anyone else that you were both working with, and then you hooked up with someone else you were both working with anyway?*
Have you ever told a woman that you just had the best sex of your life with her and then never called her again?*
Have you ever borrowed money from a woman and then tried to weasel out of paying her back?*
Are you an emotionally unavailable robot hiding beneath a human form, devoid of and/or scared off by human feelings? (this is really all of you btw)
Did your spouse die within the past month?
Have you ever asked somebody out who had completely opposite political beliefs from you, but pretended you believed the same things just to get them to go out with you because you thought being a single woman over 50 means “desperate and will just settle at this point”?
Do you take out all of your unresolved hostility against your mother and your exes on every woman you date?
Are you still in love with your ex-wife? If so, have you ever invited her to hang out in a place where you know the woman you’re currently dating will also be?
Have you ever created an entire religion around fetishizing Anne Frank?
Were you in a coma within the last three months?
Are you proud of deceiving women?

*Please keep in mind that more than one of the following questions may apply to one person, because Portland, and honesty counts because I’ll just find out what a freak you are at some point anyway, usually within those make-or-break six-to-eight weeks of dating threshold.

If you’ve answered “yes” to any of these questions, I’ll probably just delete this app without responding for the billionth time this week, because Portland.

Ok thanks, and since we’ll probably never speak, let alone meet, best of luck in your search in this garbage fire of a dumpster city!

Tara

Tara Dublin Is Trying to Sell Her Book to Hollywood!

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