Grind her? I hardly know her...

I would be remiss if I blogged about the misadventures of dating in Chicago and excluded the ever-popular app, Grindr. Knowing that many of my loyal readers are that of the "straight" variety, I figured I'd take time to explain Grindr!

Grindr is 100% location based, and is only for the gay (male) community. You post your photo, you post a witty tagline, and you log-in to see who is near you. Whether or not you want to know who is around you...

I know that you're dying to know what my profile looks like.

Too bad. You're too far away from me.

Just kidding. My Grindr picture is a classy, shirt-on, you-can-see-my-face, photo of me.

Let's break down that sentence, because, unfortunately, it needs being broken down.

"Classy": We see a wide variety of non-classy pictures on Grindr. Because it's an apple app, it has to remain PG-13, but somehow to gays have a way to get over that. I'd go into more detail, but I encourage you to just use your imagination.

Sorry, James. You've made my blog.

"Shirt-on": I just opened my Grindr, and will note that among the 100 guys that I can see tonight, 26 don't have a shirt on. It's kinda like going to the beach, except most of the people with their shirt off should REALLY consider putting their shirt back on.

This one lost his arms, too!

"You-can-see-my-face": In addition to shirtless, many of them are headless. Never in my life have I met so many casualties of some war in which their shirt and head were taken. It's a shame. Of the headless torsos, you then have a few varieties. 1) The Butterfaces. (She's got a great body, but her face....)  2) The secret gays. (SHHHH. Don't tell my wife that I'm on this. Dude. She probably saw that you have a random orange app on your phone that keeps buzzing... And now that she reads my blog, she knows what that app is for. Busted.)  3) Put a shirt on. And a bag over your head. (the worst variety)

"Photo of me": You didn't think I was going to break this down, but note that many put photos of the sunset, their dog, some ecards, or a very-close-up shot of their armpit. I kid you not, these show up, right now, in my closest 100. In no other dating app could people get away with pictures of anonymous objects. Usually when these guys message me, I reply with something along the lines of "OMG I DIDN'T KNOW A SUNSET HAD AN IPHONE?!?" This is why I'm single.

My personal favorite: When the picture is a guy with his dog, I usually ask "Which one are you". I'm prettttttty sure they block me.

Then, you have some space for a quick blurb. Mine is "My love life is like my iPhone 5. I do not have an iPhone 5". With that witty little ditty, I get tons of messages from my 3 mile radius pals who offer to buy me an iPhone 5. Someday, I'm going to take one up on that offer.

The past 3 weeks, I have gone on 10 dates off of Grindr. And I hesitated to blog about this, but the more I considered it, the more I realized that it's becoming more of a "thing that we do".  These have usually been coffee dates, or meeting at the bar the next night for a drink. (I did this last night, and it went incredibly well!) I also have been using Grindr as I search for a new apartment in Boystown, just to see how the electronic view is...

The tricky part of navigating this app is weeding through those looking for only one thing. SEX. That problem probably exists with most straight and gay dating services, but knowing that there is someone literally 450 ft away from you cruising the interwebs to find sex is a little creepy. Especially when you see him at the gym tomorrow.

We've come a long way as a community from previously being deprived of even knowing who was gay in your family to knowing everyone who is gay in your 3 mile radius. It's impressive that we are able to embrace such an app in our community. Yeah, it takes away from the "you're cute, let me buy you a drink" and the "OMG, it's raining, and I have an extra umbrella just for you", but I have many friends in my circle that have met off Grindr, and they haven't been chopped to pieces yet....

My final word of warning, for my gay friends who read my blog. When, on the dance floor at Scarlet, you find yourself logging into Grindr to see where the nearest gays are, LOOK UP FROM YOUR PHONE. They are all around. If we get too consumed in this app to find love amongst the shirtless, headless photos of sunsets, we lose the ability to make true connections with those around us.

Joe Fox (RE: You've got Mail)