Online Dating: A Very Biased Review of Tinder, Bumble, OkCupid and Coffee Meets Bagel

"Now where is my bagel?"

Despite being busy with fun stuff like training Brazilian jiu-jitsu and working, I am single and thus receptive of going out on a date every once in a while. And thanks to various mobile apps and online dating services, at times I happen to be dating quite actively.

Online dating used to be weird. I remember the days when it wasn't strange to suggest lying to your families about how you met, if you met your partner online. Today, so much of people's lives happens online, that online dating has successfully claimed its own sweet spot in our collective cyberspace as well. It is no longer much stranger than updating friends on what you ate or what you thought about the latest Marvel movie.

Online dating websites are still alive and well (or so I've heard), but it's online dating apps where it's at these days. I also find most of my dates online. My social circle, although not small by any means, happens to consist of people who are already settled, happily or otherwise. I work from home and spend a lot of time training BJJ, which limits my time and, indeed, opportunity to meet someone new in the wild (although things happen). So I turn to online dating again and again, despite not having much luck with the most popular dating apps out there.

After all, dating is fun, even if it doesn't bring desired results.

Oddly, when it comes to finding people online, I do best with Reddit. I owe Reddit several very close and very treasured friends, several casual relationships and one full-blown ex-boyfriend with whom I don't talk anymore. These are all stories worth telling, but not today.

Great Wolf Lodge: Being Single in These Trying Times

Not sure if you could check into Great Wolf Lodge by accident, but I'd certainly count it as one if you were single - like I am. I can't help but wonder if there's even one more single person staying in the lodge right now. How do you even get here without a ring on your finger and a little cutie-patootie in a pink swimming suit in tow? Or blue swimming trunks. Or waterproof diapers. Or whatever.

There are some 400 suites in the resort, so it is statistically likely that at least some of them contain single people. Single friends. Single moms. Single dads. Single aunties and uncles, perhaps? Third wheels who end up being pillars of support to tired moms and dads ecstatic to be on vacation but equally eager to catch a water slide ride by themselves and not carry the whole 30 pounds of toddler around all the time. Why else come with anyone but your spouse and children?

That's approximately how I feel about my brother and his lovely wife bringing me along. Three adults per one child is the minimum requirement for all involved to have some fun at Great Wolf Lodge - taking turns at fun, perhaps, but fun. Watch the little angel shoot a water gun at other babies while the parents soak in the hot tub; switch places; cannonball down a giant vortex thing; rinse; repeat.

I am genuinely, painfully curious if any single people are present here. I'd like to hang out. Any non-parent with enough patience to be here is someone I'd probably share a beer with. Preferably in a bar. Wouldn't it be nice to have an actual place for adults to go to to have said beer or a glass of wine? But alas - no nightlife at Great Wolf Lodge after hours!

Oh the after hours. The waterpark is shut, the arcade is winding down, all "restaurants" are closed. Kiddies are in bed, exhausted from the day of mayhem, all that splashing and squealing (weeeeeeee!). Dead silence falls all around. The after hours begins... at 9:30 pm or so.

What's a single girl to do?

Well, spoiler alert: nothing really. There is nothing for me to do at Great Wolf Lodge after 9 pm apart from drinking in the room. A bottle of Rioja Reserva 2010 is nice, but boring.

Some friendly company right about now would be so awesome. Someone who isn't already asleep. (Or married.) Since I bet there are some (see above), we could have a nightcap together, if only there was a place for us to go. Not that I'm asking for drunken debauchery opportunities. Just a meeting place.

I like the vibe of Great Wolf Lodge, I really do. The family-friendly theme is valid and exciting. It's great fun with my nephew. But it's also thoroughly nuclear family-oriented and I feel I have no place here, being single and all, unless I leave after the waterpark closes and everyone settles for Storytime.

Maybe I should just take this opportunity to go to bed early myself. That's a rare luxury these days, is it not?