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After ending a long relationship and exploring freedom through short-term romances, the author decides to take a break from dating to discover her own identity. Eventually, feeling a desire for casual intimacy, she returns to Bumble with strict filters and high expectations, meeting a match named Ben who challenges her usual dating patterns.
When I was 48, and just weeks after divorcing the man I’d been with since I was 21, I downloaded a handful of dating apps and began a string of four-month relationships.
As much as I’d craved post-divorce freedom, it turns out I am wired for partnership. I blame my parents, who are in their 80s and still in love. I learned it by watching you, people! After more than two years of repeating this pattern, I needed a break.
I was eager to find out who I was without a partner, so I deleted the apps. For several months, I was mostly content and rarely lonely, but I found myself occasionally feeling frisky. Maybe I just needed a fling? I knew there were apps primarily for finding hookup partners, but they frightened me.
Men who claimed to want relationships were often just after sex; I wasn’t sure I could handle the ones who couldn’t even pretend they wanted more than an orgasm. So, I redownloaded Bumble to see who I could find for some no-strings fun.must have older kids, must respect basic grammar rules, no conservatives, no gym selfiesCan I imagine myself having sex with this person? How about after one drink? After two?
The author with her cat, Mazzy, in 2025.
"My daughter gave her to me to 'babysit' over two years ago," she writes. "She is now babysitting me. "Enter Ben, who was looking for “something casual with the right person. ” He was 49 to my 51 and extremely good-looking.
The old relationship-seeking Amanda may have thought he was too good-looking but the rules were different for fling-seeking Amanda. She was strictly DTF. We started with in-app messaging. I was hilarious and charming, and almost immediately began oversharing, per usual, while Ben replied to my attempts to banter in a monosyllabic, caveman-ish manner the relationship-seeking me would not have tolerated.
I kept my eyes on the prize and ignored his lackluster personality , and agreed to go off-app and start texting directly. Our messages quickly got flirty , and soon we were discussing meeting in person. I was open to it, but cautious, as I was pretty sure that he was lying about a lot of what he had told me.
On the app, Ben said he was from Chicago, but over text said he was from New York. On the app he said he lived in the city, but he texted that he was a real estate developer who was based in Puerto Rico, and that he came into the city every few days for projects.
When I asked for his last name, he told me “Camilo” with one “L.”“I think you spelled your fake name wrong,” I texted, after incessant googling returned no results.
“Why don’t you have any presence on the internet? ” “I don’t bc of my line of work and investors,” he wrote back. Once again, this terrible explanation worked with Fling Amanda but would have sent Relationship Amanda packing. Ben suggested we FaceTime for a “vibe check.
” When he called, he was driving and wearing sunglasses and it was hard to see him clearly. His voice was also puzzling — it sounded whinier and nerdier than I would have imagined the handsome man in the photos’ voice to be.
However, he seemed more approachable than the person in his photos, which put me at ease.
“Love it,” he answered. “You? ”Ben told me he had to work late on the day we’d chosen to meet, so he couldn’t show up until 9 p.m. At 8:30, he texted and said he was “still deep in Queens. ” and would need to push our get-together later.
Sitting around waiting for him felt desperate, so I called it.
“Clearly, we’re both after the same thing” “but let’s reschedule. “ Sure, I had wasted a blow-dry and lengthy eye makeup application, but I knew this was the right move. Six days passed and I didn’t hear from Ben. I wasn’t surprised.
Then, when the weekend rolled around ... Ben said he’d left his phone in New York when he’d returned to Puerto Rico, proving my prior suspicions that this man was full of shit. I played along and agreed to meet him later that night, but this time, it wasn’t sex I was after. Now in reporter mode, I was curious to learn more about the person who was taking me for a complete fool.
After sharing my location with friends, I left to meet Ben at a dimly lit bar near my apartment, which I’d suggested. Empathetic to a fault, I felt like this would be the kind of place where a liar might feel at ease. When I got to the bar, Ben was standing outside, his face lit up by the Saturday night lights of the city.
I took him in and mentally tried to shape his face into the man I’d seen online. It was a stretch. Once we sat down in the bar, the bartender took our order right away, and I resumed my physical evaluation. He wasn’t “Ben from Bumble” hot but he wasn’t ugly.
If he hadn’t been a liar with a blah personality and unsexy voice, I may have even placed him in my after-two-drinks category.
"This selfie was taken on the night of my Bumble date in 2026," the author writes. "I wanted my daughter to see my little heart earring, which is why it is essentially a photograph showcasing my ear. "I suddenly found myself unsure of how to begin the conversation , so I escaped to the bathroom to buy a minute to think. If nothing else, you’ll get a great story out of tonight.
As I made my way back to the bar, I was almost giddy as I thought about uncovering Ben’s story. We might even get tipsy and share a few laughs. When I got back to where we were seated, Ben wasn’t there. I assumed he had gone to the restroom as well.
My purse was still on my chair, and I was annoyed that he hadn’t waited for me to come back.
“Excuse me,” I said to the bartender. “What happened to the man I was with? ”“I’m sorry I left,” he replied.
“It’s not you trust me I just realized I’m not ready to start hanging out on dates you are very attractive and sweet sorry if I made you feel awkward. ”Courtesy of Amanda Zuckerman The bartender took pity on me and told me my martini was on the house, along with the glass of wine I ordered afterward, which he filled to the brim.
Before I left, the bartender explained that his co-worker, who had left for the night but would be back the next day, had recognized my date. I gave my new friend one of the fifties and pocketed the other one. The next day, I dragged my girlfriend with me to the bar for lunch. Over our club sandwiches, I interrogated the co-worker who supposedly knew Ben.
That’s when I learned that his name wasn’t Ben. He didn’t live in Puerto Rico. He wasn’t a real estate developer, but he did manage a popular bar in the city. It seemed nothing he said had been true.investigation using the breadcrumbs that bar employee had offered up.
Unlike my search of “Ben Camilo with one ‘L,’” this one bore fruit. After just a few clicks on my keyboard, I was looking at a video of my date introducing himself using a completely different first and last name.
“Aha! ” I shouted aloud to my empty apartment like I was Sherlock Holmes. I kept googling. Was he married?
Was he a criminal? Why all the lies? I found very little additional information about him.group where New York City women post pictures and names of their suspicious online matches and share stories about their encounters with them. I searched the posts but “Ben” was nowhere to be found — neither his real nor his fake name.
When I went back onto Bumble to see if I could find any more clues about who he was from his profile, I found he had deleted his account. I returned to the Facebook group and began entering the names of other men I’d matched with online, some of whom I’d met up with. So many of them turned up — even one of my four-monthers, who I recognized alongside a red flag emoji and the word “RUN!
” Why hadn’t I joined this group sooner? I’d have saved myself so much time.
Then again, maybe not. My four months with reg-flag-RUN! guy were actually pretty fun, even though he ended up hurting me. If we had crystal balls to tell us who was going to break our hearts, we might never date anyone, as so many relationships end at some point. And doesn’t most of the fun of finding “the one” reside in the search — in the hope?
Like the scratch-off lotto ticket you’re almost sure will end up a loser, but you buy it anyway? Even if Ben had been slightly more handsome, had sounded less like a whiny ’90s comedian and had been a great lover, I don’t see where we’d have gone from there. He was a liar, and no amount of friskiness — or drinks — would have made that acceptable to me.
I’m still not against the idea of a fling while I continue to thoughtfully search for someone who might offer me more than sex, but I am putting some important criteria back into circulation.
“Don’t be a compulsive liar” has been my first addition to my list of wants. When I originally saw the two $50 bills on the bar that night, I’d texted my friends. In my memory, our thread regarding what Ben did that night consisted mostly of the word douchebag and its synonyms. But I recently reviewed that thread and the very first thing I’d written was that I felt sorry for Ben.
Now I remember thatexactly how I felt. I can’t imagine what it’s like to have to pretend I was an entirely different person, especially when representing myself to a potential partner — even a fling. Although the last few years of dating have had their fair share of heartaches, I wouldn’t modify any part of this journey, or modify my identity, in an attempt to fast-track a connection.
Whether I find true love or I don’t, both outcomes will be because I have remained true to myself and have refused to compromise. Note: Names and some identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals mentioned in this essay. Amanda Zuckerman is a writer in New York City. A former community news reporter for The Sun Sentinel, her freelance work has appeared in The Guardian, BuzzFeed and Slate.
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