Well Shit, I Just Broke My Wrist

Well I had the unfortunate happen, I broke my wrist.

And while I'd like to think that I could tell you an epic tale of how I was doing something amazing, in reality… I fell over at home.

So how did it happen?

Was it a comical affair of slipping on a banana peel? Had I just finished my last glass of cheap red wine? or given that it’s Halloween today did a wild-eyed spectre suddenly materialise in front of me, shocking me to my very core?

No. I was wearing the wrong socks.

You see, the socks that I was wearing (and mind you, these are my favourite socks) it turns out have about as much grip as lightly melted butter floating on rapidly melting ice, as I found out far too late.

So, where I was a moment before happily vertical, suddenly I was lying on the floor, freshly bruised. With my ego beaten a little, and plenty of adrenaline running through my system, I stood up looked at my rather out of shape right arm and said a single word:

Fuck

Now on initial reaction, you might think this is because of the sheer amount of pain that I would've been experiencing having just freshly broken my wrist.

But not quite.

See I've made it 44 years of my life without having broken a single bone in my body—which personally I was quite proud of.

Well it looks like my luck has run out finally, once and for all.

Now the biggest issue is that I live alone. I'm single, and this poses a massive problem for any kind of injury which inhibits you from being able to look after yourself.

Luckily it wasn't too late in the evening, and I had a dear friend that I could call to drive me to the hospital.

Long story short, I have to return to the hospital tomorrow morning to have my broken wrist reset as they weren't able to do it overnight in the emergency department.

And as you can expect, I can't say that I'm really looking forward to having to have my wrist reset, let alone the healing that goes along with it.

It’s got me thinking about the fragility of being single, living alone, and how for the next 6 to 12 weeks I’m going to have what I’d like to affectionately refer to as a motherfucker of a time.

The idiotic art of being single at 44

It's not like I'm single by choice, or for the lack of wanting a partner, but right now in my current circumstances this is how I find myself.

Yes, yes, I'm on the dating apps. But as it turns out dating after 40 is a bitch.

Some of you who are reading this might question whether it's a lack of good looks which holds me back from finding a partner. Far for me to say that I am good looking, but I feel like I do alright by conventional standards.

The truth of the matter is that dating in 2024 is a difficult thing, and one that I'm sure isn't only related to age.

Tinder, Hinge, Bumble, OKCupid, eHarmony, and all of the other numerous dating platforms that exist have irrevocably changed the game.

And sadly, for the worse.

These platforms don't actually want you to find a partner as much as their advertising will tell you otherwise. After all, it's not in their best interest to have you leave the platform a happy and well rounded individual, who's found a wonderful partner, never to return.

Because how do you charge the wallet of a person who doesn't use your service? Well, you don't. Plain and simple.

Instead, you use a combination of psychological gating, refined marketing tactics, and immaculate timing to show a person just enough of the almost–but–not–quite–right–people to keep them suckling at the digital teat that you offer them every minute of every day.

Now while this might sound like a rather nihilistic way to view modern dating apps, it is nevertheless the truth.

In some part we can thank the world for being plunged into a global pandemic for this, because while it was impossible to leave your home, dating apps flourished.

And not just financially. If you were single and had little else to do, then you'd probably used your chosen dating apps far more often.

It was an exercise in pure data collection.

So what is the idiotic part you maybe asking?

The idiotic part is that we single folk have all become rather over familiar using dating apps as a way to meet people. So much so that often the thought of meeting the love of your life at a local event — or even a bar — is so foreign to us now it's almost offensive.

Look, I'm the first person to tell you that I haven't had the greatest of track records with relationships. I'm fairly recently divorced after all.

But the last two years of using dating apps on and off has made it rather apparent to me that it's more difficult now than ever to find a partner.

And this isn’t isolated to only me.

If you go searching on the web for this exact issue you're going to find many, many stories from just as many people who are having the same experience. Male, female, and all the spectrums of gender and non-binary.

There's a joke on some subreddits that to win at dating apps is simple.
You only have to follow rules one and two after all:

Rule 1: Be attractive.
Rule 2: Don’t be unattractive.

And while this initially sounds hilarious to the casual reader, it in fact is more of an indicator that the wider experience on dating apps is absolutely fucking terrible.

This may not be entirely the reason why I find myself single…
(but it sure doesn't help).

The other truly idiotic thing here is that usually I rely on myself for everything, and while that's grand and all, it does sharply highlight to me the fact that if I wasn't single then maybe, just maybe the next short period of my life wouldn't suck quite so much.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not just looking for a person as another set of hands while I only have one, not at all.

But I can't ignore the fact that it would relieve some of the pressures of being injured.

So what's the prognosis?

Well, in a few hours, I'll return to the hospital. Sit once again in the emergency department, then undergo the treatment to reset my wrist.

When this happens, if I'm very lucky, I won't need surgery.

I'd cross my fingers, but right now (at least on one hand) that proves rather excruciating.

So, wish me luck dear reader, I'll probably need it.

P.S Thank the powers that be for speech-to-text, and for not also breaking my left hand.