This past weekend, I got back on Tinder.

I had taken a just-under-2-year hiatus.

Now, to be clear, I don’t really have anything against Tinder. In fact, I had a very nice lay not long before I got off of it. We had epic hotel sex and I had no complaints. I even keep in touch with him (he was from out of town). We’ve gotten to be friends.

But after a while I just couldn’t, well, get it up for the app anymore. I matched with all kinds of guys who never messaged me, or with whom I messaged for quite a while before they ever asked me out, or who did ask me out but once we got together it became clear there just wasn’t that much chemistry.

This time, I didn’t really mean to get back on it. It wasn’t a conscious decision, a deliberate weighing of the pros and cons, an intentional exercise in wanting to meet new men or be truly met by someone.

Rather, someone randomly gave me a Tinder Plus or Tinder Select or some such invite. Suddenly I was back on the app, back scrolling through faces and profiles, first names and pictures, washboard abs and bearded dudes on surfboards, men who went to good schools who had linked their Instagram profiles, or not.

Like any good Tinder user, I started judging immediately.

Too douchey-looking, not good-looking enough, too hipster-y, too little info on his profile, too mean of a profile (“please be able to hold a conversation” … “be more than your social media” … “not looking for drama”).

Clever, funny, sarcastic, at-least-somewhat-athletic-looking, open-hearted-seeming men got swipes right.

Far-too-LA-model/actor-y, men with pictures where you couldn’t really see their faces, and serial-killer-looking-y dudes were swiped left.

And after not very long at all, I started feeling that familiar feeling:

Emptiness.

There is a special kind of loneliness that comes from Tindering (at least for me).

It’s not that there are bad guys on the app, or that no one makes an effort, or that the men on it are just out for sex and nothing else (some are, some aren’t, just like in real life).

No, it’s the depressing sameness of the “chill and laidback”, IPA-drinking, “love to travel” parade of mainstream men.

My friends and I call people who aren’t into consciousness work Muggles. It’s not derogatory exactly, just a helpful way for us to distinguish those who are like us from those who aren’t.

Muggles tend to be:

• People who work at tech startups and believe statistics and science are more real than anything else
• People who’ve never been to any kind of therapy
• People who associate their net worth with their self-worth
• People who think they’re fine until they have a breakdown and even then only consider the medical reason for it — not that it likely stemmed from an emotional one (or that it will recur until they deal with the emotional issue underlying it)
• People who make decisions from their heads
• People who’ve never explored how they handle anger, or why they’re passive aggressive when they are
• People who do yoga for the exercise and nothing else
• People who go to Burning Man for the drugs and the sex

Magical people tend to be:

• People who meditate
• People who consider how their relationship with their parents has affected their relationship with the opposite sex now
• People who know their Myers Briggs and/or enneagram type
• People who are familiar with their family of origin “issues” (even if they’re not over them, they’re aware of them)
• People who attend or run workshops
• People who acknowledge there is likely a spiritual reason they’re going through what they’re going through at work, and are open to talking about it
• People who do yoga for both the physical and mindfulness aspects of it
• People who do or have done psychedelics for consciousness purposes
• People mindful of what they’re “working on” in life on an emotional level
• People who understand that their consciousness is powerful and that they create much of their own reality
• People whose shelves are full of books like Wired for Love, Way of the Superior Man, Integral Psychology, The Four Agreements, The Wisdom of the Enneagram

Now, to be clear, I don’t think one group is “better” than the other. I just find that one group is more conscious than the other.

Magical people have problems just like everyone else. They just seem to be more in relationship with them, with their origins, and want to explore them in a different way. Muggles have the same capacity to be “spiritual” as everyone else (everyone has a soul).

I just can’t talk to them about it openly.

Honestly, I’m pretty nervous about talking about this.

I’m pretty nervous some people will read it and think I’m judging them.

I’m pretty nervous I’ll be judged for being one of “those people” who’s into woo-woo shit and doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

I’m saying it anyway.

Because this is part of my shadow. It’s part of where I’m unconscious, and where unconsciousness will run this part of my life unless I get conscious around it.

My unconscious tells me: you’ll never find a man who’s both fuckable and into the same consciousness shit you are.

So my reality on Tinder is: there are no men who are both fuckable and into consciousness shit like I am.

I’m not the only one who does this kind of splitting. Lots of us have beliefs like:

• “I’ll never find a job where I’m well paid and get to do creative stuff.”
• “I’ll never find a place to rent that’s both affordable and in the neighborhood I want.”
• “I’ll never find a guy who’s emotionally available and great in bed.”
• “I’ll never find a woman who’s sexy and emotionally stable.”

Our unconscious tells us we’ll never get what we actually want because it’s impossible, too far out there, too much. That we’re deluded or greedy or selfish or ungrateful for even wanting it in the first place.

At my core, I don’t believe that.

So the real reason I deleted the app is simple: it triggers my fear that I’ll never have my and, and I don’t want to empower that.

In my better moments, in my better conversations, in my better state of mind, I can feel my and. I am receptive and powerful and ready for a man who can really meet me.

In the meantime, I’m swiping left on Tinder.