The Bee-Ginning: an introduction to the author(s) of Sticky, Sexy, Sad

I have my hands suspended over the keyboard, contemplating how many cherry-picking puns I should use within my introduction to Sticky, Sexy, Sad – a blog turning book about the yellow-and-black-winged Cupid alternative, Bumble. Placing my affinity for word play aside, how should I start to tell you about myself and my sticky, sexy and sad experiences within this particular digital dating realm (cough, hive)?

Before we get into the thick of the stick, I want to be clear about a few things because this blog is blunt and it’s, in large part, by and about me. One thing I think we can all admit is that anyone being totally transparent, in our increasingly filtered lives, makes us uncomfortable, and those icky sensations of discomfort can metastasize into really negative feelings (cue the onslaught of fur-knuckled trolls).

While this blog is meant to challenge society’s notions of modern dating, it’s not supposed to scream at you through your screen and demand you shape-shift to check off the ever-shrinking how-to boxes that, more and more, are teaching us to abandon happy evolution for fleeting validation. So, in order for us to start off on the right foot, I want you to know this blog is not being penned by a bitter old cat lady, hunched over her typewriter, here to heckle the fastest growing means of finding a partner. I know online/phone dating have been necessitated by the modern world, and I’m not here to bash it, but I am also not here to pretend it’s all coming up honeysuckles either (bee pun).

The stories you’re going to find within Sticky, Sexy, Sad will, hopefully, amplify multiple perspectives. I don’t want this to be so much just a memoir of me and my experiences, but rather, a project that empowers people – of every lived experience – to realize when they look at their phone or computer screen and audibly ask their walls, “What the fuck?” that they – you – are not alone. Actually, you are not only just not alone, you’re a part of the majority. And, let’s be honest, lowly worker bees or not, that realization should terrify as much as it comforts us.

A lot of what you’re going to read will come from the mind and (potty) mouth of a woman, in her forties, who has all her shit together – she is smart, successful and, not shy or ashamed to admit, sexy AF (don’t get me started on women’s forced falsified self-loathing just yet).

Because of my background in academics and anthropological research, I’ve brought a 20-something along for the ride to help maintain the balance between dissertation and drama; social science and satire; and big ideas and digestible banter. Sometimes, you may even notice this little bee slipping in her own personal horror stories for your perusing pleasure. Because, let’s admit it, when it comes to love and sex – the stickier the better.

Now that I (we) have blithered on about the brains behind this sweet operation, I guess we should begin where many stories do: at the beginning. So, hold your breath until next Friday, and prepare for a completely new type of dating blog that not only looks at the good, bad and sad of the narrator’s romantic life, but extends the experiences of many with hard facts about how “feminist” sex and dating platforms, like Bumble, are making both men and women feel like…soil.