Sixty minutes before my date is set to arrive and I begin doing crunches on the pink area rug in my office. Jhona brings his ball upstairs and plunks it down a few feet away from me. He stares with huge eyes in the dark hallway. I’m feeling calm and a little uncertain as I…
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I'm an Associate Professor in the School of Health Studies at Western University in London, Ontario. An anthropologist who works with sex workers, people with HIV/AIDS, and Indigenous populations, my special research interests include sexuality, gender, and the politics of health. Along with academic writing and activism, I regularly write social media articles about sexuality, relationships, dating, and popular culture. I'm currently working on a memoir that explores my hilarious, humbling, and sometimes harrowing dive into the darker side of dating apps. I live with my cats Elliott and Jhona in London, Ontario. Yoga, art, reading, cooking, and finding new ways to experience the world are some of my favourite things to do.
Trick or Treat, smell my feet, give me someone good to meet!
While sweeping scattered kitty litter into a neat granular pile on the laminate floor in the back room of my house, I consider my options for how to let down the guy I’ve been talking with. “Talking with” is now a synonym for dating, but with the smallest dick energy and lowest erotic frequency in…
Read MoreChapters of Life – Part 1
My sabbatical has been a bit of a blur so far, PHEW! Amid responding to the crisis unfolding at Western University related to sexual and gender-based assaults, I’ve had several academic and public articles on the go alongside my on-going efforts to secure a literary agent for my memoir. More than one agent has expressed…
Read MoreEpic Dating Fails & Scary Tales From My Lame Girl Summer
A few months ago, when it seemed safe to imagine the light at the end of the lockdown tunnel, we were told the hot girl summa was ours. The memes were exploding, and we thought our bodies would be too, beside and inside one another instead of alone or through a screen. Researchers and writers…
Read MoreMy Book is My Boyfriend
We’ve gone from using dating apps as the customary order of business to swiping for solace. Technically we are using them like we did in the before times, but the circuitry in the platforms and in our bodies is confused. I cringe when that guy sends a message, dreading the endless small talk. But then he…
Read MoreWalking into Myself
“Your life is a movie, I swear,” one of my students said in a recent text conversation about post-pandemic travel, dating, and Italian men. We were discussing the bland Tinder offerings in our respective phones and how disinterested people seem to be in talking to one another. My roster has the photos of thirteen men,…
Read MoreTelling Tall Tales: Being Catfished on My First Pandemic Date
Having recently departed a relationship, I’ve been mulling over a lot of things. One specific thought that keeps floating through my mind is whether I can stomach being on a dating app again. Just thinking about it makes my digestive system turn and not in a fluttering butterflies way. Weighing the fleeting chance of sexual…
Read MoreThe Trolley
Trigger warning: this article discusses subjects that may be difficult for readers. The topics include suicide and young death. My thoughts have slowed since yesterday afternoon when he left for the last time. They trail behind me like washed up buoys I thought I had disposed of, becoming more tangled with each waking hour. How…
Read MoreRosewater & Food
I adore the look of turbans that are worn by Sikhs and other cultural communities for various religious and practical reasons. I also love them as a fashion item, a pinnacle of refinement. Elizabeth Taylor comes to mind, who donned them often in the 1960s-70s. Those sparkling violet eyes, a sea of gemstones glimmering on…
Read MoreUnder the Bloom
Today starts with the customary 5 am wake-up call from Elliott, which I pretend to ignore in a futile attempt to stretch out the inevitable. I like when she and Jhona gather with me in the dark, stepping on my body like bedroom adventurers claiming their territory. We communicate in chirps, meows, and love. Once…
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Treena Orchard 