My Wikipedia Got Me Kicked Off a Dating App: on Being Ensnared by What Was, and the High Cost of Hope

The past is never dead. It’s not even past. All of us labor in webs spun long before we were born, webs of heredity and environment, of desire and consequence, of history and eternity. — Faulkner

I have been laboring in the web of consequence for a long time. Perhaps, it is time to shift how I labor.

Two scenes.

One:

“Have you ever been arrested?”

My children and their mother are off to Europe this week. (My finances do not permit me to join them, but I am thrilled they are going. Heloise will be staying on for a brief study program in Spain, where she can further improve her Spanish.) Eira felt that it would be very nice if we all got the Global Entry card, which allows returning Americans to bypass at least some of the formalities at passport control. The card requires a small fee, an application, and an in-person interview with an officer from Customs and Border Protection.

Last Monday, Heloise and her mama did an early morning interview with CBP at their offices near the airport. I took David for an afternoon slot. We brought our passports, and after a brief wait, were summoned to a kiosk to speak with an armed and uniformed officer. David’s application was speedily approved, though the officer did make a joke that the Global Entry card could be revoked if my son does not get at least a B in math next year.

The joke over, the fellow opens my application on his screen. He stares at the screen a long time, and then sighs. He asks me that question about being arrested. I know perfectly well I cannot dissemble. He already knows the answer; this excruciating process is a test of my willingness to tell the truth.

“Yes sir, I have.”

The rule when speaking to authorities in these situations is the standard one: always be respectful and friendly, but do not volunteer information. He asks me a “Yes or No” question, and so perhaps an unadorned “Yes” will suffice.

“How many times?”

Now, it gets tricky. Not every arrest leads to a charge. Not every charge leads to a conviction. I decide he can probably see everything, so I give him the everything answer.

“Four, I think. Sir.” (None of the arrests were for anything related to sexual misconduct, and that’s as much as I’m going to say.)

I am conscious that my son, standing next to me, is very still.

“Approximate dates, charges, and disposition in each instance, please.” I curse myself for having thought it was a good idea to apply for Global Entry. I try to avoid background checks. I certainly would never have imagined, however, they’d ask me about my past in front of my thirteen-year-old.

You absolute fool, letting your son see this.

The officer asks about brushes with the law – all many years in the past – and I answer. The torture lasts about fifteen minutes, and of course feels five times as long. David remains silent throughout, staring straight ahead, uncharacteristically solemn.

Finally satisfied, the CBP officer asks briefly about my dual citizenship (UK and USA), and sighs again. “David, you’re good for Global Entry. Hugo, you’ll get an email tonight telling you about next steps. Good luck to you both.”

My son and I are silent on the way to the parking lot. Finally, I apologize that he had to hear all that, and he stops me, hugs me tight. We both cry, just a little.

The email that comes tells me I am denied for Global Entry but am welcome to appeal. That will require more money, as well as certified copies of all arrest and court records. There will be no appeal, of course. Sometimes, you must accept that you are ensnared in the web of consequence and stop struggling against the strands that hold you fast.

Two:

Early this past Saturday, I open up my dating app, the one I’ve been on since early April. The screen is black, with white lettering: “This account has been banned. For more information, click here.”

I click the link, confused. It turns out that I have indeed been banned from this popular dating app for unspecified reasons, but I am welcome to submit a query. I do, and 48 hours later – this morning – I get my answer. I have indeed been banned, and it is permanent. The wording is careful, but it is clear I am not being stricken from the rolls for any abuse of the terms of service. I did not send an inappropriate photograph, engage in racial or misogynistic abuse, or stalk anyone. I did not impersonate someone else or ask for money. Yet my profile was reported by “multiple users,” and the app has decided that my membership must end.

It is scary, to be a woman on the dating apps. There are all sorts of creeps out there, predators of all stripes just looking for an easy mark. A smart woman Googles her potential dates. Even if she doesn’t know a last name, she can run a “reverse image search” or type in other identifying facts. She wants to know that the man who wants to take her to coffee is who and what he claims to be.

My friends, you can Google me if you please. You can see that the first response is my Wikipedia entry. And you can figure out what happens when your average sensible, savvy woman encounters that summary of my past. Most just cut off contact altogether. A few polite ones explain their disquiet, and with apologies, say they’ve changed their minds about meeting. I know the formula they invariably use: “I know people can change, and I know I could be missing out on something great, but I need to trust my instincts here. I’m so sorry.” I always reply that there’s no need to be sorry -- and say that I wish them nothing but the best of luck. A gentleman is defined by how well he deals with disappointment, and I intend to be a gentleman to the bitter end.

A few users, of course, regard it as their obligation to report my profile to the app’s administrators. They send a screenshot of the Wikipedia entry, or some other old article from the Daily Mail or Los Angeles Magazine or theDaily Beast. Dating apps are keenly aware that in certain circumstances, they can be held liable for user misconduct. If more than one user sends them my Wikipedia or the like, the sensible thing is to err on the side of caution and remove this once colorful and troubled man from the ranks. This happened to me with OKCupid many years ago, and it happened with this new app today.

The email from customer service invites me to do a higher-level appeal, but I am not sure it’s worth trying. In Faulkner’s stories, lots of people fight desperately to escape the web of consequence – and as you probably know if you remember your high school American Lit class -- they almost invariably fail. To cut your way out of the web you need a lot of rage or a lot of hope. A gentleman is not permitted the former, and I am too tired and discouraged to muster much of the latter.

I will still date, surely. I have already met some lovely women, and we are safely in touch off the app. There are always a few who are willing to look past so dismal a track record, ignore the warnings of their concerned friends, and take a chance on a coffee, a stroll, or even a kiss with a man with a reputation as appalling as mine.

I may still date, but I am tired of trying to pretend that I can ever slip from this snare of my own devise. I am tired of pitching myself to potential clients, only to have them run the background check or do the internet search, and decide – always, always, so apologetically -- that they “need to go in a different direction.” Even those who decry cancel culture are litigation averse – and they believe, as all the very sensible boys and girls believe – that the best predictor of future conduct is past behavior. It’s really unfortunate, Hugo, we’re so sorry. Keep at it, though! We’re sure the opportunities will come… just not with us.

Well-meaning friends tell me that this will change if I stop writing about my past. It is pretty (and naïve) to think that shutting up about what was means that the world will only pay attention to what is. That’s not how the Internet works, my dears. I could write only about tariffs or Pentecostalism or the rise of the Plantagenets; I could write funny, wry, fiction. I could try to “flood the zone” so that my Internet search results are all recent. I have tried just that, but Wikipedia and The Atlantic and the Los Angeles Times tend to trump Substack musings in the search results. My problem is not that I write about the past obsessively, but that regardless of what I do, my past is still very alive. It is not my own recent words that cost me Global Entry or a chance to swipe on the apps. It is not my own current words that cost me writing gigs. I am ensnared by my past.

You may be sympathetic to me, but you also know that you don’t want to stop exercising that very same “common sense” that Customs and Border Protection, dating websites, and potential clients all exercise. The world is a scary place. Many people pretend to change, but don’t. There are more fish in the sea, so why not pick one a little less scarred? There are other charming men on the apps. There are other ghostwriters. Global Entry is a privilege, not a right. We want our daughters to be prudent with the men they date. We want our companies to be judicious about the employees they hire. And it certainly seems as if the government is giving more scrutiny to the question of who gets to come into this country unchallenged! If you didn’t know me, and just paper-screened me? You’d pass too. Just the smart thing to do.

Unless something changes substantially, I will be returning to Trader Joe’s next month. I will stop paying for my website. I will still write where I can, and I will still gladly accept writing opportunities when offered. I cannot support my children on a retail worker’s salary. I will hustle on the side however I can. What I will stop is the networking, the glad-handing, the attempting to build connections that could perhaps lead to more opportunities. I do not say I am quitting because I am bitter. I am quitting because dashed hopes accumulate, and lately, they have come not as single spies but as battalions. Most dangerously of all, those accumulated rejections become defining. Too many disappointments will lead to despair, and despair can lead to ideation, and ideation? Unmonitored, it can lead to the breaking of the promise that must not be broken.

When I was at Trader Joe’s --- in late 2018, at the height of #MeToo -- a small group of folks on the Internet wrote to my employer. They sent the Wikipedia and the newspaper articles. Was this someone who should represent the company? One afternoon, my store captain called me into the back. He showed me the complaints and passed along the comforting message from corporate: “We see nothing in his past that precludes Hugo from being a great crew member. We will judge him on his performance here and nothing else.” I shook my captain’s hand with gratitude and wept in the crew restroom.

The web of consequence has sealed many doors and blocked many paths. A grocery store – one famous for its warm and fun atmosphere – decided it would leave the door open. I am someone worthy to stock cans of beans alongside my friends. What a wonder that is! Who am I to think that I am to be anything other than a worker among workers, a bagger among baggers, a cleaner of toilets alongside my fellows? My choices mean my name belongs on a badge pinned to my shirt, not on the cover of a book. That’s not self-pity, friends, even if it makes you wince to read it. That’s an acceptance of the reality that we have in a world that is prudent.

A gentleman goes where he is welcome. I am not bitter that I am trapped by my past, nor am I bitter that ever-so-sensible people make decisions to go in those proverbial different directions. I am not accused of what I did not do. I am not an innocent man. Yet even in my guilt, even in the snares of my choices, I can still be kind, I can still be cheerful, I can still work hard. I can still be an excellent friend and an adequate father.

What I cannot continue to do is hope that it will ever be otherwise. If you are generous and kind, you will stop asking me to do so.

I do not charge for subscriptions but I welcome the occasional tip. I am very grateful to anyone willing to Buy Me a Coffee.