I Have Spent My Life Acting In Films In Order To Host This Episode Of Saturday Night Live!

Thank you! Thank you. Oh, thank you so much!

Thank you.

Ugh, it is so great to be hosting Saturday Night Live!

Listen, there is a monologue that the writers worked on for me, making some jokes about my early less-than-popular roles in bargain-bin films, leading up to a small dance number in the style of my most recent movie, “Underprivileged Youth Can Achieve Anything With Music.”

Thank you, thank you.

However, instead I'm going to go off-card because I want to talk about how surreal it is to be hosting SNL. I mean, this is why I got into acting!

I hear some chuckles, but I don't think you fully understood what I just told you. I seriously got into show business so that I could spend an hour and a half performing live sketches in the middle of the night. This has been my dream since I was eight years old and I caught a rerun of “The Best of Will Ferrell” on E!. Watching the likes of Alec Baldwin and Christopher Walken change costumes and play different characters and celebrities looked like a dream to me, and it was a dream I knew I could achieve with hard work, dedication, and a string of Golden Globe nominations.

I can see the people behind the cameras right now looking around and Keenan Thompson off to the side in a tutu, waiting for his cue to come out. It's not coming, Nickelodeon. We're too far off-script now. You can go get changed for What Up With That.

Anyways, hosting comes with a lot of great little bits: filming promos, which you've been watching all week; spending time at the Weekend Update desk as some strange character; introducing the musical guest. I mean, I get to introduce fucking U2! Can you believe that?!

Needless to say, I am supremely excited for tonight. It's nice to know it all finally paid off—the improv classes, the six years at Julliard, the endless networking to mercilessly claw my way from the bottom. I eventually worked with Martin Scorsese, Stephen Spielberg, and Clint Eastwood. I have two Oscars under my belt, the youngest person to do that. I have performed in over 60 films, from cameos to leads. I even guest starred on “The Mindy Project” to help out a friend. And now I'm here.

Look, they don't give hosting duties to just anyone! You have to be famous, and not just a little famous—you have to be one of the most recognized faces in the world! Take Edward Norton for example: damn fine actor. Loved “American History X.” Eh, I could take or leave “Fight Club.” Regardless, he had quite a track record, and yet had never hosted Saturday Night Live. But as soon as he teamed up with Wes Anderson for a couple of flicks, BOOM! Instant host.

Lorne Michaels is coming down the aisle way now, so I had better wrap this up so we can get the show on the road, as I'm sure they might say here. All I have to say is that the next hour and 20 minutes are going to be a literal dream come true. Seriously, I've had reoccurring fantasies about this night for close to 19 years now.


So stick around, we've got a great show for you. U2 is here! We'll be right back!

Love Me Tinder

Is it better to have loved online than never to be fucked at all?

I signed up for Tinder last weekend. I could say that I gave it a shot because I've never done online dating. Or, inversely, I could lie and say I did it ironically, dismissing the notion that I need any help in meeting new people. But the fact of the matter is that I did it because my roommate wouldn't shut up about it.

I had never known of Tinder before 2014, which is unsurprising. I've heard about Grindr before, strangely enough, which seems to be the gay equivalent to Tinder (or perhaps it's the other way around, seeing as how Grindr launched almost three years previous), but it was not something that could be useful for my needs (e.g. not gay sex). With Tinder, though, your Facebook page feeds into your Tinder profile and it displays other users in your area, occasionally matching your Likes and Mutual Friends. It's like small talk without the whole “communication” rigamarole.

The problem I have with downloading this app is that I'm simultaneously fascinated and disgusted with it. Having never previously participated in online dating, the sheer number of viable mates around me was a little overwhelming. But it turns the out the internet has not been lying to me; there are hot singles in my area!

1. NOPE!

Despite this revelation, Tinder brings out my worst qualities—the judgmental, shallow, hedonistic version of myself that bases a girl's worth on her attractiveness. As a user, you always start out with one picture of a girl which you can then tap to open her profile. The dickhole that I am, I've malevolently swiped past countless girls simply because their first picture didn't meet my standards. Of course, none of these females will ever know how quickly I dismissed them, but I still feel a deep sense of shame for judging these girl-books by their picture-covers.

And I continued to do it. While I could say that I grew to accept that these girls are much more than just their Instagram-filtered faces and an affinity for How I Met Your Mother, I proceeded to wave them off as if these fellow human beings were not worth my time. I'm aware that I have no room to talk—I'm no looker myself—but I keep rationalizing that no one wants an uggo, and I can't be held responsible if my heart doesn't flutter at every girl in the greater Grand Rapids area. Just because someone uses a low-cut top to initiate an online conversation doesn't mean I'll take the bait. I find certain people attractive and certain people not. However, my ratio is very unbalanced. Maybe 5% of the profiles I see, I like. The other 95% get rejected in one of Tinder's cruelest features: if you pass on a profile, you swipe the person's picture left, after which a giant stamp prints across the rejected match's face “NOPE.”

In a world where body image issues are staggering, the fact that anyone is putting themselves out there is unquestionably inspiring. But I can't imagine feeling great after opening your heart to the possibility of finding someone special (or just someone to fuck) only to have a giant dismissal stamped across your face.

I estimate that I've NOPE'd at least two hundred girls in my area.

2. About Me: [nothing]

Tinder provides a space for users to write a small description of themselves, and my About Me section is a mess. For a person who talks about himself as much as I do, I can't ever make a point of selling myself. I live in self-deprecation, which in and of itself is a quality women aren't exactly running over each other to get at. It's not that I don't believe I have good personality traits (they're there somewhere). It's more the fact that everything I write ends up sounding either narcissistic or contrived—I'm either too full of myself or I'm lying. I understand that some hyperbole is acceptable when creating an online profile looking for a mate, but even simple descriptions sound forced to me. Am I vain or dishonest when I call myself “fun”? I'd like to think I'm fun, but who am I to say how other people perceive me?

This is why I believe that your roommate should always write your dating profile. They know how other people respond to you. They've likely noticed patterns in your relationship history and know what you're looking for. They could do a better job at describing you than you would, with more honesty. It's better than you constantly knocking on their door with your smartphone in-hand, asking questions like “Would you describe me as a 'music-lover'?”

Sadly, I authored my own profile and it resembles an awkward mixture of 2nd-string high school basketball player/obvious catfish/recently-divorced father of five. It took at least 45 minutes and several different drafts to write 76 words and it still turned out horrible. I can't imagine a single person reading it and going “Well, he didn't seem that great until he described himself as 'shy.' What a catch!”

One could argue that I shouldn't care what other people think, that I should just write whatever's in my heart and the right girl will come along soon. The people who gravitate toward this mindset have obviously never been single because a totally direct About Me section would be just as disastrous:

“Hey, um... Look, if we go out, I'm probably going to try to get into your pants. I jump the gun quickly because I wasn't really a ladykiller in high school so I overcompensate for that. I fall hard, fast, and often. This doesn't mean I won't cuddle or make you breakfast (cereal) or watch a bunch of movies with you. This doesn't even mean we need to have sex; I simply prefer sleeping with my arm draped over a girl's waist. I don't have a car, I drink excessively, and I rarely have any pride in myself or my accomplishments. I'm full of unjustifiable jealousy and I've ended every long-term relationship I've ever been in. I've developed a pattern for taking off my shirt at parties and have very serious opinions about Ocean's 12. Kthnxbye.”

I've since deleted my About Me section.

3. Start a Conversation with a Real Person!

What I like about Tinder is that you only know if someone Likes you after you Like them. Rejections don't register; they simply and subtly remove the other person from your list and the other person will never know. But if you see an interesting profile and hit the little heart icon, and they do the same to you, a chat window opens up and you can start a conversation. Thus far, I have had two exchanges, which means that two girls looked past my pictures and strange self-descriptions and thought, “Meh, I'm drunk enough,” which is all I've ever wanted from anyone anyways.

Both conversations were brief because, as it turns out, talking to girls is not my sharpest skill in the wheelhouse. People as a whole terrify me, so talking to an attractive person basically shuts down any cognitive functions, forcing me to start spouting words in the hope that they form semi-coherent sentences. I'm not even looking for charming or smooth; I'm simply working as hard as I can to respond.

And that's why man invented alcohol.

[Quick side-tangent about me, technology, and alcohol: as an introvert, there's a calamitous transformation that takes place when I'm drunk and have access to my phone/the internet. I'm like a superhero fueled by tequila, whose mild-mannered alter ego has qualms about any public displays of affection (kissing, hand-holding, eye contact) but soon turns into a confident, chest-puffing douche who says things like “I want to mount you like Rushmore.” (I'm not sure if that is a reference to the presidential monument or having sex with a Wes Anderson movie.)

You usually have ~5 people that you've sworn to never speak to again. The mention of any of their names incite a riotous “Fuck them! Why were we even friends with that dumb cooze?!” But get a 12-pack of Rolling Rock under your belt and suddenly the only logical course of action is to rip open old wounds in a terribly misguided attempts at reconciliation. No one is ever satisfied by the results of drunk texting. No one has ever woken up from a blackout to a phone full of apologies and plans to get lunch next Sunday. It's typically a button-mashing effort at what appears to be a one-sided sexting conversation.

And I can't apologize enough for that...]

By the time I got to my second conversation, I thought I was doing pretty well; the amount of girls interested in me just doubled! I didn't think anything could go wrong this time. I was more prepared, a little buzzed, and admittedly kind of horny. Seen below is the entire exchange between Bernice and myself. Out of the four things she said to me, maybe you can spot trouble before I did:

Bernice: heya

Chris: Hey there!

Bernice: Hello .. have we spoken before?

Chris: I don't think so. Where are you from?

Bernice: i'm sorry...i get to be forgetful at times! how are you?

Chris: I'm good! How are you?

Bernice: Just got out of the shower...long week been working a lot! but i am feeling arroused! [sic] so what's up... wanna have some fun?? =)

To be honest, part of me wanted to respond just to see what a sexy conversation with a spambot would be like. But I was more disappointed as I reviewed Bernice's profile again to see that we had zero common interests and that her distance from me fluctuated between 800 and 5000 miles. Don't get me wrong, I like a girl who travels, but I also prefer them to me less fictional. I was duped by a couple of cute pictures taken at Dutch angles from a company looking to phish information out of me. Meanwhile, there were hundreds of girls I passed up who had far less nefarious intentions. I like to spend money on people, of course, but I would prefer to actually meet a person rather than punch in my credit card information for a “private show,” regardless of how soon they got out of the shower.

(Of course, I've played with the notion that Bernice was a real person, that there was some wet, naked girl out there that I straight-up ignored after she confessed something very personal: she had a sickness that only Chris's sexual healing could cure. Then I laughed and drank even more.)

Matches are special. It's a mutual act, something that says “I think you seem interesting and you think I seem interesting.” There's nothing worse than putting yourself out there and being rejected. (Well, there are a couple of things that are worse: genocide, homophobia, the series finale of Dexter, etc...) And even though Tinder is doing its best to avoid the feeling of rejection—seemingly by placing one in the role of the rejector—it still feels nice when the flame icon pops up and says “Congratulations! Someone kinda had a positive reaction to your face!” (Paraphrasing, but if Tinder is looking for someone to update their text for a more realistic audience, I'm available.)

It's possible that I could get more matches with a new About Me section (something I've thought about adding again). I've considered the idea that girls might be passing me by because I haven't given them context to go with my pictures, something that says “I'm more of a winning-personality kind of guy.” Instead of taking it seriously this time, I brainstormed some witty one-liners or maybe a small list of my interests. I thought about this for much longer than I should have before doing nothing.

4. Conclusion

I have to get gross for a second, partially for the metaphor but also because I want to be honest with the reader. I was sitting on the toilet (were a lot of Tindering has taken place) and I pulled out my phone to see if I could view any new profiles. And as the loading screen pulsated, I asked myself, “Why?” Why was I doing this? What was I even looking for? Easy pussy? A conversation? Or had I devolved to the point of playing Hot Or Not for my own amusement? None of my answers really rang true, as I evacuated my bowels. There really wasn't a point, I decided. I wasn't happy with the results of my little experiment. I didn't even have a complete profile for others to peruse.

The more I Tinded (or whatever the verb is, meaning “to be on Tinder,” past-tense), the more normal it all seemed. I felt less bad with every girl I swiped left because of a slightly-larger chin or a description that read “Only listen to country!! [five horse emojis]” Was I becoming less sensitive or was I beginning to realize that it's really not that big of a deal? Or was there a worse question I wasn't even asking myself yet?

I think I can get away with hiding my shallowness deep inside for now. I will always value a girl's appearance—I think it's a little crazy not to—but the less I'm aware of it, the better I'll feel about finding people I like, and the methods I use to select possible mates. I overanalyze everything anyways, and I don't need any technology that aids my busy brain's processes.

When it came down to it, I wasn't getting anything real out of Tinder. I have about as much luck picking up girls at bars, and in that case, I get to know them better, quicker. It might be a tad analog, but my broken techniques aren't so broke that they need fixing. This isn't to say that conversations with other people over the internet are artificial (unless they turn out to be an algorithm hundreds of miles away. This isn't a Spike Jonze film, after all). Rather, it simply doesn't make anything easier for me. I have just as many anxieties in creating my online identity as when I buy someone a drink. At least in real life I feel less cheap, instead of hiding behind the almost anonymous divide of the smartphone app. I'm often lonely, sure, but browsing profiles of local singles on my phone doesn't curb that loneliness. If anything, it shows how many girls are out there and not sleeping with me—percentage-wise: 100%.

But maybe I should look at that more as a positive. For the first time in a long time, I have photographic proof of just how many 21-to-30-year-old fish there are in the 10-mile-radius sea. The possibilities, while not endless, are pretty damn good.