I Used A Dating Site Once. Never Again.

Story by Pippinacious/reddit

I had never tried online dating, I’d never had a reason to. Usually my luck with guys was pretty decent and, even when it wasn’t, I was just fine doing my own thing. After my last relationship fizzled out, I decided to avoid playing the dating game for a while; I had other things I wanted to devote my energy to, like a promotion at work that was being dangled promisingly in front of me. “A while” turned into a few years of chronic singledom, which was apparently becoming an issue to everyone but me, and before I knew it, I was pushing spinsterhood at the ripe old age of 29.

Portraits by photographer Parker Day

Bee Coin From Ephesos, Ionia, C. 390-325 BC

A silver tetradrachm. Obverse: Magistrate Antialkidas. E-Φ , bee with straight wings. Reverse: ANTIAΛKIΔAΣ, forepart of a stag to right, its head turned back to face left, a palm-tree on left.

Ephesos (Ephesus) used the bee on its coins since it was a producer of honey, so the bee advertised their most famous product. The bee was also mythologically connected to Ephesus because, according to Philostratos, the colonizing Athenians were led to Ephesus and Ionia by the Muses who took the form of bees.

The city was also the location of the famous Temple of Artemis. Her priestesses were called ‘melissai" or “honey bees” of the goddess. The stag, like the one used on this coin is also an attribute of Artemis, the goddess of the hunt. This animal was regarded as sacred to her and stag figures were said to have flanked the cult statue of Artemis in her  temple at Ephesus. The palm tree on the obverse alludes to Artemis’ birthplace, the island of Delos, where the goddess Leto gave birth to Artemis and her twin brother Apollo underneath a palm tree. This coin represents its city of origin well.