Dating

Tuesday

Paul du Quenoy

Are you looking for a man in finance?

From our US edition

“Did I just write the song of the summer?” twenty-seven-year-old Megan Boni, an aspiring New York-based singer-actress known on social media as “Girl on Couch,” asked her public a few weeks ago. Days before, she suggested that her TikTok followers set to music a thirteen-word satirical musing she had improvised about her undersexed Gen Z peeresses’ lofty romantic expectations. Known simply as “Man in Finance,” the song’s lyrics easily divide into four short verses that unfold like shallow ads in the “Personals” section of an old newspaper: “I’m looking for a man in finance/Trust fund/Six-five/Blue eyes.” Adaptations have gone viral on social media, gathering more than 80 million hits and earning Boni more than $300,000 in revenue.

Wednesday

Amber Duke

Proof young women are opting out of casual sex?

From our US edition

The popular dating app Bumble was forced to apologize recently when its anti-celibacy advertisement didn’t land the way that it had hoped. Bumble tried to tap into many women’s frustration with modern dating, telling women who are having trouble finding a significant other that “a vow of celibacy is not the answer.” But whoever is on Bumble’s marketing team failed to realize that many women are opting out of casual sex and hook-ups as they realize they prefer settling into a long-term partnership before they engage in a sexual relationship. Others are taking a break from dating entirely, as they feel a deep dissatisfaction with the current landscape, which seems centered around fleeting physical attraction and short-lived connections.

Thursday

The Spectator

Who uses Grindr? 

Meet market Who uses the gay dating app Grindr?  – The site claims 27m users worldwide, 80.5% of whom identify as gay. – 13m users are active on a monthly basis. Some 923,000 are paid users. – 80% are younger than 35. – 39% are single. – 48% are in the US. – The average user is on the site for 60 minutes per day. – The ‘explore’ feature – which allows users to see who on the app lives in a particular town or city – is accessed more in London than any other city in the world. – Grindr accounts for 3% of global use of dating apps. The most popular is Tinder, which accounts for 27% of global use. Source: grindr/businessofapps.

Tuesday

Lara Prendergast

Israel’s challenge

42 min listen

On the podcast: Anshel Pfeffer writes The Spectator’s cover story this week. He voices concern that support from Israel’s allies might begin to waver if they don’t develop a viable plan after the war finishes. Paul Wood – former BBC foreign correspondent – and Dennis Ross – former Middle East coordinator under President Clinton and advisor to President Obama – join the podcast to debate whether Israel can rely on its allies. (01:18) Also this week: In the Books section of the magazine this week we review Andy Stanton’s new book Benny The Blue Whale. It has a fascinating inception and was co-authored by the machine learning tool ChatGPT.

James Innes-Smith

How having babies fell out of fashion

With all of our institutions now firmly under the iron fist of progressivism it was only a matter of time before social justice mission creep slipped under the doormat and into the home. You can only promulgate the idea that we live under a tyrannical patriarchy for so long before young people take notice and begin to lose trust in the whole idea of intimate relationships with the opposite sex. Fourth wave feminism has shifted its focus from the work place to male/female relationships and a growing underclass of men is turning its back on women by joining poisonous underground groups such as INCELS and Men Going their Own Way (MGTOW). Why would any young person choose to settle down and have kids against such a toxic backdrop? Well, increasingly they aren't.

Thursday

Fabian Carstairs

Help! I’m on a dating blacklist

There’s a online blacklist of men you should avoid dating and I’m on it. I discovered this over the summer when a colleague gave me a nudge and showed me a screenshot of my dating profile. ‘That’s you, isn’t it?’ A wave of fear passed through me. I had been posted on a Facebook group named ‘Are we dating the same guy?’. I set out to discover more.  The group itself was easy enough to find. It was started in New York last year to help the city’s single women avoid ‘red flag’ men. The group describes itself as a place where women can ‘warn other women about liars, cheaters, abusers, or anyone who exhibits any type of toxic or dangerous behaviour’. Now it has more than two million members from 120 cities across the world.

Wednesday

Toby Young

I’ve turned 60 – but all is not lost

By the time you read this I’ll be 60, having passed that milestone on Tuesday. My older friends tell me that turning 60 is like having to give a speech in public – the anticipation is worse than the reality. Once it’s in your rear-view mirror, you quickly forget about it and instead start looking ahead and thinking about the national speed limit. But as I write it’s looming like the horror of the shade, to quote William Ernest Henley. I’m loath to bellyache about this because I can imagine being incredibly irritated when, in 20 years’ time, I read a column by some young whippersnapper complaining about turning 60. ‘Call that old?’ I’ll think to myself. ‘Try dealing with rheumatism and gout and cardiovascular disease, you ungrateful little sod.

Saturday

Freddy Gray

Freddy Gray, Kate Andrews & Lloyd Evans

20 min listen

This week Freddy Gray takes a trip to Planet Biden and imagines what would happen if little green men invaded earth and found a big orange one back in the White House (01:15), Kate Andrews finds herself appalled by the so-called ‘advice’ routinely handed out to women that can be at best, judgemental, and at its worst, slightly bullying (12:51), and Lloyd Evans spills the beans on searching for love on his recent blind date, courtesy of the Guardian (07:13).

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans

Could I find a girlfriend on a Guardian Blind Date?

Free grub, free booze and the chance to fall in love. That’s the deal offered by Blind Date, a matchmaking strand in the Guardian that brings together lonely hearts and asks them to spill the beans. When I applied for this enticing freebie I had no expectation of being chosen, but my email was answered within hours. Amazing. Randy singletons are in short supply among Guardian readers. I was asked to describe my ‘interests’, which are rather limited. I tend to avoid travel, sport, art, museums, cars, planes, movies, pubs, music, parties, dancing, eating out or holidays. I’m never invited to dinner by anyone or ‘for the weekend’, thank God. I avoid TV, and my idea of hell is ‘a walk in the countryside’.

Wednesday

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: how should a newly single, fiftysomething man make a pass?

Q. My friend kindly arranged for me to use her freelance gardener and, despite the gardener working only four hours a week, she has transformed my garden. Today I asked if she could do any more hours and she said only on an ad hoc basis. This evening I received a message from another friend asking for the gardener’s number, as hers has left. She has a superior garden to mine and I am terrified this wonderful gardener will give the ad hoc hours she has promised me to this potential new employer. I have tried to prevaricate but I can’t lie to this lady. Mary, what to do? – E.S., Sussex A. It would cause resentment if the treasure found you had blocked her access to another opportunity. Instead turn the situation into a comedy rather than a tragedy.

Wednesday

Cosmo Landesman

Can this dating gimmick help me find love?

When it comes to dating, I’ve tried every kind of matchmaking method you could imagine: dating apps, speed-dating, slow-dating and even no-date dating. Consequently, I’ve suffered from date-app fatigue and repetitive disappointment. So I’m the perfect person for a new dating trend: the Pear ring. Pear rings aim to return the hunt for romance back to that golden era before swiping, griping and ghosting For a one-off payment of £19.99 you get three Pear rings – turquoise--coloured ring bands of different sizes – which, when worn in public, signal to other single people that you are open to being approached. The Pear rings aim to end our dependence on dating apps and return the hunt for romance back to real life. Remember real life?

Tony P shows off his fits (Instagram screenshot)
Kara Kennedy

Meet Tony P, the hottest influencer in DC

From our US edition

In a spacious, eighth floor apartment on Pennsylvania Avenue, just a few blocks from Capitol Hill, you will find a consultant. Of course you will; Washington, DC is a town filled with and built for consultants. This particular one, in a checked shirt and tweed jacket and charged with a genuine enthusiasm for life rarely seen among people in their twenties, is named Anthony Polcari. A Bostonian that loves his mother and makes a mean salmon dish would usually slip under the radar. But Anthony, better known as Tony P thanks to his Instagram handle @_tonypindc, has been in the capital for just under twelve months and is already the talk of the town. When I walked around downtown DC with him, we were periodically stopped for selfies by adoring fans.

Tuesday

Bethany Mandel

Lessons for young daters from the Jonah Hill saga

From our US edition

There was a viral tweet last year that read, “do married people watch gen z dating and feel like they caught the last chopper out of Nam?” The answer is a resounding yes. As bad as regular modern dating is, it’s that much worse for celebrities. In early June, actor Jonah Hill had a baby with his girlfriend Olivia Millar. About a month later, seemingly out of nowhere, his ex-girlfriend Sarah Brady posted screenshots of text messages from Hill from back when they were dating, accusing him of emotional abuse. Hill has moved on but twenty-six-year-old Brady has quite clearly been unwilling and unable to do so. The couple met when the actor slid into the direct messages of the surfer on Instagram, striking up a conversation.

jonah hill

Tuesday

Cockburn

Is Taylor Swift the problem?

From our US edition

Pop superstar Taylor Swift is in the middle of a PR crisis as her fans overwhelmingly disapprove of her new beau, Matty Healy, the lead singer of English rock band the 1975. Healy has been attending Swift's concerts and the pair have been spotted several times kissing and holding hands in public. Taylor Swift and Matty Healy seen leaving the Electric Lady studio in Manhattan on May 16, 2023 in New York City (Robert Kamau/GC Images) Cockburn's niece tells him that Swift's online fan forums are blowing up with debate over the Midnights singer's decision to date the irreverent rock star.

taylor swift

Thursday

Cosmo Landesman

Make love, not culture war

From our US edition

I think I know how to end the culture wars at a stroke. My solution can be summed up in a simple slogan: make love, not culture war. Or, to put it another way — poke the woke. Let me explain. I have a new woman in my life and not just any woman. I have a Woke Woman. That’s right: a full-on, vegetarian, eco-activist, kill-the-rich, bisexual, transgender-defender and social justice warrior. She’s also a shrink. And not just any kind of shrink, but a Lacanian shrink! They’re the followers of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. In the UK we have a soccer team called Millwall that all the other fans hate. Millwall fans have a song that goes, “No one likes us, we don’t care!” Lacan therapists are the Millwall of therapy — nobody in the therapeutic community likes them.

culture war

Monday

Josie Cox

Business schools are dating apps for the super-rich

From our US edition

“D’you know what the acronym MBA stands for?” The twenty-seven-year-old who asked me this had a deep tan and fluorescent teeth. He may have winked, but the eye-twitch was more likely a nervous tic developed from looking at himself in the mirror so much. I responded with a look of indifference mixed with fear. “Married” — he paused for dramatic effect and demonstratively looked at my wedding ring — “but available.” I felt nauseated. I was in my first semester of business school in New York City and had so far learned how to make an educated estimate of a company’s optimal capital structure, how to make a balance sheet look balanced and how to use the word “conceptually” to sound smart in strategy class.

business school

Monday

Sarah Linney

Diary of a 42-year-old speed-dater

New experiences are always good. Meeting new people is always good. This is what I tell myself when my friend Rae invites me to go speed dating. At the age of 42. ‘Am I not too old?’ I ask her. She reassures me that I am not, but I have my doubts. A woman old enough to remember landlines is surely not who the eligible young gentlemen of Kent are looking to meet on a night out in a bar. But Rae is running the event as a fundraiser, so if I spend my night talking to a series of youngsters who think Miley Cyrus was the first to sing ‘Like A Prayer’, it's all in a good cause. On the train there, I suddenly realise that this isn't actually the worst thing that could happen. I might bump into someone I know.

Friday

Cockburn

The Right Stuff gets review-bombed

From our US edition

Cockburn has been unlucky in love of late. He’s married. Third time’s the charm, as they say. But for the generations below, the dating world throws up a number of quandaries. In the post-#MeToo era, you can’t meet at work anymore. Bars and clubs took a big hit with Covid. That’s why so many younguns depend on app-based dating these days. But on Bumble and Hinge (Cockburn’s not well known enough for Raya yet), progressive virtue-signaling is apparently all-too-common. “Swipe left if you’re a Republican” and slogans about “dismantling the patriarchy,” “defunding the police” and “BLM/ACAB” plague the profiles of many users. What are the alternatives if you’re on the right? Cockburn always thought “church.

ryann mcenany the right stuff

Wednesday

Freya India

Can a new dating app stop ‘ghosting’?

Modern dating is a mess: it's a shallow world of filters, FaceTune and superficial swiping. Across the internet, Gen Z complain that daters flake, catfish, scam, and – most objectionably of all – ghost. A new dating app, Snack, proposes a solution. Snack is described as ‘Tinder meets TikTok': a place where Gen Zs can film themselves flirting, create content with fun video prompts, and enjoy a ‘more authentic video-first dating experience’. Snack also enables its users to punish those who ‘ghost’ them by leaving them negative reviews. ‘Ghosting’ is rejection without the closure – you’re talking to someone and, suddenly, they stop responding and disappear.

Thursday

Daisy Dunn

If you like First Dates, you’ll love This is Dating

The tagline of This is Dating, a new podcast from across the pond, is ‘Come for the cringe, stay for the connection.’ This sums up the listening experience pretty well. If the prospect of eavesdropping on a series of strangers’ first dates sends a shiver down your spine (some of us have endured enough disastrous dates of our own), give it ten minutes and cupid’s arrow should slowly begin to sink in. The concept is similar to that of First Dates, the reality TV show in which lonely hearts pair up for dinner and judgment while a sexy French maitre d’ looks on, pitying the lack of social skills on display before him. The difference is that This is Dating doesn’t play for laughs.