i finally joined a dating app

my initial thoughts + a peek at my profile

I joined a dating app this summer.

This is something I didn’t think I would do. I swore up and down to friends and family, to even my dating coach, that I wouldn’t do it.

“I like meeting men in the wild,” I said over and over again. “It’s more organic that way. It feels more aligned to me.” (This is still true, but we’ll get to that later.)

It’s not that I’ve never tried online dating. I did ten years ago, back when Match.com and eharmony, ruled the dating roost; back when apps — let alone dating apps — were barely a thing. I joined one of the two, I can’t remember which, and I went out on exactly two dates. One was unmemorable, and the other was memorable only because it was so terrible (tale as old as time, right?).

So terrible I left the date barely thirty minutes in. No sooner was I out on the street when I received a text from him

“Maybe he’s going to apologize for being rude,” I (naively) thought. 

Wrong. 

His text message read: “You ugly, anorexic, cheap-looking c**t!” 

Then he kept berating me over and over again until I finally blocked his number.

Look, the experience wasn’t all that terrible. I mean, it was, but I did write a couple essays about it, and later used it as a joke for my inaugural stand-up set, with the punchline, “At least he thought I was skinny!” HA! GO ME FOR TURNING LEMONS INTO LEMONADE!

But I didn’t find online dating that funny, or fun, enough to keep going. The ROI wasn’t enough for me. Scrolling through endless photos of group shots and mirror selfies and unsolicited dick pics just for that rare diamond of a guy who would at least ask your name first before sending a photo of his schlong and a “U up?”  No thanks. When a friend reminded me that dating online was like “taking on a second job,” I promptly deleted my profile.

I wasn’t trying to be a contrarian, I was just tired. Tired of analyzing the text messages, tired of going out on first dates with men who insist on showing you their foosball table right away (a euphemism if there ever was one), and I was especially tired of thinking this was the only way to meet someone.

Which is so weird! Because when online dating first became a thing, no one really admitted that’s how they were meeting people. In fact, my best friend kept his online dating journey a secret until the day of his wedding when he finally revealed that’s how he met his husband!

Anyway. I didn’t want to do it. I had met plenty of men through real-life experiences to know meeting someone on an app wasn’t the end all, and be all.

So what on earth changed my mind?

In a nutshell? Money. #getit

I BIT THE BULLET AND WENT ON HINGE!

I was hired to review a couple of dating apps for a publication, and I thought that was the perfect excuse to see what the fuss was about. I didn’t have to say I was going onto the apps because I was particularly lonely or anything — I was doing it for the research.

And herein lies my biggest problem when it comes to finding success on the apps. I have one foot in, and one foot out.

Which probably explains why it took me two months to respond to my hundreds of matches. This is not a flex, by the way, as it’s come to my attention, per this study, that although men swiped on 61% of women, women only swiped on 5% of men.

Of course this implies that women are more selective, and presumably (but not necessarily) have more options. Maybe that’s true. But I will argue that it’s also because men’s profiles generally suck. (Don’t worry — I will get into this and how men might be able to fix this issue in another upcoming post!)

So, yes, I will admit to the fact that I am using the apps out of part-curiosity, part-genuine-wanting-to-meet-someone-decent, and part-I-want-to-write-an-interesting-essay-or-two-about-this, and I would venture to guess this is similar to a number of people’s approach to the apps (with the exception of the last part, but who knows? Substacks are like the new podcasts — everyone seems to have one nowadays).

It’s no secret that the majority of single people are suffering from dating app fatigue. Which explains why IRL experiences, like run clubs, are so popular now for those looking to connect.

And I get it. Dating apps feel fake. They feel like we’re trying to place a takeout order on what’s supposed to be an intimate and honest experience. I hate the fact that I’m swiping on people based on how they look and/or any snap judgments I might make about them based on their profile.

Case in point: the guy who answered “nachos” to every prompt on Hinge.

“What’s your passion in life?”

“NACHOS!”

“What’s your favourite food?”

“NACHOS!”

“What’s your idea of the perfect day?”

“NACHOS!”

As someone pointed out to me: “He was obviously nacho man.” Photo by Olga Kozachenko on Unsplash

I think it’s no surprise that this was nacho going anywhere. I swiped him right off my phone. What was there to do with this strange information? Was all this nacho speak an example of the guy’s sense of humour, or a sign that he has stocks in Chipotle? Or was he just really obsessed with nachos? I don’t know, and now I’ll never know what could’ve been. He could’ve been nacho your average person! He could’ve been even my soulmate! My in queso emergency!

OK, let’s not get carried away. My point is, if we had had the chance to connect under real world circumstances without all the nacho business, maybe I would actually like him. There’s so much more nuance and magic that helps to create an interesting connection — a friend used to call it “the x factor” — and that’s the sort of thing that’s missing from dating apps.

I’ve always known this, which is why I hadn’t used them in a decade, because for sensitive, intuitive people like me, dating apps feel, well, yucky.

Meeting someone in the wild is special. I like it when having a crush on someone sneaks up on me. I like following my intuition about someone. I like the feeling of “the butterflies” whenever you meet with someone you’re attracted to, and I also like the fact that when you meet someone you’re not attracted to — like the asshole who called me a cunt — you know pretty much right away this isn’t right. There’s no time wasted. It’s either a hell yes or a hell no.

But if I’m being really honest about how I feel about my experience with dating apps…it’s that I don’t know if I’ve gone all the way in with them. Meaning, I wonder if I’m avoiding them because they truly feel icky, or because my go-to is to check out and avoid the things — ahem, intimacy — that makes me feel squirmy.

I’m still trying to figure that out.

Because: I haven’t gone out on a single date yet from the app!

Talk about killing the lede, Brianne!

*SIGH* Look, there’s so much more to talk about when it comes to trying out the apps. I have more opinions and more tips to share. Of course I do. I’ve been writing about this stuff for over a decade! Heck, I even wrote for a dating app! If anyone has insight about using one, it’s me. So it’s been a trip, to say the least, to try to take my own advice. Sometimes the teacher is still a student, you know!?

For now, I’ll say that my profile isn’t deleted yet. I’m still willing to give it a go — I know I can probably put myself out there a little more. I’m working on it!

However, I will say that so far, this summer I have met more really attractive, really intriguing men IN THE WILD — and that has been far more interesting to me.

STAY TUNED!

Thanks for being here!

Love, Brie xo

---

BRIE LOVES THIS WEEK

Some of the things that I really loved this week….

💝 Waking up with the sun. Seriously. 💝 Playing tennis at Kits Beach on a grey day (so moody, so delightful). 💝 Solo’s Peter McGraw sharing with me that he loves saying “I love you” to his friends because saying you love someone shouldn’t just be reserved for family or lovers. 💝 Tapping with Brad Yates on being a Love Magnet. 💝 Listening to Jenna Zoe’s Human Design Podcast on Letting Life Be Really Good. 💝 Being really excited about a new rom-com book proposal idea (!) while I’m still having so much fun writing my current (and) second one. 💝 Voice notes from my Gen Z former work bestie (nothing beats a Gen Z’s vibe). 💝Having coffee and a chocolate chip cookie by the beach. 💝 Seeing dogs. Dogs always make me smile. (Don’t tell Olive!)

SONG

It’s a sexy bop.

TV SHOW

Watching In Vogue: The 90s and feeling really bougie.

PHOTO

Her paw…my lifeline…

---

LATEST ON THE PODCAST

Dating over 40 (with Gurki Basra)

dating over 40 is the best!! seriously! and today's guest Gurki Basra is here to tell you why.

hint: it's all about knowing who you are and taking the time to create the life you want.

Gurki is 42 years old and single and reluctantly became the first reality TV star for Netflix when she signed up for- what she thought was — a small independent documentary about being single in New York. That show ended up being Netflix’s first dating reality TV show. She ended up going viral, on a Time Square billboard, and garnering extensive international media attention for several years after the show launched due to her being an advocate for divorced women.

Listen to the episode on Apple & Spotify. And don’t forget to subscribe and review! It really does help get the word out.

---

BONUS 💝 CONTENT