‘Why don’t you stick to the rich guys?’ Mark said, after the recent disastrous dates. ‘At least you’ll get taken somewhere nice in a decent car instead of getting a lift on a rusty bicycle.’
‘It sure beats getting rejected by a 20-something with a testicle infection and a guy who sees prostitutes,’ I agreed.
‘If you’re going to go on a date with a Dutchman,’ Mark continued. ‘You’re going to have to dress down, not up; complain about the price of everything and insist on going Dutch – particularly with your [no sex before] four-dates rule,’ and he directed me to Shallow Man’s blog to illustrate his point…
I booked a flight to London instead.
But having previously dated in London, too, I know the grass isn’t greener… Vanity Fair’s Nancy Jo Sales has spoken out about the (millennial) dating culture of instant gratification – guys have one-night stands with ‘Tinderellas’ and don’t even walk them to the door afterwards. The feature, headlined Tinder and the Dawn of the ‘Dating Apocalypse’ describes a generation of men who are spoilt for choice and interested only in hit-it-and-quit-it on Tinder.
Tinder has not reacted well to being slut-shamed, taking to Twitter to accuse Vanity Fair of, ‘one–sided journalism.’ Sean Rad, Tinder’s chief executive, has previously defended Tinder for being ‘reflective of people and their desires, not the other way round.’
Ironically, studies show that the hook-up culture does not mean millennials are having more frequent sex or more sexual partners than their previous generation. For the hundreds of screen matches, few lead to a real-life encounter.
It’s not just millenials who aren’t interested in actual encounters. From my non-Tinder meeting with the Politician who cancelled before the first date to the Comedian who said, during the first date, that he wasn’t looking for a relationship, are some men struggling to find someone they want to date or do they no longer want to deal with the messiness that comes with a real connection?
