Dating in New York Is A Nightmare
Searching for Love in a Lonely City
Once upon a time, some dude from Hinge broke my heart. Here’s the story of what I learned and a few tips from psychologists who study the way that we love.
Dating in New York feels like searching for a diamond inside a dumpster.
The dumpster is on fire.
It is also a glorious journey of exploration where you can meet brilliant people from all over the world. And yet, this beautiful quest for human connection must unfold inside a blazing trash can that is — as I mentioned — on fire.
One wretched February I hung up the phone after hearing a very long goodbye speech. It was the third time the same person delivered that speech. Little flickers of hope for The Great Big Love faded into nothing. I went to bed alone.
My apartment building caught on fire that night. It was very on-brand for New York. You go to bed thinking you’re the most miserable sack of sadness in the whole city and then the fire department kicks in your door because the building’s burning.
Me, the night before my apartment building became a bonfire:
“Wow. A girl tries so hard and still gets dumped. Again. This sucks.
Why does he keep calling me to say he’s sorry and make sure I’m okay?
Bro I’m just sad right now.”
Me, approximately 5:00am as my building burns:
"HOLY (BEEP) MY APARTMENT IS ON FIRE!
Okay technically the building is on fire. My apartment is just, you know, full of smoke.
Smells like (BEEP) in there. Were all buildings constructed before 1930 built with (BEEP)ing (BEEP)?
WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS (BEEP) CITY?!?!”
What’s wrong with New York?
Dating in New York is an existential nightmare.
Men and women I know describe it as different flavors of misery. Straight friends wish they were gay. Queer friends wish that they were straight. (“I’d still be single but then at least my Tinder dates wouldn’t ask me to keep going to the same four bars over and over and over…”)
When I ventured back onto the apps after many years away from dating, my dear friend Cristina cheered me on. She was excited for me. She also warned me that I should expect a few heartbreaks.
Cristina, Friend & Source Of Great Knowledge
“New York is amazing because of the people you meet. You can make friends who’ve lived every kind of life you can imagine. You meet so many people who are interesting and ambitious. Dating here can be the most fun you’ll ever have — but you should know the best thing about the city is also the worst thing if you’re dating.
There are so many amazing people that a lot of people aren’t satisfied with good. They want something even better. Everyone here is busy and searching for perfect.”
“You meet so many people who are interesting and ambitious.”
New York City offers us infinite choices in love. We have a vast amount of brilliant, creative, ambitious, passionate and ridiculously photogenic single people.
You can meet someone funnier and smarter and better looking than you imagined is possible.
It’s a dream if you think about the possibility of finding your one true love out here somewhere.
It’s a nightmare if you start imagining your competition.
Or feeling the pressure of choosing the right person (or people) for you.
Friends compare dating to The Bachelor — except no one wins at the end of the series. Commercial break. Roll credits. Join us next season! Except it’s forever.
“Competition” and “options” pop up in conversations. The words people use sound strange compared to the way people talk about dating where I’m from. It’s more cultured, more eloquent, and yet strangely infested with the language of capitalism. Dating is “a numbers game” and you’re supposed to “treat the first date like a job interview” and “don’t sell yourself short” and “keep your options open.”
“Options” as if the people we date are just the available items we can choose.
Options are a risky trade in the stock market. Options are the buttons on an internet form. Or, most directly, your shopping options.
Shopping sets the stage for how many psychologists study human decision-making. What we do when confronted with many options was studied like this:
Imagine yourself on an ordinary Sunday afternoon. You’re in the grocery store. Dang, it’s crowded in here. Let’s get this done before the 6:00pm Empowerment Happy Hour Pilates Class gets out, yeah? This grocery store is going to turn into an absolute madhouse later.
You need:
Milk
Eggs
Broccoli
The Tastiest Jar of Jam Ever
Don’t argue with me you need jam. Pretend your sweet elderly neighbor begged you to get the nicest jam in the store. She’s a nice old lady. Are you going to say that Grandma doesn’t deserve a nice treat?!
oh my god.
there are so many jars of jam.
which jar of jam is the nicest? what even is nice jam? are grapes nice? strawberries? raspberry?
HOW DOES ANYONE CHOOSE THE BEST JAM?!Psychologists studied how people feel about choice using (basically) this scenario.
I reckon they were inspired by the daze people experience in grocery stores. Or maybe dating was always this bad? I don’t know, I’m not gonna call my mom and ask if she was ever ghosted back in the day.
Two researchers set up a display of jam jars in a grocery store.
Display #1: 24 flavors of jam
Display #2: 6 flavors of jam
The table with many jars looked colorful, attractive, interesting. People came over to investigate this shiny infinity-jam table more often.
But people purchased jars from the table with only 6 jars much more frequently. Many shoppers who came to the display with many jars browsed for a while then wandered away. Customers purchased jam jars from the smaller display ten times as often.
Iyengar & Lepper ran three studies in the same paper. Each study discovered that the more choices people had, the less likely to choose they were and the worse they felt about their decisions.
🍇 Too many flavors of jam = less likely to buy anything
✏️ Too many essay options on a test = lower grades on the test
🍫 Too many flavors of chocolate to try = “This chocolate tastes worse!”
I knew all of this research about the science of choice before I started dating again. I’m a researcher, it’s my job to know this stuff.
I don’t know if it made me feel better or worse when I was dating.
Good news: If you feel as though someone treated you like “an option” but wanted to check out what else was on the proverbial shelf full of jam jars, it’s probably not just a “you” problem.
Now, the bad news is: research suggests that we are accidentally engineering a sexual landscape that dehumanizes us. Before I get into the next batch of depressing statistics, let me be clear that I think in many ways it’s obviously a good thing for human beings to have the freedom to choose.
Freedom to choose is a wonderful thing. Human beings ought to have the liberty to decide who they want to date, marry, not marry, or love in general. I ain’t trying to go back to an era when I depended on some dude to make all of my choices.
Articles about love on the internet sometimes get real deep into nostalgia for a bygone time. This is not one of those articles.
✅ Good thing: being free to decide who and how you love
🚫 Bad thing: allowing our abundance of choice to excuse bad dating behavior. There’s always another batch of jam jars— I mean, more random strangers to date.
I remember the first shock of seeing likes on Hinge. 💖
I have options now? And yes, like Cristina said: you meet a lot of lovely people out here. At the same time, there is a strange sense that all these dream dates are looking over your shoulder, wondering if maybe, just maybe, something better is out there.
Christina met me at another insanely hip bar a few weeks later. I did my best to make the story sound fun and funny and upbeat. Inside I was screaming because I was failing spectacularly at Hinge. Isn’t that thing designed to be deleted? Deleting what’s left of my soul maybe.
Me, trying to sound like the cool single friend who was definitely not dying on the inside:
“Dating is great! Everything is fine!
Went on two dates with this great date who disappeared but then texts me every time something goes wrong with an ongoing apartment search. I am discount Betterhelp.
I’m sure that was just kind of a mismatch. Won’t happen again. Everything is fine and I feel fantastic!”
Cristina, angel whose kindness this wretched world doth not deserve:
“I had to take breaks if I wanted to stay sane. Tinder is just too insane to let your brain be around without a rest sometimes.
I’d get worn out on the apps so I’d just stop for a couple of months. There’s nothing wrong with taking breaks. It’s not you, it’s the city. And the apps.”
Christina, who is by the way a literal saint upon this earth, had to take breaks from the apps. Most of my friends who use the apps take breaks when it gets too draining.
I asked my beautiful friend how long she went through the unabated nightmare of the New York City dating scene:
“Two years.”
Two years. Christina looks like a Renaissance painting of a woman whose hair is perfect all the time. She has a goofy sense of humor and likes dogs. She’s a physical therapist which means she has a cool job and is also athletic. My beautiful Italian friend warned me about how bad the dating scene is.
A human being does not need to be absurdly gorgeous to deserve love. I reckon it helps. If you asked 100 random straight men to describe their ideal woman “hot and caring Italian woman who loves dogs” would probably be a very popular answer.
Searching for love has never been about fairness. I won’t not waste your time by writing as if beauty standards don’t exist. I despise the idea that we measure a human being’s worthiness according to any superficial thing beyond their control and yet — I write for the world we live in.
And I try to write honestly. I remember thinking, “maybe my problem with dating is that I’m not pretty enough.”
Even though every moral cell in my moral brain rejects the fairness of beauty standards, I compare myself to those ideals very often. I won’t serenade you with all my insecurities.
Trust me: I have many insecurities.
Therapy helps with those for me. It doesn’t undo the fact that the world I live in blatantly tells me I am not good enough.
In my hometown, being single in your 30s is a fate worse than death for women.
Whenever I visit and ask about how various people’s kids are doing the first sentence inevitably starts with:
❤️🩹 “Well you know she’s still single but…” in the same tone as
🪦 “The cancer hasn’t reached her brain yet. She’s still alive but useless. Maybe she’ll get another cat, the silly old thing!”
Single women over age 25, but especially over 30, are the objects of ridicule in both small-town America and our broader culture. “Old woman with cats” is a stereotype created to mock unmarried women. It’s one I internalized so fully that I’ve dressed as a “crazy cat lady” for Halloween parties multiple times.
It’s funny but it’s also my way of coping with a possible fate for me. Sometimes it feels inevitable that I’ll wind up a lonely old cat lady.
I am an artsy, weird, cranky, independent woman who likes cats.
My cat’s name is Fritz and he is a big part of my life. I am perhaps doomed to be undateable because I REALLY LIKE CATS. 😻❤️
In my hometown it’s far more stigmatized to be single at my age. It’s less of a problem here in New York — although way too many dates asked if I was “desperate” yet.
Dates have told me that they can get over the whole “weird crazy cat lady” thing because of how I look. Some people really have a thing for redheads.
I am clickbait. 💖
Clickbait means attractive-ish. A genre of woman that shows up in enough movies and porn to be popular. It doesn’t really matter exactly how beautiful you are if you fit enough people’s “type.”
Tinder, Hinge, and Bumble are skewing the romantic landscape towards the faces that get likes in less than a second.
That’s not even enough time to get a good look at the other person’s face. Someone was surprised at my eye color once - “I didn’t even get a good look at you. Honestly, I just dig redheads.”
I was sitting here typing out a long and detailed summary of inequality on dating apps. Every bias built into our culture shows up when researchers look at dating app statistics. Men who don’t meet the ideal height criteria have a tougher time, women who dare to be single after age 22 are punished for that, and…
Thankfully for us all this blog’s Editor walked by.
Josh, Editor and Man I Met Away From The Dang Apps
How’s it going? Oh no. I walked into a wall of text and now I have a concussion.
Aren’t you already writing entire articles for some of our friends? The apartment fire story is working here. It’s going to get really long if you try to jump from your story to other people’s experiences in the same article.
The blog’s Editor is right on this one. To my lovely friends who already okay’d me to write letters about why they deserve better: I found so much evidence that the apps are trash that it’s taking me even longer than I thought to write your articles. The problem is not you, okay?
Being clickbait created its own bizarre set of miseries for me on the New York dating scene. Far too many people wanted to snag a redhead and were disappointed in the idea of dating me.
I tried frantically to convey my personality on my Hinge profile.
Looking to date: Men & Women, ages 29-48
Open to: Long-term monogamous relationships only please, I am clingy okay it’s just who I am as a person 💖
Politics: RABID SCREAMING INTERNET SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIOR!!
Personality: I love art! I am weird! I have a cat! Look at this cat! His name is Fritz and he is cute! MUST LOVE CATS!
All of the time I put into cramming my personality into a few paragraphs and pictures did absolutely nothing.
I won’t trauma-dump all of the demented things that people say to bisexual women on the apps.
Threesomes are a perfectly healthy and normal thing to want. It’s rude, however, to assume that anyone who says they want a serious relationship secretly wants a threesome with you and just needs convincing. My feelings got pretty hurt by a few women who revealed that they aaaaactually had a boyfriend and they both really dig redheads.
My dear friend is upfront about the fact that she doesn’t want kids. Many dates tried to debate, question, or persuade her otherwises.
Having children is a personal and intimate decision. I suspect that Cristina’s Hinge dates really wanted a woman like her as a housewife, but didn’t seem very interested in what she wanted from life.
Historically, women’s bodies were treated as objects that belonged to men.
If you’ve ever taken a gender studies class or watched a youtube video about how women are portrayed in movies, you don’t need me to explain what objectification means.
Feminist scholars argued against reducing our lives to nothing except our beauty, fertility, and usefulness to men.
Somehow my experience of the NYC dating scene felt like objectification at hyperspeed. I wasn’t just an inanimate object but something to be consumed quickly.
If I were an object, I might at least be appreciated for my value on a long-term basis. You know, placed in a nice rent-stabilized apartment somewhere and snuggled with. Like a pillow or a comfy throw blanket.
Millennials are hardly the first generation of women to feel like our bodies don’t belong to us.
In many ways, I feel lucky to have the freedom to go on so many garbage dates. At least I have the right to choose my partner. I’m also grateful for the freedom to tell the people who were disrespectful to my wishes, “Thanks, have a nice evening, see you again never!”
It was still a dehumanizing experience.
I didn’t just feel like an object. I felt like a commodity to be consumed. Easily replaceable. Disposable.
Great dates went nowhere. People ghosted me when I thought they had a wonderful time. Cristina described some romantic disappointments that sounded heartbreaking to me. One of her friend’s discovered that her boyfriend was cheating on her through a facebook group.
The dating scene in New York City is now so toxic that we need facebook groups to warn other daters about bad behavior.
You, a hypothetical reader:
“Okay, so you and your friend had bad experiences. That’s kinda specific to your lives though.
I mean… A hot Italian woman and a bisexual redhead probably get a decent amount of attention on the apps.
Does this apply to everyone dating in New York?”
Me, writing this blog:
“You’re absolutely right, imaginary reader! This is a very productive chat considering I’m just imagining what you’d say.
That’s a good thought, hold on to it.
For now let me make this a slightly more comprehensive view by asking a nearby man what his experiences of dating in New York were like.”
I asked this blog’s editor what his experience had been like dating. He’s not an elected representative of all men, but he is a man.
What does it take to get a date?
Once upon a time, two friends started dating.
Oddly enough their friendship began with complaining about dating.
They had a lot of things in common beyond a mutual hatred of Hinge.
HINGE: Designed to be deleted
Because you give up and talk to cute men irlJosh is the genre of boyfriend I wish every kind man-admiring single person I know could find. If I could write you a HOW TO FIND A NICE BOYFRIEND guide, I would.
My Editor/boyfriend and I met through a series of ridiculous coincidences.
It’s the first time all the variables of love lined up in one person for me. Attraction is a messy lottery — I appreciate many beautiful people but don’t quite click with most of them. And it is really tough to find someone who likes you back out here.
I asked my Editor what dating in this city used to be like for him.
Josh, Blog Editor & Very Sweet Guy
A lot of people in my generation have given up on dating.
Some of them are happy being single, and I thought that was going to be me.
When you start dating there are roles people fall into. One person chases after the other. It doesn’t necessarily need to be the guy doing the chasing — but in my experience it usually is.
One of my professors in grad school worked in couples counseling. When we talked about marriage counseling in her class, she highly recommended that students read Esther Perel. I’d already read both of her books to help me cope with the madness of dating — but still, a good book recommendation to a class of future therapists.
Celebrated New York Marriage Therapist Esther Perel wrote about love and desire as a struggle between closeness and mystery. She, like this blog’s editor, compared human courtship to a chase. Love may be about intimacy but desire is about curiosity:
“It thrives on the mysterious, the novel, and the unexpected. Love is about having; desire is about wanting. An expression of longing, desire requires ongoing elusiveness. It is less concerned with where it has already been than passionate about where it can still go.”
- Esther Perel, Mating in Captivity
When strangers navigate the question of whether or not to become lovers, they both decide what they want. In theory this process could be a conversation but most of the time it resembles a game of cat-and-mouse. One person pursues, one person is chased.
Josh, Editor & Slayer of Long Paragraphs
One person makes things exciting. Convinces the other person to give them their time.
Let’s call that the “Salesman” of the couple - maybe come up with some different language? “Salesman” sounds bad but I can’t think of anything else to call it.
The Salesman plans dates. Makes it exciting. Sells themselves as worth dating out of all the other options out there.
My editor offered some nuance on gender roles, noting that the “salesman” need not necessarily be a man.
Josh, Unbothered By Gender Roles
“There’s something romantic about the image of a lady dropping her handkerchief and a gentleman handing it to her. I’m not sure what to call that role — the bystander?
It’s a very Boomer thing, but the sentiment is shared.
The person who is pursued. Doesn’t have to be a woman. A lot of guys would be attracted to a woman who does that — it’s a compliment to me, but it’s also giving me and yourself agency.”
Esther Perel described desire as paradoxical. The roles we play in our sex lives do not always align with our politics:
Most of us will get turned on at night by the very things that we demonstrate against during the day — the erotic mind is not very politically correct.
-Esther Perel
Perel makes an interesting point but I should add some nuance. She wrote that in her marriage counseling sessions, generally men need to be aggressive in order to provoke desire in their female partners.
Mating in Captivity, Perel’s breakout bestseller on sex, is based on the real stories of clients Perel worked with as a counselor.
Perel notes quite honestly that she sees mostly wealthy straight married couples with children. I think most of her ideas can be taken as general lessons in desire but the model is indeed gendered.
Sex declines for most of the married couples that attend counseling at Perel’s practice. Usually the pattern follows the same steps:
A couple welcomes their first baby
The “egalitarian marriage” melts away. The wife finds herself taking on more housework and childcare
Sex disappears from the relationship
Couple shows up at marriage counseling on the brink of divorce
Married couples must sustain desire. In dating, someone has to spark desire.
Perel reminds her clients that sex should be about fun and mutual pleasure. She defines erotic intelligence as an understanding of cultural roles, your partner’s desires, and your own. On that topic, she writes:
“Erotic intelligence stretches far beyond a repertoire of sexual techniques. It is an intelligence that celebrates curiosity and play, the power of the imagination, and our infinite fascination with what is hidden and mysterious.”
-Esther Perel
Dating demands its own kind of emotional intelligence.
The early days of a relationship may or may not involve the same erotic intelligence Perel wrote about. Relationships don’t necessarily require sex to be healthy if the people involved don’t need that dimension of romance.
Still, it is a similar dance: curiosity and play might be funny messages on Tinder or a solid pickup line. Men and women alike get the advice to remain mysterious.
Our friends encouraged us both through the horrors of modern dating.
Since we were in the same group of friends, I have the unusual dual perspective of having heard dating advice offered directly to my boyfriend. I was there at the bar, or at the museum, or in our groupchat.
Our friends fairly consistently told Josh to just keep trying. The right girl would respond eventually.
It’s reasonable advice. But the themes that showed up are interesting:
"It’s a numbers game, man.”
"Don’t get too attached to a profile. Women usually don’t answer messages.”
For me, generally, the gist was it was just a matter of time. I just needed to wait for the right person.
Some friends, very kindly, seemed baffled that I hadn’t met the right person yet.
A few of them were actually shocked that I as a woman on the dating apps sent out 4-5 first messages per day.
Esther Perel’s advice in Mating in Captivity leans further into gender roles than what our friends would say to us. Still, the theme emerges again:
A woman should maintain hope and wait
A man should create excitement and chase
Searching for “dating advice NYC men” on Google points to professional Dating Coaches for men. Notice how much of the language describes selling yourself.
I agree, by the way, that many amazing people are single by choice or circumstance or just plain bad luck. And to some extent, sure, it’s always possible to create a more appealing dating profile.
Our friends sometimes gently critique each other’s Tinder/Hinge profiles. It’s true that many attractive people are somehow choosing the least flattering photos of themselves that they have. (Men’s choices in profile pictures do occasionally bewilder me.) It is also true that sending out fun yet subtly flirty messages helps anyone land a date. Still — “MARKET yourself.” That’s definitely a choice.
What's with all this talk about marketing yourself?
The language of buying, selling, and advertising infuses how we talk about love.
“Everyone hates economics majors. Especially me, an econ major. We call it ‘the dismal science’ for a reason - it’s depressing.”
- Nina, friend & former economics major
Economic principles apply to many areas of our lives. The problem with applying the principles of one scientific field to another is that it’s very easy to oversimplify. Principles applied one-to-one may create a compelling image but lose critical context.
Some economic principles explain how dating works in our lives now. But is that a good, reasonable and healthy way to think about it? Or is it just the best metaphor we have because it’s impossible to measure the search for love?
I can’t find a research study that I think is even remotely helpful when it comes to estimating how long the search for a partner takes. There are studies about how many people you’ll date on average before you find “the person you marry.” The average numbers don’t look anything like the staggering number of miserable dates most New Yorkers I know describe.
Me, Trying to Write Scientifically About Love
Aha! I have had a scientific breakthrough!
I’ll use that study about the science of choice! The grocery store one! I mean… it’s kind of obvious, we covered it in our Psych 101 class.
But still, it’s covered in that class because it’s now considered pretty foundational. My professors explained many human behaviors using that study or studies related to it.
Me, Fact-Checking this Article
“Let me see if Esther Perel said anything about modern dating lately. The two books of hers I’ve read are pretty focused on committed relationships. Wait a second…
OH NO! She made almost exactly the same point as I did.
I thought I was being so clever and original. I guess I should quote her because now I know she talked about this topic too. Dang it. I felt super-duper smart for about five minutes. Turns out someone already had this thought.”
Esther Perel warned about how online dating is “crippling” modern relationships. She described its impact on the people she sees in her counseling sessions.
“You’re constantly checking there is nothing better there… Looking for the soulmate, the one-and-only. That one-and-only is supposed to be the one that’s gonna cure you of your case of FOMO.”
-Esther Perel
FOMO, or the Fear of Missing Out, nags at me when I know my friends are out dancing while I’m busy doing homework. It’s not a feeling to be ashamed of but there are dangers in allowing that fear to dictate your decisions.
In an interview, Esther Perel said she hears from many people in therapy that they feel haunted by the possibility of being happier.
Sometimes marriage counselors learn of very painful secrets. Infidelity, abuse, and violence often come to light in therapy. Sometimes sad circumstances where there is no clear aggressor unfold: fundamental incompatibilities or love irreparably lost. Yet Perel just as often hears about a lack of contentment discussed as a kind of romantic mirage.
She described couples who appear to have it all. A thriving marriage, healthy children, luminous careers. And yet they feel a nagging sense of curiosity about the idea that perhaps there is some more perfect soulmate out there somewhere.
Essentially: “I am content, but what if I could be happier?”
Perel compared a healthy sense of having sufficient choices as opposed to a paralysis in the face of excessive options.
“If I have a choice between two people, it’s rather limiting… In the village, I had a choice between two people. Later, I had a choice between six or 10 or 15 people, and that was a lot better. When I have a choice between 1,000 people, it’s crippling.”
-Esther Perel
Technology evolves more quickly than our minds. As a species we’re still catching up to the complexity of the world we’ve built.
The research study that discovered that we are less likely to choose from many options discovered two other paradoxes of choice. All of the following appeared to be true when Iyengar and Sherman compared their results:
We are less likely to choose any one thing when we see too many possible options
We perform worse on problem-solving tasks because the choice itself depletes our mental energy
We feel less satisfied with our selections afterwards if we were presented with many choices
I struggle to imagine describing free chocolate in harsh words. And yet, research subjects liked chocolates less when they had chosen a gift from a large display. They might have been imagining their second choice chocolates as the definitely tastier chocolates that they in hindsight regret leaving behind. Alas! The One True Chocolate! It is gone forever!
Pursuing perfection creates self-fulfilling tragedies. Any of the following scenarios become possible:
1.) Fear of missing out on a better option: ignoring the person who cares for us now to chase after a phantom of the ideal partner. As Cristina said, “a lot of people aren’t satisfied with good. They want something even better.”
2.) Fear of missing our chance at love: pressure to act now or else. Often a panic at the statistics about shrinking dating pools.
3.) The “perfect on paper” partner: an ideal constructed based on traits we think will make us happier.
None of these fears are shameful — problems only begin when we give our fears too much power over what we decide.
“Perfect on paper” isn’t the same thing as love. Letting fear guide your decisions can lead to a very unhappy place.
Once upon a time a man married me because I checked off every box that he required in a wife. I had no idea that he saw me that way until after the wedding.
He told me that in precisely those words. He had forgiven me for being “from a bad family” and a very long list of things he hated about me.
A Short List of Everything My Ex-Husband Hated About Me:
My art projects
My friends
My politics
My sense of humor
My cat, Fritz
Everything My Ex-Husband Liked About Me:
My professional career
My college degree
My age, weight, and general body type
My “nice” personality - specifically the fact that I would “never leave him”
My red hair. He specifically mentioned this one many times in a very memorable argument.
During a particularly honest moment of the pandemic, the man I married told me he felt sure that he was “running out of options” in the dating pool. All of his friends were paired off. It was time, and there I was.
My ex dated me because I was his type of clickbait.
He married me because he was afraid of being alone.
I made my own mistakes in that relationship. My ex-husband was “settling” but I was very much in love with him when we got married. And yet, for me, an intense anxiety lurked beneath that love. The fear of being alone factored into my decision to marry the first person who seemed interested.
I was convinced that if this relationship didn’t work out, there would never be another hope for love. Little things that should have bothered me — like my ex-husband never laughing at any of my jokes — seemed fine.
Lifetime commitment magnifies everything you dislike about a lover. My ex-husband’s anger towards me leaked out into all aspects of lives: he began saying that we needed to “put down that annoying cat.”
Fritz was at that point 17 years old. He was indeed old as sin. He has some health problems and is a tiny angry old grandpa.
The cat is a cranky little man now. He is also my baby — I’ve cared for him since was a skinny little kitten. This elderly furball seems to enjoy being alive.
I divorced my husband.
He was mean to my cat.
I would rather be a lonely old cat lady than stay with a husband who treated my baby like that.
Self-respect can be a hard thing to learn. It was easier to protect my pet cat than my own heart.
But hey, you know what? Better late than never.
The lonely, demeaning, degrading trash fire of the dating scene was so much better than being married to someone who didn’t like me.
P.S.: I'm a cat lady but I respect dog people too
this cute dog thinks that you should believe that you deserve kindness
Our society screams at us that we need to be in a relationship. Obviously. Of course. Clearly there is something wrong with us if we are single.
Many — but not all — people want to be in a relationship. That’s a perfectly fine and healthy thing to want. But there’s a difference between feeling unhappy because you want to be loved and judging yourself as defective for being alone.
The problem is not the person who feels lonely. There’s something wrong with the situation, maybe — but I think we agree that the dating scene in New York is in fact garbage.
You, My Anonymous Reader:
I know you’re using those graphics to sneak in those therapy-talk affirmations. I see what you are doing, therapy-blog-lady.
Fine, point taken. You want me to think nice thoughts - cool, but when am I gonna find a date? When am I going to find the right person for me?
Me, Unfortunately Not Good At Magic
I wish I could tell you when you will find what you’re looking for.
But that would require magic. All I have is science. I’ve tried to study the science of how to find love. The scientific consensus is “We barely know anything at all.”
Attraction is a mess of random factors, dating is a process we’ve all but randomized, and even if I were a thousand times better at math I couldn’t calculate your odds.
All we can really do is try to keep our sanity as we search for love.
How can we stay healthy when we’re dating?
Once, I said being single in the city felt like being “the saddest rat in the garbage can.” If you feel frustrated, sad, or angry I’ve been there.
Some people I know describe a feeling of numbness and others tell me about a vague low-level irritation. A few people I know are having fun with the romantic shuffle — good for them, but they confuse me.
Your feelings belong to you.
It’s tough out there. However you feel is right.
Science can’t solve loneliness. It can, however, guide us towards making healthier decisions.
I found a few evidence-backed strategies to protect your mental health while dating. Here are the ones that worked for me.
If you too feel like the saddest rat in the garbage can, 🐀
or the angriest opossum loose in Brooklyn, 🗑
or a raccoon who isn’t as emotionally volatile 🦝 as the other rodents in this analogy, here’s what scientists suggest:
Talk about it with someone you trust.
Research shows that people going through a difficult time benefit from having someone to talk to about how they feel. That can be a kind friend like Cristina, an empathetic person in your family, a mentor or a professional therapist.
If you decide to try therapy, Esther Perel recommends interviewing 2-3 therapists. Most offer free consultation calls. Trust your instincts — a lot of what makes therapy work is how much you feel like you can trust the person you’re talking to.
Therapy, friends and a divorce support group helped me rebuild my emotional well-being. Having those extra sources of comfort bolstered my social support network. Otherwise, I imagine I would have sent way too many sad text messages to friends like Cristina because I needed to talk. A lot.
2.) Write down how you feel.
Studies suggest that writing things down can help with tough life situations and anxiety. Use whatever kind of journal appeals to you. A paper diary, a word doc, or an art journal all have similar positive effects.
I couldn’t keep up a journalling habit until I let myself go wild with it. No rules. No spellcheck. Cussing welcome. Rambling allowed. Chaos mode. When I found a format that worked I was able to sort through a lot of messy thoughts. I filled a massive notes app with my hopes, dreams, and rage.
Reading old entries feels like a conversation with my past self and her ridiculous adventures. Sometimes when I have a bad day now, I go back and look at my journal. It’s easier to think about where I might go in the future when I see how far I’ve come.
3.) Take breaks from dating when you start to feel drained.
Me, Trying to Count How Many Breaks I Took
I usually ended up taking breaks from the apps every few weeks. Whenever I spent more than a month or two swiping, I started feeling exhausted.
It’s not a sign of weakness to recognize when you feel tired.
Esther Perel recommends taking time away from the apps, too:
“Many people I speak to experience the initial sense of exhilaration that online platforms open up, which can rapidly evolve into frustration, boredom, and fatigue, even more so, feeling defeated when their expectations are not met. These feelings are true to offline dating too but the sheer number of options online can accelerate this exhaustion.
But you are free to take a break. You have the agency to log out… Be kind to yourself so that taking a break doesn’t feel like a failure, just a shift in your current approach.”
- Esther Perel
4.) Don’t forget that you can meet new people away from the apps.
Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge are not the entire romantic universe. It’s tougher to meet people away from the comforting interface of a dating app but it is still possible.
That doesn’t mean you’ll leave your apartment tomorrow and bump into the person of your dreams. I’ve read too many articles that make “deleting the apps” sound magic:
JUST LOVE YOURSELF THEN LOVE WILL HAPPEN!!!⭐️💒
“While online dating has proven successful, with millions meeting and marrying through these platforms, it is not the only path to connection…. Remember, life is always unfolding right in front of us. Stay open to the surprises that it holds.”
- Esther Perel
5.) Spend time with friends and people who see the best in you.
Don’t let dating devour your social life. I found myself talking about being “the single friend” in most conversations, even when my Hinge inbox was empty. My bad dating luck eclipsed every other possible topic to talk about. Married friends asked for updates as if they were subscribed to the Adventures Of Our Last Single Friend: The Podcast.
People who maintain close friendships are less likely to experience symptoms of depression. Even if things get difficult, people who confide in their friends feel more satisfied with their lives.
Josh came by to see how the article was doing. He appreciated Esther Perel’s advice but added a very different perspective on many of the phenomena she described:
Josh, Editor & Culture Consultant
I think that the ideal of the perfect partner doesn’t factor in as heavily in collectivist cultures. In the modern era people date and enjoy the single life. All of that is considered fine and normal.
But this obsession I see in America of the perfect person on paper? I never hear this idea from my family in Guyana. It’s strange for me.
Me, A Scientific American
What’s this? A perspective on romance that doesn’t usually show up in American articles? As a scientist, I must gather this data!
Especially since the source of data just sat down beside me.
The research and perspectives I described above are very Western and American. What can we learn from a different cultural viewpoint?
Can we change how we understand love and romance?
“London is satisfied, Paris is resigned, but New York is always hopeful. Always it believes that something good is about to come off, and it must hurry to meet it.”
- Dorothy Parker
Cultures converge in our city. New York City imagined itself as a city of immigrants, and many perspectives shaped our history so far. Values from many nations built our American identity — perhaps we can learn from how other cultures view love.
I imagine you’re curious about the idea of changing the dating landscape if you’ve read this far. I asked Josh a few questions about how love and romance are seen differently in Guyana. Psychologists classify the United States as an individualistic culture and Guyana as a collectivist culture.
Individualistic Cultures
United States, United Kingdom, Australia, many European and Scandanavian countries
Cultures that value freedom, autonomy, and self-determination. These societies are generally less family-oriented.
The personal goals of the individual are more important than the welfare of a social group.
Collectivist Cultures
China, Japan, India, South Korea, many South American countries
Cultures that value harmony, community, and loyalty. These societies are generally more family-oriented.
The welfare of the group, often a family or local community, is more important than individual freedom.
In his own words Josh sees things from both a collectivist and an individualistic lens. Many of the things I that I talk about as unsolvable dilemmas in modern dating are to him just “confusingly American” neuroses.
He doesn't call *ME* neurotic
even though i kind of am a little bit
josh does think that america is neurotic though
he is correctJosh is from a part of Queens where most of the community is from South America or the Caribbean islands. His family lives in Guyana and on the East Coast of the US.
He said that Americans often presume that collectivist = socially conservative
— many people in Guyana are devout Christians, but in his words society is becoming much more accepting.
His family was at first perplexed by his uncle brother’s “American-style dating.” Dating a new woman every few weeks made people worry. Was he having some kind of amnesia?
Josh, On Dating Around
I’ve seen, having a big family - my uncle’s brother dates around. Because of the culture we’re in we always know when the guy has a new a girlfriend. We had to joke around to get used to the idea - it was an adjustment because that’s unusual.
People wonder if he’s giving this relationship a fair chance. My family wondered if he just got a new girlfriend every time he got frustrated with the compromises you have to make to be in a relationship.
As an American, it’s fascinating to watch someone react to the things our culture accepts as inevitable. Josh agreed with most of Esther Perel’s main points. As I was writing down some of Perel’s ideas about how dating apps changed romance, he burst out laughing.
Please imagine his facial expression conveying the emotion of:
"The audacity of these americans astounds me"
“The paradox of choice is one of the most crippling psychological things these days. This FOMO, this paradox of choice, this beta testing… Young therapy clients I see have extremely high expectations for romance.
[They say] ‘And if you don't do it for me, darling, then I'm going to find myself someone else. I'm not going to question the model, I'm just going to think that I chose the wrong person and I'll do better next time.’”
-Esther Perel
Josh, on Dating FOMO
“FOMO is a feeling you should never be bringing into relationships. It’s like baggage without the trauma. Get that (BEEP) outta here.”
This blog’s editor and New York City’s most prominent marriage counselor agree: Dating FOMO wrecks our relationships.
Esther Perel doesn’t advocate for a strictly old-school view of marriage. Her second book, The State of Affairs, tackles the topic of cheating with the goal of helping couples understand if their marriage can recover from infidelity. She advocates for greater knowledge about polyamory in therapy.
Some of the objections to how dating culture has become commodified escalate into warnings about how declining marriage rates threaten our societal health. Perel didn’t make that point - she simply noted how the gap between many of her young clients’ expectations and reality was hurting them.
In a keynote speech, Perel argued that too many people externalize their fears onto their relationships. Many of her clients talk about an image of love that is impossible for an ordinary human being to fill. Fairytales, Disney movies, and Hollywood provided a script for a love that erases all doubt.
As a culture we rarely discuss sex in an honest way. Arguably we talk about love even less. Many of us have no template other than the fantasies depicted in media.
“From the moment that marriage became a free choice enterprise, I choose a partner, but all those other people I haven't chosen continue to live in my imagination.
There is no ideal person who is so fantastic that they're going to make you stop looking left and right [searching for a better match.] If you're going to stop looking left and right, it's because you're choosing to not look left and right. And generally it has to do with the fact that you're ready.”
-Esther Perel
Perel cautions against expecting love to erase doubts. Even an excellent partner cannot compare to possibilities living in the imagination.
No choice can protect us completely from the chance of disappointment, heartbreak, or loneliness. I once saw loneliness as something I could construct a fortress against. Once, I thought I could avoid heartbreak if I made “smart” choices.
That’s not how life works.
That’s how video games work.
In reality there is no high score that triggers the happy ending. You can rack up as many self-improvement points as you like; those actions will not automatically win love. Some of the most lovable people I know are still out there searching.
Josh, on Love & Relationships:
“People should be able to take care of themselves, where and when possible. Nourish yourself, be able to meet your own needs. Other people and relationships are there to enhance your life.”
Me, Looking Back on My Silly Life So Far:
I don’t know if any philosophy guarantees happiness. This one worked for me.
Nourishing my silly soul led me out of the worst days of my divorce, then the most disappointing days of dating, and then, after my apartment caught on fire —- everything finally got better for me.
I HAD to get a new door because the fire department kicked in my old door
i have a door now but the landlord never painted itI learn by mistakes and experience. Messily reconstructing my life after my divorce led me to redefining meaning, stumbling into friendships, and then finding love.
One day, not long before my apartment building caught on fire, I posted a sad and silly rant on social media.
I was pretty broken up about that one guy from Hinge. All I wanted was the catharsis of posting an anonymous thought to the wide open web.
What was I expecting? Reader, I have no idea.
People told me it was a funny post. My husband never liked my jokes so I forgot that anyone ever had appreciated my sense of humor.
Strangers told me it was going to be okay. Some of them said heartbreak happens to everyone out here - it doesn’t mean you’ll be miserable forever. I needed to hear that then.
Some of those strangers became my friends. I made a groupchat so that we could meet up. The chat stayed active, remained supportive, and became a lot of fun.
Divorce forced me to face my worst fear. I became a lonely cat lady by choice. It was the right choice — I love my cat and couldn’t stay with a husband who was unkind to him. Hello reader, this is a very heavy-handed analogy for self-love.
When I was messing around in the settings to make the groupchat for my new friends, I used a sad kitten icon. The image reminded me of Fritz. The strangers who became my friends gave me an incredible gift: hope in a lonely time. The best gift I could give in return was the visual metaphor for loving yourself, no matter what happens.
My fear of becoming “a lonely old cat lady” echoed an anxiety weaponized to oppress women.
Even though I think of myself as an outspoken feminist, I still swallowed the idea that my worth depended on my marital status.
The image of the cat lady resurfaces every time women gain more power in Western society. Cats appeared in political cartoons to mock women campaigning for the right to vote.
The message was quite clear:
@WOMEN - if you ask for voting rights you’ll never get you a husband!
@MEN - lol obviously women aren’t people
There is nothing inherently ridiculous about a single woman of any age. Love is a lottery. Marriage is a choice.
Perhaps the cat lady never wanted a relationship, perhaps she’s still searching, or perhaps she simply didn’t find the right person.
All we know about an Old Cat Lady is that she likes animals and is single. Maybe anyone judging the proverbial lonely old cat lady oughta mind their (BEEP) business.
Chasing after my own hopes, making friends, and being in a happier place would have been valuable all by themselves. Even if I’d never met someone while doing those things.
Doing what made me happy led me to dating Josh. Can’t promise the whole “love yourself first” strategy will work every time, but it worked out peachy for me.
Josh was one of the friends I met through that ridiculous internet rant. I almost didn’t ask him out because I thought obviously it would be terrible, bad, and embarrassing for a woman in her early 30s to show interest in a guy in his 20s.
“I thought you were 26.” - Josh
The danger of becoming an undesirable old hag at 30 appears to have been over-exaggerated. Josh likes cats, so that’s not a problem either.
Many of us search for romance without much of a clear template for how love should work. There is no guidebook on how to love and my sex ed classes never discussed healthy relationships. Most people can only look to their families for an example.
Josh, Editor & Great Cat Dad
My parents divorced. I didn’t have a lot of faith in relationships at one point. That didn’t mean that I didn’t believe in love.
Love can be in family and in friends and in community. Romantic love is one of the only ones we tend to set definitions on. Terms and agreements. Conditions. Value.
America’s goal-oriented culture molds our language about relationships. Dating advice given to past generations reverberates in how people today talk about marriage. It is the default end-goal, our time is an investment, and Taylor Swift has a catchy song called End Game.
The words we use set up the implication that if we choose a goal and then do not succeed, we have therefore failed. I used those words myself when I talked about my divorce in therapy. Eventually I remembered that there is so much random chance in life that it’s unfair to myself to keep saying “failed” about love and marriage.
Before Josh and I started dating, I was finally taking a more balanced approach to meeting new people. My romantic health was definitely a work in progress — but I set limits on how much time I’d invest into Hinge. I dedicated a lot more time to my friends and my career.
Josh said that this is a more collectivist-inspired way to date. Romantic love is still important, but it’s not the main focus of a person’s life. Dedicating time to family and friends helped me recognize those areas of life carry essential forms of love too.
Individualistic cultures emphasize a goal-oriented approach in all areas of life, which extends to relationships. Since people are often less connected to their communities and families, a partner becomes central by default.
Collectivist cultures treat romantic love as one of many relationships; it’s important but not the all-important main event. Generally speaking these societies don’t value “the perfect lover” as highly.
Relationship experts I trust, including Esther Perel, recommend building a life that invites romance and celebrates other types of love.
It was not the advice I wanted to hear when I was sitting on the roof of my recently-burned apartment. At that moment I wanted a recipe to make some guy from Hinge call back and say he was wrong, and also sorry, and by the way it wasn’t crazy of me to ask “What are we?” after three months of dating.
Dear reader, I am so happy now that That One Hinge Dude never called back. I had so many ridiculous adventures without him. I fell in love with someone who likes me, loves me, and ain’t allergic to the word girlfriend. I cultivated friendships, rediscovered old hobbies, and worked on giving myself the love I desired.
Josh, Editor and Human Ray of Sunshine
There are many kinds of happiness. Collectivist cultures aren’t perfect. No worldview is perfect. I just think it might be helpful to balance out the dating advice Americans read.
Whatever style of relationship people want - marriage, long-term monogamous relationship, ethical non-monogamy, casual dating, being single - the important thing is knowing what you want. Be honest. Be kind.
Did you mention Cristina’s wedding yet?!
Cristina married the cute guy next door.
THIS IS NOT A METAPHOR OR A JOKE
it ACTUALLY happened
i was at the weddingAfter two years of enduring New York City’s dating scene, she found the right person for her. She asked out the cute bearded dude she met working in the mechanic’s garage near her apartment.
They had their wedding at his garage.
We got coffee when she was engaged. She described him in a way that I think shows just how much she loves him:
Cristina, Finder of Love in A Hopeless Place
"He’s a great guy. Sweet, fun, funny, very handsome. He’s willing to apologize and he’s willing to work on being a partner. That’s a rare thing.
I’m happy with this man.
I’m happy with this relationship.
Marriage is just a thing that makes our lives easier. I’d like to live in Italy part of the time when we’re older. The paperwork for that is just: oof. A Nightmare.”
Cristina, Giver of Life Advice Whose Hair Is Perfect All The Time
”When I was in my 20s I thought I needed to be married or… I dunno, or else. I married the wrong guy when I was young.
Divorce is a pain in the (BEEP). Now I feel like I know better.
I’m happy being married to the man I’m with now. My second husband. If I weren’t with him, I’d be happy in another way. Maybe I’d travel more. Grow my business and take on so many clients that I’d buy a brownstone. Anyway: I’d be happy with many different lives.”
confirming that divorce is terrible and expensive
and the wisest people i know describe many ways to discover happiness
Josh, Editor and Food Dude
It’s like food - you can find many ways to nourish yourself but love enhances the experience. Of course you can eat and sustain yourself for the rest of your life without salt or seasoning. But God, does it make it so much better.
Wait, why are you typing that? Just end with the story about Cristina’s wedding.
I was gonna go in a whole food nerd rant about how seasoning brings out the best parts of the original.
Me, Illustrator Slightly Obsessed with Themes:
EVERYTHING IS FOOD IN THIS ARTICLE! 🍏
That psychology study used jam jars and chocolate! I have crammed a truly absurd amount of grocery store images into this article! THE THEME IS FOOD JOSH!
TELL ME THE FOOD NERD RANT!
Josh, Rescuer of This Blog:
Okay, fine - here:
A good steak by itself is still a good steak. But the right flavoring makes it shine. 🥩
Love is the extra thing: it’s an accessory. External love, right? The seasoning, it brings out the best in a person and makes life so much better. 🌶
It’s impossible to predict the future. Love is a gamble no matter what choice you make. You will make mistakes, but I hope you will make mistakes in hope rather than from fear.
Searching for love has never been easy. In this big, crazy city it’s always a tough search. No app measures how deserving of happiness you really are. No stranger decides how lovable you are. We can’t control what life sends out way, but we can choose to honor the love we discover.
P.S.: Fritz pestered Josh for food this morning.
The cat knows who the better cook in the family is.
Fritz loves Josh.
this cat is now 20 years old and has survived an apartment fire.
convinced that fritz is just trolling the grim reaper at this point.