Back OFF The Apps: People share how they met their partners IRL
"I thought fuck it, so I threw him a sticky note with a cringey message and thankfully he messaged."
“I’m back on the apps.”
I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve said that sentence over the last five years. I’ve taken breaks, I’ve stopped using them when seeing people, I’ve binned them during the Christmas period to start the year fresh. Since I started this newsletter in 2020 I have been on them fairly consistently, the apps turning into something I’d mine content from — for this newsletter, for Punkee, for sharing on other forms of social media. The apps became a mindless background distraction — to swipe during the ad breaks of The Bachelor, to strike up convos after a couple of glasses of wine, trying to stop the slightly tipsy loneliness that seeps in when your friends are going home to someone and you’re going home to a piece of avocado toast.
In 2023 I’ve deleted the apps. I’m not sure how long I’ll last. Already the first two or so weeks I’ve felt an almost overpowering urge to re-download them and swipe through mindlessly to silence the noise in my brain. I’ve opened my phone ready to click into Tinder to stop myself overthinking my last situationship. I’ve opened my phone ready to check Hinge to see if I can get some sort of random self-esteem boost that day. I’ve opened my phone ready to strike up a convo on Bumble, ready to feel the slight wistful hope again that maybe the next swipe could be the next distracting chapter of whatever weird dating life I’m living.
Just like anything you use or do consistently, the apps become addictive. So while I may not know how long I will last off them, I know right now in this phase of my life I owe it to myself to work through why I feel like I need them as a distraction.
I feel like I’ve lived through all the dating cliches and advice in the last five years: Dating is a numbers game. The right person will come along when you least expect it. Maybe it was the right person but the wrong timing. Instant attraction is a red flag, try the slow burn. Actions speak louder the words. If he wanted to, he would. Wait to sleep with them until the third date. Trust your gut, it’s always right. Don’t text first. Don’t double-text. Don’t ask for clarity, if he liked you he wouldn’t leave you wondering. You’ll know when you know.
It’s exhausting and leaves me feeling more hopeless than hopeful. The other day I had the sudden, stark realisation that I wasn’t going to find what I was looking for on the apps right now. I’ve had two more noteworthy situationships from the apps in the last couple of years, both very different from each other, both either exploding or fizzling at the 2-3 month mark. However, I realised in both situations I was acting in a way that was more focused on trying to impress the other person, giving in to the burning need for them to like me, instead of just acting like my normal self, 100% of the time. I realised this year I need time off the apps to learn exactly what I’m looking for and to be able to be decisive about that — I’ve always been comfortable with being single and being on my own, but for some reason when I start dating, I get hellbent on trying to impress the other person which means somewhere along the way I’m not comfortable or confident enough in myself and what I need.
Dating apps are a great way of meeting people, but they do tend to put a certain immediate pressure on romantic situations which makes both parties go into dating with preconceived notions.
Not using the apps over the last few weeks has made me think about the crushes and relationships I had pre-the apps existing. Most of the proper feelings I’ve ever had for people in the past came from meeting in real life, sensing that chemistry, building that connection over time through messaging or seeing each other out and about, maybe a party pash. It’s a slower burn usually, with a friendship being built upon, but not strictly friendzoned. While that also sounds very “dating in your 20s” I started to strongly contemplate if I could ever find that on the apps. Right now, considering when I go on dates I’m too fixated on hoping they like me, the answer is no. The apps aren’t currently doing anything good for me. It’s not to say they never will, but I also need to learn to sit with these feelings, not just distract myself from them again and again and make the same dating mistakes.
Armed with that knowledge and feeling, well, pretty fucking hopeless about the future of my love life, I decided to ask people how they met their partners if it wasn’t for the apps.
So if you’re also feeling a little lost, sad, confused, or over it right now, here’s what I learned.
1. Embrace the real-life interactions
I had people message me saying they met their partners in a bar simply by approaching them/hitting on them, doing the old eyes across the room trick, going to a party they couldn’t be bothered to attend originally but then never regretted it because they ended up meeting someone.
For any women in Sydney, I can vouch for the fact if you end up at Cheers bar at 1 am watching a rugby game you have no interest in, there’s a chance you may meet a handsome tourist who will later find your deranged tweets funny and not at all threatening to his ego. The real-life interaction can work! You may just need to sit through a boring game, spacing out, waiting for your friend to call it a night, but your night might just take a turn for the better.
Note to men: the real-life interaction doesn’t include the old “slide up behind someone on the dancefloor and start gyrating on them” trick. We left that in 2010, for the love of God.
2. Get creative
Some of my favourite responses were from those who just went for it. One person told me that she threw a note at her now-partner on the train home from work after admiring him from afar for weeks. “I thought fuck it, so I threw him a sticky note with a cringey message and thankfully he messaged. That was 3.5 years ago.”
INSPIRING!
3. Utilise your friends
A lot of people replied to my Instagram poll saying they had met partners through friends/through friends’ house parties etc.
If my friends are reading this, y’all need to up your game.
4. Say yes
The number of stories that were about meeting people at events that people weren’t even sure they’d originally go to — a party, a lunch, a workplace networking event, a wedding as a +1 — made me believe that I am just going to have to say yes to everything I am invited to in the future.
In 2023 we’re being spontaneous and saying yes!
5. Change your job
A lot of you met through work. Thankfully I have now quit my job where I didn’t work with many men, so it’s only up from here. I think. TBH, I quite liked not working with many straight men, but that’s got nothing to do with this.
6. If all else fails, the Instagram DM slide
Instagram or Twitter DM slides are basically another form of a dating app, but mainly for media nerds or people who, for some reason, get weird crushes on media nerds. (I’m sure it also happens for all of you outside of the media world, but it was a lot of media people who told me this option worked for them.)
I’d take my own advice and slide into someone’s DMs but I just have a feeling Gerard Way won’t reply to me.
Anyway, I am very willing for all of you to take bets on how long I’ll actually last off the apps. Please say something ridiculous to me like “you won’t survive January” so I get competitive about it.
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