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2. Focus on having a good time. The “conversion” shouldn’t be a match, it should be having a fun night out.

The problem today’s daters face is that the mass adoption of online dating apps has not only eroded incentives to switch from explore to exploit mode, it has made exploration itself boring and dysfunctional.

Falling in love seems to happen mostly either by a process of osmosis or simple familiarity (and a lot of waiting) or by setting intentions of seriousness and weeding out partners who don’t share them. Sometimes, it happens randomly. Sparks fly. You’re reminded why there’s so much poetry, so much music, so many stories, so many cautionary tales... See more

Like girls, boys openly express their desire for genuine connections with others, including with boys. They reveal the human capacity for mutual understanding, care, and empathy and demonstrate remarkably astute abilities to read the human world. Yet as they reach middle to late adolescence and as expectations of manhood intensify, they begin to... See more

The seeds of intimacy are time and repetition. We choose each other again and again, and so create a community of two.

Looking for love sounds more like chasing the high of an extreme sport, trust falling with someone you don’t really know like that. It demands exacting reciprocity, extreme vulnerability. It brings out people’s basest and most primal instincts and a frightening desire to merge into someone else. When the girlies on TikTok talk about dating, they... See more

Increasingly, consumers (Gen Z’s especially) are seemingly ditching Bumble, Hinge, and Tinder in favor of apps that better cater to their preferences and behaviors. In the last 18 months or so, a new paradigm of dating apps has emerged, many of which draw upon growing behaviors around gaming, live and short-form video (Curtn, Lolly, Snack, Filter... See more

these days, the art of hanging out seems to be waning in cities.