50 Hinge Dates

How not to online date (In London)

Many words are written about online dating. Few of them are good, and fewer still are from the male perspective. The world of Hinge, Tinder, and others is as bad as people make it out to be, but increasingly it is inescapable. As one of the more or less contented few who gets to go on Hinge dates in London, I hope the following will serve as an explainer cum warning for others whose foreheads face the digital winds and waves.

I was in Walthamstow on a Monday night, so the odds were already stacked against me. Even so, things were about to get worse. As I took my Lime Bike round a circuitous route in order to arrive exactly 15 minutes late to the function, I wondered whether cycling home would be the best option. The event I was prevaricating over was a Hinge dinner party. Well, it was now at a soulless pub by Walthamstow Common, but that only increased the cringe factor. Katie had matched with me on the proviso I would go with her to this group Hinge night. (All names have been changed, but such is London’s duosyllabic fare it doesn’t make much difference.)

Unbeknownst to me, she was doing the same to at least five other men from across the capital. It soon became clear when I arrived that the not-quite-dazzling Katie was laundering her profile to get us to meet her slightly less dazzling friends. Thankfully, Katie’s sister, who had been drafted in, got us a discount, and after two rushed pints I could conceive of a world where 15 minutes more of this was bearable. I considered talking to a girl diagonally across from me who, with one eye closed in the half-light, looked like my ex, but after a second glance at her cardigan I began to discuss UFC with a fellow male inmate to the left of me.

After a respectable two-hour shift, I left Katie to the attentions of a boy in a Kai Havertz jersey and cycled home. At least the night had been memorable; you can’t ask for much more from Gen Z.

You see, I am one of the lucky ones who get to go on dates. My profile is pretty good, and people tell me being 6’7” helps, but even despite being so fortunate, most things don’t add up to much. All the data shows that men get far fewer matches per like; thus, the average presentable girl will soon be drowning in likes, while most men never even sniff a date.

The thing is, even if you “match” with someone, the likelihood that you have much of a conversation—never mind a date—is still vanishingly low. Now, bots and fakes must have some effect on this, but realistically, even if you match with a girl you like, she will have eight other men in the same position as you. Boldness is the best strategy; Pliny should have said, “Fortune favours the shameless.”

My repartee focuses on camping and hiking (fertile ground for a dating app profile), and we invariably end up discussing my match’s gap year in South America. Boys’ group chat doctrine suggests pinning down a date as soon as possible and then talking as little before it as possible. In my 23-year-old old age, I have laid down this tactic of timed responses, but given a recent incident where someone asked to read my articles, maybe I should bring it back.

This tactical game-playing is quite entertaining when you get over the more general malaise which surrounds it. Edward N. Luttwak, in his book Coup d’État: A Practical Handbook (which I consult before all my dates), said, “In order to carry out a successful coup, certain preconditions must be present, just as in cooking bouillabaisse one needs the right sorts of fish to start with.” Getting a date from an app requires a similar strategic necessity.

My fish line up in a pretty monotonous fashion: tall, Oxbridge or LSE, multilingual, and all lawyers or consultants. Dating apps seem to be remarkably good at selecting for similar people, despite the gloom which surrounds them. The dates I do go on are perfectly nice, but that might be the problem.

There is the normal mix of amusement and humiliation: one girl opens by telling me her ex was 6’10”, with my powers immediately crumbling. Another invites me to the latest antifascist demonstration. While walking in Tate Britain, an elegantly dressed Eastern European clocked me with, “You don’t read books by women, do you?” My desperate Sally Rooney–inspired pleas couldn’t save me. Nothing, however, was worse than being told that although my date would love to stay for one more drink, she had to go and watch The Traitors.

I’d hate for readers to think there aren’t successes. London wouldn’t be the world’s greatest city without discussions of French revolutionary ideology and nunataks getting a 6’7” man a second date. (Or more for paid subscribers.)

As I come to an end, it’s easy to say that everything is hollow, or that our lives have become the digital familiars of reality. The real truth is that most people just don’t think about things. People drift between suits, towers, and expectations without conceiving of what they actually want—except for me, of course, as I write Substack dating fodder in bed instead of working. Life’s a lot simpler with people who actually like you, but that can take a while to learn.