As a run up to the publishing of The Ugh Project I started posting on TikTok, on Youtube and.. I went back on the apps. I know.
The reason I suppose is to go back to where it started, to see what has changed in the year and change I have been away and I have some thoughts.
First, sadly it's the same players there as one, two, three and four-five years ago. With the same photos and bios. So either they are not finding what they are looking for, or they are not looking for what they say they are looking for and are using the platforms to get what they want and keep that cycle going. They are not lonely enough.
I gave myself some rules to follow when interacting there: only people who actively engage with the prompt saying that I wrote a book about dating will be matched with. On Feeld they have to Ping me and ask about the book, everything else is ignored. The conversation will start with "Do you want to hear about my book?" I am going to try this new radical thing on the dating apps, honesty!! Right?
Then the conversations will take whatever turn they take, but the nice and good ones stay on topic and are sincere. The other ones are hilariously transparent and tell me that nothing has changed.
What has followed is kind of interesting. Some men, predictably get really mad. One guy, that I have seen on the apps for half a decade lied and said he is new to the apps, his friends convinced him to try it. Then he gave me paragraph after paragraph about how the failures of dating and connections are women's fault. I will have to watch that Theroux show on Netflix because I think this is very adjacent to what he found men of the manosphere saying. One guy asked "be honest, are you here to promote your book?" And when I answered yes and asked him to be honest and tell me why he is here, he disappeared. Honesty is only fun when you get to gaslight people, manipulate with old photos and lie about your intentions, it seems.
I will post more, with detailed conversations as we go, before I leave the apps for good.
I will say though, there are some lovely people willing and able to have real conversations too. Maybe some of them found their way here 🙂
