okay so i’m writing this from my couch in bushwick, there’s a half-eaten bag of flamin’ hot cheetos slowly turning the blanket orange and my neighbor is blasting mariah carey christmas on repeat even though it’s barely december 8th. my brain is 90% cold brew and regret right now but whatever, we’re doing this.
the night i finally broke (it was bad)
picture this: it’s like 2:47am and i’m on my bathroom floor in mascara streaks because some dude named “hunter” (red flag name) just unmatched me after i sent him a voice note of me rapping the entire chorus of “juicy” by biggie. i had 63 unreads across three apps and exactly zero dignity left.
i looked at myself in the mirror and actually said out loud “girl you are thirty-one years old why are you doing this” and then immediately opened hinge again because addiction is real.
so like… what even IS slow dating?? (my chaotic definition)
slow dating is basically when you stop treating humans like pokémon you gotta collect and instead talk to one (1) person like a normal human being. no juggling twelve conversations. no “who dis” when they text two days later. no googling their ex within five minutes of matching.
it’s waiting a whole week to meet up. it’s letting silences happen without spiraling. it’s accidentally letting them see the real you before you’ve curated the perfect version and somehow… they stay??
turns out actual research backs this up: Hinge’s own data shows people who wait longer than two weeks to meet IRL are 63% more likely to get a second date (source: https://hinge.co/press/2024-annual-report). felt personally attacked, then converted.
my first slow dating experience was a trainwreck… then kinda beautiful
matched with this guy noah who had a photo of him holding a banjo (risky but i was feeling chaotic). we texted for 11 days before meeting. ELEVEN. i almost clawed my face off.
but when we finally met at this crusty diner in ridgewood i was wearing my rattiest jeans with a mysterious grease stain and i didn’t even try to hide it. i told him within ten minutes that i cry at the drop of a hat and once sobbed in a target because they discontinued my favorite candle scent. and he just… laughed? like actually laughed not that fake tinder chuckle.
we talked for five hours. i forgot to post about it on instagram. my phone died and i didn’t even care. what a time to be alive.
also this psychologist on NPR said the apps literally hijack the same dopamine loops as slot machines and i was like yep that explains why i feel like a crackhead every time i get a new like → https://www.npr.org/2024/02/14/1231433989/dating-apps-addiction-psychology
the slow dating movement is basically rehab.
the rules i try to follow (and immediately break half the time)
- only talk to one person at a time (unless i’m drunk then all bets are off)
- no good morning texts because who has the emotional bandwidth
- first dates gotta be minimum two hours or it doesn’t count
- i’m allowed to be a complete mess immediately, no waiting three dates to reveal i own 47 houseplants named after one direction
yeah i still mess it up constantly
last wednesday noah didn’t text for like 38 hours and my brain went full apocalyptic so obviously i redownloaded tinder and matched with a guy whose bio was just the shrug emoji. i came to my senses at 2am, deleted everything again, and stress-ate an entire sleeve of oreos.
there’s even a whole subreddit of people quitting dating apps cold turkey and they all sound exactly as unhinged as me → https://www.reddit.com/r/dating_app_detox/
growth looks different on everyone okay??
anyway. slow dating isn’t some magical fix. i’m still a disaster who cries in grocery stores and my apartment still smells like cheetos and bad decisions. but for the first time in forever i actually like someone instead of just liking the idea of someone.
so maybe try it?? just pick one person and talk to them like they’re… idk… a person?? let it be weird and slow and terrifying.
worst case you waste a few weekends drinking burnt coffee with someone who collects taxidermy raccoons (true story).
