That’s all changed. “To be honest, I’ve probably missed out on a lot of dates because of the way Hinge is set up. You can’t search for keywords in your DMs. You can’t search for names. You can’t search by location.” But that hasn’t stopped him.
The more we talked, the more apparent it became how much her story was part of a growing chorus of power users eager for romance but constrained by the game’s sometimes unfair rules.
We can expect to become unequally reliant on dating apps, Carolina Bandinelli, a professor at the University of Warwick, told me when we discussed Gen Z’s push for alternative apps. Bandinelli’s research focuses on the shifting cultural codes of online relationships, and over the years she has noticed that app makers have become disturbingly good at “replicating the solutionist ideology of digital technology.”
Although younger generations bring a fresh perspective to dating culture, which has contributed to increasingly narrow profit margins For tech companies, “I think we’re going to live in a world where dating apps will be very much present, but they won’t be the only way to meet people — they never have been, in fact,” Bandinelli says.
Do you have any advice?
Do you have an unusual story about a dating app experience? How has the Internet influenced your relationship with romance, sex, and desire? Send an email to jason_parham@wired.com with the subject line “WIRED Desire.”
Still, it’s exhausting. Of JB’s 200 dates, most were first dates, and he estimates that only 10 to 15 percent involved sex. “Sometimes I don’t even want to look at apps. I definitely get that fatigue that people talk about. What do you call that? The paradox of choice or something.” He occasionally takes breaks, he says, but “then you open that shit back up.”
I ask him if he has learned anything in all this time.
First, “I don’t close the door just because someone doesn’t respond for a week or two.” She believes most people cut the connection too quickly. “I try to keep an open mind and not take anything personally. After all, they are strangers. You don’t know what’s going on in that person’s life right away.”
Just as his relationship with apps has changed, so has his approach to dating. Immediately after he ended his relationship with his most recent ex, in April 2023, “I was just taking girls out to dinner, to drinks, to this, to that, to everything. I was trying to be funny. I was spending a ton of money, like $250 a date.” Now, he says, there are fewer impressive things at stake.
He partly credits the change in mindset to rapper-turned-commentator Cam’ron. “Have you ever seen Cam’ron’s response Did Jordan Poole ask Ice Spice out on a date? He was like, ‘You spent $500,000 on a date with Ice Spice. You’re a mouthful and you’re playing like a mouthful.’ Poole denied the rumor.
“I know it’s a little bit of a hassle,” JB continues, “but that’s become my style. I keep it light: pizza and drinks. It’s very clear if they really want to get to know you or if they’re just trying to get paid for dinner. It’s a great way to cut through the nonsense.”
He met the girl he’s now dating on Raya. “It’s pretty serious. I really like her.” But the chance encounter almost didn’t happen. “I was on the fence about whether to go or not. It was a Sunday. I was really tired. She was great, pretty. So I went to meet her and she’s awesome. We had an amazing conversation,” he says. They’ve been talking for two months. “I probably should have just stayed home sleeping that night and not gone out drinking with her, but then I wouldn’t have met this girl who I’m thinking of deleting apps for.”
That day has not come and may never come. For now, his accounts are active. “You never know what date will come or not. It’s a risky bet,” he says. “It’s slightly addictive.”
