Warning: contents may be bruised
🧜🏽 Siren calls 🤑 Dating bazillionaires 🐟 Dirty sushi
Hey past lovers,
I have a bruised heart this week. I went back to a boy of dating past, even when I knew I shouldn’t. I couldn’t help it. And I got burnt. Again.
We first met in a bar three years ago, when I walked up to him and said: “Are you single? Do you live in Singapore? Do you want my number?” I’m still wowed by the supreme self-confidence of mid-30s Candice – so much so that I spoke about it on national radio this week (watch here, from minute 12.30). But whatever we had ended two weeks later when I realised that my supreme self-confidence was matched by his supremely terrible communication skills.
Aside from a brief dalliance a year later – I accepted his drunken booty call, he made some mad promises about trips to Thailand, then very predictably went radio silent – that was it.
Fast-forward to the present day. I’m in Singapore with love on the brain – I’ve just hosted four dating events for 120+ people and felt in envious need of some attention myself. I texted him. I couldn't help it. It was a glorious reunion. The second I saw him, I felt all the feels. We spent the day together (surprise, surprise, drinking was involved) and then, literally 10 minutes before we were set to leave a club together, he abandoned me. It broke me.
Why do we go back to partners of dating past? They’ve already shown us their true colours once/twice/three times before. For me, there are a couple of reasons…
As the great poet Adam Levine once sang, “Sunday morning, rain is falling. Steal some covers, share some skin (I like that)”. That’s what I love. Those lazy Sunday mornings in bed where it’s not about sex, but intimacy. I don’t need you to give me an orgasm – I’m perfectly adept at that myself – I need you to want to eat croissants in bed and think I look cute wearing glasses and a messy bun. And if I’ve experienced it with you before, I find it hard to not pine for a reenactment.
Secondly, I always colour in the lines between how you actually are (to me, at least) and how I imagine you to be. Give me one glorious date where you do/say something memorable (“Do you want to go to Ikea with me?”) and next thing my brain is on the express line to shaping your entire personality and our future together. I know, I know, it’s terrible. But you try shutting off hopeless romanticism!
What kills me is that it feels like I am on a never-ending single girl path of nothing, nothing, takeoff, crash, nothing, nothing, and so on. My love life feels so stuck in the terrain of romantic nothingness that I can’t help resist a siren call back to the past just to feel… something again. We’re always told it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, but I’m not so sure. I got this emotional bruising because I redialed the past. If only I had that flashlight in Men in Black – wipe my romantic memories and give me a clean slate. Either that, or I should just watch this video every month.
With love & other rubbish,
Candice
Reddit, set, date
Looking for the perfect date? You’re in luck – the internet has solved modern romance. All you need is a multi-step plan and a willingness to put in the work. Let’s begin:
Step 1: Choose your dating app photos (by force, if necessary). Forget relying on your camera roll to find the perfect photos for your dating app profile. The latest trick is to hold your best friend hostage until they scroll through every image they’ve ever taken of you.
Step 2: Vet your matches with strategy consultant precision. Say goodbye to shallow swiping and plot every profile along the Empathy-Ambition grid. No empathy or ambition? They’re Insecure. Avoid. It’s McKinsey-ing romance.
Step 3: Dress for success on the date (just not in a way that triggers men). A python coder scrapped 806 Reddit comments to identify what not to wear. Be cautious about eyebrows (of any kind), makeup, high-waisted anything, and Paris Hilton “buggy” sunglasses.
Step 4: Save the best question for dessert. Towards the end of the evening make sure you ask your date “...and how are you crazy?” If they avoid the question, or even get offended, run. Fast. The worst type of crazy are the ones who are convinced of their own normality.
Step 5: Do the Post-Date Eight. It turns out having a “what I want in a partner” checklist isn’t inherently bad, it’s just superficial. Instead, ask yourself eight post-date questions to figure out if they are worth seeing again. Were you captivated or bored? That’s a pretty clear indicator!
And voilà – follow those five steps and you’ll be living happily ever after in no time. Or... maybe not. Because there’s always the guy who reportedly swiped right on more than a million people on Tinder and got exactly one date. Ouch.
Romance vs résumé
Get ready to add another word to your dating dictionary: hypogamy. “A marriage where a person marries someone of a lower social, economic, or educational status than themselves”. And in a change from the past, it’s women who are the ones “marrying down”. The reason: we girls are now more educated (she writes, sitting next to her MBA graduation photo) and more economically empowered (um, well, this newsletter isn’t making any money, yet) than ever. But is this change in circumstance giving women “more latitude to marry whomever they love, or are they just settling?” It makes me think about what exactly I want in a partner. I’m not talking about the basic checklist (tall, kind, funny, in case you were wondering), but the professional and financial status of a suitor. Do I like the idea of dating a degree-wielding bazillionaire who tells me I don't need to work but fully supports my content-creating escapades? Sure! But really, I care more about his aspirations than his diploma. I want him to want to go places. It’s not about marrying up or down, but about being side by side during the ups and downs.
…and other rubbish
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