One woman used her passion for journalism to change up her dating strategy. On her dating profile, she volunteered to interview f***boys for a project on dating and masculinity, getting some interesting insights and a boyfriend along the way.
In an article for Women’s Media Center, Miska Salemann explains how her experience on dating apps was unsuccessful. That was until one day she changed her dating app bio to “Are you a fuckboy? I want to interview you for my research on dating and masculinity!”.
What she found was that many men were happy to tell her about their views on dating. They confessed profound truths, like they were still struggling with an early heartbreak, or that they struggled with body image issues.
Salemann took this opportunity to ask personal questions that would otherwise be too invasive for the usual polite conversation on dating apps, such as ‘What was your childhood like?’ and ‘What does masculinity mean to you?’.
She wrote that “after a couple of hours of interviewing, I felt like I knew many of these young men better than my high school boyfriend, whom I had dated for two years.”
While 90% of the interviews led to nothing, Salemann writes that she became friends with some of the men she spoke with. Her last interviewee, sharing her feelings about dating apps, eventually became her boyfriend.
She summarises her experience saying it “taught me that the way so many of us have been using dating apps is all wrong, especially for women. We overthink who to swipe on, prescreen matches by communicating with them online, and show up to dates with nothing left to talk about. While it’s perfectly fine to vet a person on social media before meeting them, it’s a waste of time trying to piece together who they are from a digital facade”.