I (35M) had a great couple of dates recently with someone I met at speed dating — we didn't wind up clicking romantically, but we had a lot of fun talking and we're staying in touch. It prompted some reflection on my part about how I've been engaging with the women I've met on Hinge.
In short, I don't actually enjoy talking to… well, almost anybody I meet. It's particularly obvious to me in text communications on the app, where I have time to think about my responses and the patterns of conversation. I know how to perform interest:
- ask questions and follow up questions
- use their responses as an opportunity to share or talk about something we have in common before following up("that's awesome about your nephew — I recently became an uncle myself, [brief nephew anecdote]. How old is [nephew's name]? How often do you see him?")
- throw in something flirty or a joke when opportunity presents itself
- find way to pivot to asking for an in person meeting
And I must be at least passable at it over text, because that's gotten me a lot of first dates. But it's formulaic, and the overwhelming majority of the time I'm kind of blase about the whole thing, and I think that comes out when we meet in person, as hard as I try to fake it.
I've been proceeding on the assumption that eventually I would find someone who became more interesting to me over the course of a conversation/date — just fake it til I make it. But my hit rate's not great there, and it's making me wonder whether I could be doing more to steer conversations toward things that are actually interesting. Like, I'm not arrogant enough to think that everyone I match with is actually boring; I kind of assume that it's my fault for not giving them much to work with. But I'm really not sure how to do that?