When Vogue first asked me to write about everything I learned about dating in 2025, I must admit I hesitated. Entering the dating scene after a 13-year relationship was like being Sigourney Weaver in the Alien franchise: I awoke from hyper-sleep, the ship was haunted and possibly cursed, and I wasn’t really sure if any of the men on the crew could be trusted, or whether they were secretly harboring a parasite in their chest.
Regardless, I plunged into battle like someone who was last single some time around the early Neolithic era—and I found that there was plenty to learn. More broadly, it seems there’s a prevailing sentiment that something has gone irrevocably wrong with modern dating. Call it heterofatalism or heteropessimism, chalk it up to dating app fatigue or late-stage capitalism, or just blame men, but nobody seems happy right now. Maybe it’s just the depressing weather. Or maybe it’s the dire lack of Christmas rom-coms (step up your game, Netflix). Either way, I persisted. And here are my main takeaways from the year that’s just been.
Dating is content now
Dating used to be a somewhat solitary activity that occurred between two people, practiced only in group situations by the very brave or polyamorous. Now, it’s impossible to divorce dating from the experience of consuming it as a form of content, whether that’s via Instagram galleries about top date spots in London or, God forbid, endless relationship advice on TikTok. Dating, as a concept, is now subject to multiple rounds of discourse, all wrapped up and sealed with a kiss outside the Spurstowe Arms (once described to me as “the closest thing to a straight darkroom in Hackney”).
I previously regarded the explosion of dating content with bemused interest. Now that I have skin in the game, I actually think that it’s actively working against our interests. After all, is there anything that kills desire faster than overanalysis? As Jemima Kirke once famously opined: “I think you guys might be thinking about yourselves too much.” And God bless some of these content creators, but I personally do not believe you should take dating tips from some fresh-faced, 27-year-old dating coach from Missouri. Give me the grizzled wisdom and experience of someone in their 50s or 60s; give me Esther Perel and Orna Guralnik; give me someone with a postgraduate certificate in relationship counseling at the very least. Just because they’re young and hot doesn’t mean you should get into bed with them; the same thing applies to taking their advice about relationships.
Questions are overrated
TikTok will also have you believe that a good date consists of someone who asks you questions and dutifully listens to your answers. As someone who does this professionally (read British Vogue’s December cover story!), I’m here to tell you that this is a highly overrated date activity.
Unless I’m trying to hack your bank account, I don’t want to come away from a date knowing your star sign, what your mother did for a living, and the name of your pet goldfish. I want to leave feeling like I’ve engaged in the conversational equivalent of a tennis rally. You know that delightfully effervescent scene in When Harry Met Sally where Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal are walking through Central Park in autumn, bouncing off each other like two Ping-Pong balls drunk on fizzy pet nat? That’s called chemistry. Dates aren’t meant to feel like manual data entry—they’re meant to test the natural, spontaneous connection between the two of you. If you have to resort to a TikTok dating coach’s list of questions to make the conversation flow, they’re probably not right for you. Sorry!
Girls aren’t better than boys
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve recently heard straight girls say wistfully: “If only I was gay…” Bad news, ladies: queer women can be just as bad as straight men. As a bisexual person, I’ve been just as unrepentantly ghosted and negged by girls, including one Hinge match who WhatsApped me for two and a half weeks—mainly to bully me over my choice of club nights—and then left me on read when I asked for a drink. Maybe the crisis of heterofatalism would be solved if lesbians and heterosexual women came together more often to compare notes on dating. If you think a love-bombing man who already wants to introduce you to his parents moves way too fast, try a U-haul lesbian with a Zipcar membership.
They’re not bad people—they’re just not for you
Most of us have been poisoned by main-character syndrome, and none more so than when it comes to relationships. If you’re the lead in your own personal movie, then it stands to reason that every bad date feels like battling with the forces of evil (as embodied in Jake, 34, who likes small plates and recently got back from a trip to Mexico).
This is an exhausting way to approach meeting new people and means you are already primed to doubt their intentions. I’m about to impart one of the most sage pieces of advice I ever got from a friend and longtime occupant of the dating trenches: Jake (or whoever) is not a bad person—they’re just not for you. So what if boring Adam who works at Bain Capital is “monogam-ish” and doesn’t think kids are in his near future, even though he’s 42? Somewhere out there is a woman (possibly a yoga instructor in her 20s from Clapham) who is perfect for this infuriating man child. It’s just not you—and that’s okay.
A sense of humor goes a long way
Optimism is in dire supply among single people, and I would never dare suggest that anyone brainwash themselves into toxic positivity (I mean, have you read that piece about embarrassing boyfriends?), but I do think that adopting an “in it for the craic” attitude about dating is a good thing—for your own sanity, if nothing else. I’m part of a sprawling WhatsApp group chat of women in London who share war stories and singles’ nights, and I’ve observed that everyone falls into roughly two categories: the ones who use every screenshotted Hinge profile of an awful man as confirmation that the dating world is even more fucked than they thought, and the ones who are able to laugh it all off. If dating is an exercise of hope over experience, I’d rather stay in the latter camp.
Trauma-dumping isn’t a form of connection
Maybe this is a style of communication unique to queer people, or maybe I have the kind of face that screams “tell me the most unhinged thing that’s ever happened to you,” but I’ve left some first dates feeling like I’ve learned some incredibly intimate things about the other person—only to realize that I’ve mistaken mutual, over-the-top candor for actual communication. Really, all we’ve done is sit opposite each other and talk about being bullied as children. Maybe being part of an overly therapized generation means we are primed to start divulging our childhood trauma at the first whiff of interest, but I don’t think it’s always a good thing to reveal everything. Some secrecy is mysterious and, dare I say, alluring. Save the family secrets for the third date, at least.