www.montereycountynow.com FEBRUARY 13-19, 2025 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY 21 One of my colleagues in the newsroom, a married man, recently observed how ironic it is that mostly single people on the Weekly staff were assigned to put together this year’s Saint Valentine’s issue. But while partnered people think they have it bad on this occasion (reservations, what to give, how to be on time), I claim this bitter-sweet February celebration affects singles the most. After a lonely winter holiday season and a kissless New Year’s Eve, every single person feels slightly humbled and is at least “open to the idea” of dating, or at least ready to try to make their mother happy. I figured that online daters just before Feb. 14 will be nicer than usual and the most motivated. At my age and in this economy, bar hopping and live men hunting is not an option. I don’t have the liver for it, nor the money. The first modern dating website, called Kiss, launched in 1994. Match launched a year later, JDate in 1997 and OkCupid in 2004. A few years later all of them migrated to the app world, joining Grindr in 2009, Tinder in 2012 and Sniffles in 2018, the latter being a map-based hookup app for gay, bisexual and bi-curious men. While Grindr launched to serve an LGTBQ+ community, Tinder promised a shortcut to casual sex, but with time these things changed and Tinder in 2025 is used by all generations for all purposes from zero-commitment meetups to finding marriage material. In 2025 even young celebrities meet online, among many couples who share positive experiences. The first app I used was OkCupid in about 2009 and later tried Bumble. It was a bad experience. The apps felt like a catalog of humanity at its worst, with no boundaries to keep verbal abuse at bay, dominated by one-nightstand seekers posing as ready to settle down. So much vanity, so much hostile gaze, so much skin. Many messages were offensive or limited to: “hi,” or sometimes “hi gorgeous.” I remember a guy who invited me to his apartment, filled with pictures and posters (and mugs and napkins) depicting Chicago. When I asked him if he comes from Chicago, he said: “No, but I wanted a theme for my apartment.” He presented me with a medium-rare steak and a big glass of wine. Just then I recalled a sentence from his profile: “Best way to seduce a woman? A medium-rare steak and lots of wine lol,” and shivered. Another man asked me about my leg that in one of the pictures looked “deformed” or “disfigured,” not sure which verb he used, or which leg he was referring to. Fast forward to early 2025 and my friend tells me to try Hinge (which launched in 2012), because “everybody she knows is on Hinge.” I needed some wine to do so but I finally created a minimal profile and posted pictures with no makeup. There is hope, I thought, that now that I’m a decade older and in therapy, maybe I will be less furious when someone tells me “thank god” I’m, let’s say 39, “because 40 is the cutoff.” Bad joke? Too much information? Who knows. I’m a writer myself but interpreting just text without access to tone of voice or a facial expression is often a sentence to failure. For whatever reason, being on a dating app in 2025 feels better than before. There is a huge change in how straight men (my default dating pool) present themselves. There are fewer gym and fishing photos, even though they are far from extinct. Men of 2025 are happy to pose with their mothers, grandmothers, cats and manifest vulnerability in general—both visually and verbally. The amount of dogs, babies and dolphins being kissed is truly impressive. The apps became more user-friendly too, suggesting prompts that rarely fail to convey humor (see examples throughout this page). Another excellent innovation: The conversation can be conducted via voice messages that many also use to build their profiles. It feels that people are more and more comfortable to share what is really important to them, thereby golf (“If you don’t like golf you are not a girl for me”) or Jesus (“I feel sorry for those who don’t respond to the Lord”) are well represented. The worst thing that happened to me so far is that The Stephen King Guy didn’t write back. Context: Trying not to be a snob, I wrote to this nice man that I’m reading Stephen King, whom I was truly “giving a chance” again as a reader, to no avail. The guy turned out to be a book snob too, and decided to break contact with a girl who likes King. Ouch. While I still have not gone out for a date since creating my profile on Jan. 17, I’m talking to some future prospects. One is a man who is a nurse and has never been to Sweet Elena’s Bakery and Cafe in Sand City. In my head, I already see myself leading him to the cafe and feeding him an almond croissant, orchestral music, balloons, you get the idea. At least these days, each time I catch myself scriptwriting my love life like this, I pinch myself really hard. And at least I am not alone. Pew Research Center reported in 2023 that 30 percent of U.S. adults have used a dating app. According to Pew’s findings: “Large majorities of men and women say they have often or sometimes felt excited by the people they have seen while using these platforms, though large majorities also say they have often or sometimes felt disappointed.” Valentine Hunt That’s what online dating feels like in 2025. By Agata Popęda Jove & Dating Examples of recent dating profile prompts in the Monterey Bay region posted by men seeking women.
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