Dating in the modern world is like volunteering for a work sport day: most of the good events are taken by the time you get there, and what’s left over will inevitably ask you to tie your legs together and wear a silly outfit to get over the finish line. When it comes to finding sensible people to date, I am facing so many hurdles I think it’s time to just quit the race entirely.
Seriously, how is anyone still dating in 2025? Where do you go to meet prospective dates? Time was when you would meet someone at the local pub or while you were half cut, doing the macarena in some dodgy nightclub, but pubs are closing at a rate of one a day in the UK, and nobody is going clubbing anymore. Office romances are now broadly discouraged, and even if they were an option, I work from home and am self-employed. I am happy to date myself, but then I always end up paying for dinner and I don’t put out nearly enough for my liking.
When I was in my thirties, the dating pool was very shallow because most men around me were in committed relationships. The nice thing about dating in your forties is that this is the time people tend to get divorced, so there is a glut of age appropriate, newly single men on the market. But recently divorced men can be a bit like radioactive waste – highly unstable for a long time and best left alone. So they’re out.
I find dating apps to be a colossal waste of time and energy. You can spend weeks stuck in the “talking phase” of texting until you finally decide to meet and realise this is a no-go. The apps are a magnet for time wasters, angry men brandishing fish, and married people looking for a boost to their ego. I’d rather become celibate than do another tour of the dating apps.
However, it’s becoming clear that one thing has made me all but undatable: my job. I research sex for a living. I publish columns and books on the topic, and twice a week release a podcast on the history of sex. If you Google me (and they do), the word SEX will come up. I have a profile as a sex historian, and ironically, the more I write about and research sex, the less I have of it.
You would think expertise in such an area would mean I was beating prospective suitors off my doorstep, so to speak, but alas this is not the case – or at least, not with the kind of people you’d want to show an interest. My inboxes are full of confused, horny men who hear the word sex and immediately think this must mean I want to have sex with them. If I wanted to date someone who sends women they don’t know pictures of their penis, I’m spoilt for choice! Unfortunately, I am not interested in this demographic, which reduces my options even further.
Something strange happens when you tell people you research sex for a living. I imagine police officers and tax inspectors get the same kind of reaction when they disclose what they do: mild panic, as if I am going to judge them or catch them out. The disclosure is normally followed by a nervous laugh and a joke about “I hope you’re not going to study me!” I’ve had some dates who have discovered this column and then worry I might be using them as some kind of case study for an article. Unless I produce a recording device before the entrées arrive, this is rarely the case.
Either that or the introduction of sex into the conversation creates an unwelcome permission base where people, and by “people” I mean men, feel able to overshare their personal sex history with me. “In my army days, I was once fisted in a brothel in Cadiz…” Well, thank you for sharing that, Simon. Shall we get the bill?
Then there are those who learn what I do and assume I must be some kind of sex ninja, and that fourth base with me is a foregone conclusion. All they have to do is turn up and buy me a drink, which might well be true, but not for the reasons they think!
I once had to cancel a date because he told me he’d been bragging to everyone at the office that he was meeting up with a “sexpert”. I hadn’t even met him and he was already focusing on what I do, rather than who I am. I’m telling you, the mere mention of sex early doors can have a catastrophic impact on the composure of your average man on a date.
Sexologist isn’t the only profession that can complicate your love life. I have a doctor friend who finds it all but impossible to date because every romantic encounter turns into an impromptu health assessment. She once showed me photographs of skintags that a Tinder match had sent her to ask if she thought they might be cancerous.
However, there is research that shows those who work in sex related industries or who study sex for a living, do encounter significant stigma. One 2015 paper found that “despite growing acceptance of the academic study of sexuality, both women and men perceived various types of problematic workplace experiences based on the subject of their research”. Such experiences included being marginalised, overly sexualised, not being taken seriously, and being passed over for promotion. And that’s within the hallowed halls of academia; women on Bumble stand no chance.
I am unsure of how to resolve my current predicament for the simple reason that it’s not my problem to fix. I love what I do for a living and don’t share the same reservations about the topic that others do. I don’t find it shocking or titillating, or taboo. It’s just a Tuesday to me. Ultimately, I can’t control men’s reaction to what I write about, but I feel deeply frustrated that I have to deal with it nonetheless.
I’ve heard that Raya is a dating app that caters to high profile individuals, so I could give that a whirl, but they only have an eight per cent acceptance rate, so that’s looking unlikely too. And anyway, just because someone is a celebrity doesn’t mean they won’t also react strangely when sex gets mentioned.
Is this simply the fate of all singletons who publicly talk about sex a lot? It’s like some Greek punishment in the underworld. We are doomed to talk endlessly about other people’s sex lives but rarely get to do it ourselves.
Perhaps I should start my own dating app for people with jobs that can make dating tricky? Traffic wardens, psychologists, mafia dons, and so forth. I could call it “Unhinged”. I bet I’d make a packet.
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