January brings a crop of fresh faces – Katie Strick charts the hottest apps to find them on, from the Soho House of dating apps to the new Hinge for double dates


he upside of dating in January? None whatsoever. The first month of the year is across-the-board blah. The main problem (in love terms) is that thanks to excessive drunken swiping in December, we’ve now exhausted all our options. Is there any sadder notification to receive than the one letting you know “there are no more singles in your area”?

The one pinprick of joy is the sheer volume of fresh chum being pumped into the digital dating meat grinder. According to Bumble, one in five new users joined after ending a committed relationship as a result of the pandemic. Add to this the post-Christmas breakup season and it’s likely that, even if you completed all of the dating apps back in December, there’ll be a crop of fresh faces (read: gym selfies) popping up on your feeds any day now. (Don’t get us wrong, we’re not happy that people are breaking up — schadenfreude is so un-chic — we’re just saying it’d be nice if we weren’t haunted by people we’ve rejected five times already).

 

Now I see how the most beautiful and interesting girls, the most successful and charming guys are left alone. I remember how we came to the 1st grade and we had a girl who was loved unconditionally by all the boys and hated by all the girls. If I had been told then that at 25 she would still be as beautiful minnesota personals ads, but single and divorced, I would have thought it was a joke. I don't know what is wrong with this culture...