Dating as a Model in 2022

Dating these days sucks.

The pandemic left us lonely and starved of social interaction for two years and, because of this, many people forgot what the protocol was. They’ve been deprived of their chance to learn it during their most formative years or just became too impatient to care about courtship anymore. This certainly isn’t being helped by the digital age we’re living in, where instant gratification always takes precedence and misinformation spreads like wildfire.

Photo courtesy of Victoria Pousada Kreindler.

Now, we, as a whole, are left confused on how to approach dating. Do we ask if they are vaccinated? Do we get right to the point and skip the pleasantries? Do we rely solely on an app to tell us who we should look at or do we dare to venture out? How can we endeavour out and find a date safely?

I, like many others, felt safest going back to the apps. In truth, I was also a little nervous meeting people for in-person dates, especially having been single since 2017. So, I started off slow; I redownloaded Hinge and kept an open mind this time. I didn’t realize that posting my professional, shot-in-studio images would greatly sabotage me, though.

After various matches fell through and conversations ended in me being ghosted, it made me so happy when I matched with ‘Sprinkles.’ Sprinkles had an adorable photo of him lying in a bed of sprinkles, could hold a conversation, and had the same interests as me. Most importantly though, he didn’t seem like a creep. After following each other on Instagram, he was suddenly obsessed with my page; liking every post, checking every story, DMing me and texting me at the same time. It was too much, so I stopped sharing my story with him. Within no less than an hour, he sent me a message saying, “Hey, let me know if I’m spamming your IG stories and DMs too much.” That meant that he was checking my IG stories every hour. Alarms went off in my head. I promptly cancelled our date we had planned for that weekend and paid him back for the ticket he bought, never speaking to him again.

Me being a model was obviously something he couldn’t handle and something that he prioritized. It reminded me of a guy I knew from college, who sent me a DM one day saying, “Hey, let’s get dinner. I want to tell my friend I went out with a model.” Cue the eye roll.

On the flip side, as a model, many assume that I can get anybody I want any time that I want, but that is far from the reality. I’ve been stood up by multiple guys, cheated on, and ghosted. I get used for my knowledge and ‘in’ into the industry.

I took up with a guy who slid into my Instagram DMs on his offer to get a drink. It also helped motivate me that he lived a short 15-minute walk away. We met up and he was so handsome and sweet. That is, until he said, “I usually don’t like pale girls, because they look like they’re not alive, but you are fine.” Then, he told me how he originally just wanted to ask me out for a drink to ask me about modelling and how to get into it, but that he was happy to be on a date with me, anyway.

Photo courtesy of Victoria Pousada Kreindler.

I should’ve left. I shouldn’t have agreed to a second date, especially because he, like so many other guys, made it clear that he just wanted to get into my pants the first night. However, I blamed it on the alcohol and gave him another chance, even introducing him to a male model who helped set him up with a photoshoot and taught him how to apply to agencies. The second date was awkward, to say the least. Not letting him hit the second night and getting all the information he wanted, he never hit me up again. It was disappointing, to say the least. It was my first in-person date, not just since the pandemic, but since 2017. I opened up, took a chance, and got used and verbally abused.  

From these experiences, I learned that when dating, I’m going to just say I’m an actor — which I am, as well — when asked what I do, and bring up the modelling later. Interestingly, I’ve never gotten the same reaction in telling people that I act, even though they are both my careers. Still, even in these trying times, even with the risks of heartbreak and running into creeps and users, I’m still going to keep trying. I have faith that someone who likes me for me is still out there.