See, this wasn’t the only time I’ve been propositioned by the bold men of the Big Smoke.
There was the man at the Tube station who asked for directions to London Bridge before admitting that, actually, he’d lived in London his entire life and just wanted an excuse to talk to me. The man who stopped me in the park and straight out asked for my number, or perhaps the most audacious of them all: the barista at my local coffee shop who sat himself down at my table during his lunch break and proceeded to yap away in what can only be described as a date I never said yes to.
I’d be lying if I said these interactions aren’t flattering. There’s something about knowing you caught a person’s eye that feels like you’ve won the day, but according to my friends who are deep in the trenches of London dating culture, it’s what comes after the meet-cute that is cause for despair.
One friend tells me that it’s all fun and games until you’re three months into a “casual” relationship. You’ve met their friends, you spend most nights together, and then suddenly, out of nowhere, it ends.
“It’s like everyone is running towards some imaginary clock,” she told me. “Once you hit three months, it’s decision time and most of the time, the decision is to move on without each other.”
Another friend recalls the time she was aggressively pursued by a co-worker. The man brought her coffee every morning and remembered tiny details about her life. He asked her out constantly and in every possible way, he behaved like someone trying to date her.
“Finally, I gave in,” she told me over brunch one Sunday morning. “We were at work drinks, things got a little silly, we kissed, and we both admitted we really liked each other.”
All well and good, wouldn’t you say?
“The next day, he flipped. He texted me saying he had a really nice time and really likes me as a friend, but isn’t in the right headspace to date anyone right now and would rather keep strengthening our friendship.” My jaw dropped. She added, “I called him out and said he’d been leading me on, and he replied, saying maybe I just don’t know how to take someone being nice to me.”
This is the same man who asked her out repeatedly over two months, but sure, he was just “being nice”.
Eventually, I decided to pass the mic to the men themselves. One male friend openly admitted he isn’t dating for love at all.
“The dating apps are great and I always have fun,” he told me. “But I’m not looking for anything serious. I don’t want to fall for someone in London and then have to break up because I’m moving home or they are, or we have to navigate us coming from different countries. It’s just easier not to get attached.”
Immediately, the penny dropped.
Like most big cities, people in their 20s and early 30s come to London for a good time, not necessarily a long time. Jobs, flats, friendship groups and, yes, romantic relationships, are often entered into with the expectation that people will come and go. Yet, perhaps this isn’t entirely a bad thing.
It might not be the fairy tale version we see in rom-coms or novels, but it is something unique, shaped by the city itself. In a place where life moves fast, people don’t waste time pretending they don’t want you. They’ll ask you out in the supermarket, flirt with you on Tube platforms and shoot their shot with a boldness you’re hard pressed to find back home in Aotearoa.
The beauty, much like with every other aspect of life here, is accepting its transient nature rather than fighting it. It’s knowing someone (or something) likely won’t be a happily ever after but still allowing it to become an unforgettable chapter.
